Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
I don't recall it either but if they have then I'm happy for someone to give some examples. What I recall is decades during which we've paid a hell of a lot more than we've got out.
|
Schengen.
Economic and Monetary Union.
The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The rebate on contributions to the budget.
Various aspects of freedom, security and justice legislation.
Those come to mind immediately. Each and every time the UK had an opt-out this was the EU showing flexibility.
EDIT: While I'm thinking about it it might be worth noting that those graphs showing how many times we were outvoted in the EU - on many occasions those votes covered areas the UK had an opt-out from - they didn't actually concern us anyway.
The idea the UK has not benefited economically from EU membership isn't backed up by facts, contrary to whatever the Express might say. An argument could be made that the UK has a lost opportunity cost from not having its on seat on the WTO, however the counter-argument could be made that that hasn't stopped Germany.
If you want a country that pays some serious cash into the EU check out the Netherlands. Our contribution appears large because we're quite populated. Taken on a per-capita basis our net contribution is 9th out of 28 and is more than paid back by benefits in terms of free trade with the EEA.
I think we're at around about £150 per person per year. Norway is at over £100 per head per year and even Switzerland, not a member of the EEA but with bilateral agreements, contributes over £50 per head per year.
Neither of those two receive things like CAP, ERDF or convergence funding, they're members of programs like ERASMUS so do see a small in-flow back but not much, and I'm reasonably sure they measure the benefits of their contributions across their entire economy.
---------- Post added at 21:07 ---------- Previous post was at 21:03 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick
When Cameron went to Brussels beginning of last year, pretty sure they did not do any form of bending over backwards, more like the two finger salute, which is probably a catalyst as to why Brexit vote happened.
|
They showed about as much flexibility as was feasible. The concessions given appeared to be utterly banal, I'm sure I used more colourful language, but just appeared that way. A couple of conversations with EU lawyers indicated they were actually very substantial given the context and there was no room for any more, it would've been basically impossible.