ant - what's your stance on the Euro?
Honestly speaking - i have not really given it the thought it deserves. Since people in the UK seem to have a phobia of it and anything else European it does not stand a snowball in hell's chance of ever getting in - either through the politicians or if a referendum was ever conducted. For the record I am not typical in my views of being very pro Europe. I just don't really have an opinion on the introduction of the Euro.
Personally my experience of it is having family in Spain and them finding that the cost of living practically doubled overnight when the Euro was introduced. Spain has always struggled with high unemployment, a generally well educated base of people with no jobs to go to who just continue to educate themselves for lack of anything better to do. The unemployment exacerbates the problem in Spain.
As to the introduction of the Euro I can see all the positives of having one currency throughout Europe, however, i do not think it's as simple as let's introduce it so that we can travel around without having to change curency or pay for that exchange. Firstly, that isn't a particular issue if you live in the UK as opposed to mainland europe because travelling anywhere else in Europe is more complicated and expensive as it would require a flight or a boat for most people (possibly the train if you live in London or Kent). The reality is that people in the UK do not travel around Europe in the same way that someone in e.g. Belgium or Holland might.
The thing that i don't claim to understand at all are the economic implications of switching over from the pound to the Euro. When that happened to the rest of Europe i was pretty young and paid no attention (especially as it didn't affect me) to the mechanics of how that worked. I would expect that there would be a lot of fear in people - imagine having your life savings in a bank knowing what they are worth and having someone say - now it is called something else and we will have to wait and see how it fares against the other strong currencies of the world. I expect that Germans in particular must have been very apprehensive having a very renowned currency. Obviously this wouldn't be an issue if the UK joined since we now have great visiblity of how the Euro has performed. I would expect (well prior to the current economic crisis) that England joining the Euro would have been an excellent boost for the Euro especially having the London Stock Exchange and the other alternative investment markets in London changing from Pounds to Euros.
I would need to actually read about the economic implications of joining before i committed one way or the other so for now i'm fairly neutral to it.
Wow - what a great example of sitting on the fence!!!
I don't even want to know...
Hahahaha! Believe it or not I actually did not read your post before my response to Toni!! But I think our experiences of people's opinion's on the Euro are very similar.
Everyone hates it... And when it was introduced there were incredible predictions of doom... it will result in the collaps of the economy.
To be honest, Spain has not had an easy time of it. Not least taking a Country which was in very recent history still politically a little unstable and then change it's currency. Many, many people have been greatly affected nagitively by it in Spain.
And people just can't say anything positive about it. Even if they can travel through several European countries without exchanging money, without paying for exchanging money - I have never ever heard anyone of the sceptics say that they think it's convenient.
While i do think it is a benefit (though not such a huge benefit when you don't live in mainland Europe) I don't think it's a fundamnetal reason to adopt it - there have to be other economic reasons that have to be positive surely?
And the British? I think if you did a referendum in Britain about the question "EU or not EU" about 90% would vote for leaving the European Union. Some time ago I really tried to argue with my British acquaintances about Europe and the European idea - not any more. I think that Brussel should just let them go. They can take their isle and attach it to Long Island, I always had the feeling that they would enjoy that much more then to even talk to us barbarians from the continent.
I agree with you that there are many people who feel the way that you say, however, there a number of younger more liberal people in the UK who have no problem at all with the idea of joining Europe. Certainly far more inclined to side with Europe than the US especially in the last 8 years.
But I am not just mad at the British for being so stuffy and ancient, right now Chancellor Merkel is bothering me incredibly with her sudden egoistical approach to the economic crisis. The question is, who is more hypocritical - Merkel and Germany who have always championed the European idea till the crisis came and it became clear that Germany would have to pay for the likes of Spain and Portugal - or Brown and Britain who always opposed the European idea till the crisis came and it became clear that Britain could get some money from the continent in order to survive that crisis?
Hey! Way to tar us all with the same brush and make sweeping generalisations! To my knowledge the British people have never had a referendum on joining Europe. Dictator Thatcher (who i detest) was extremely anti Europe and was not going to let anyone have in say in that and her puppet John Major was just the same. So far the British public have yet to vote on it. But regardless i think the majority would be against the idea of joining - but don't forget the minority that would not be against it!
And while Britain certainly is benefitting from European help in this crisis, Europe has, in the best benefitted greatly from Britain too - the beauty is that it has been give and take. Britian is always one of the main contributors into European funds.
I am a sucker for the European idea - and not because I think that the European Union in it's current state is the second coming, or the Euro, or the massive bureaucracy. I am all for it because it's in my opinion the only possible way. If we look back we see centuries of horrific wars among the European countries - when those Eurosceptics open their mouths I never understand what they want. I sometimes understand what they criticise and can sometimes agree that this or that could be different, but I never understand what they want to do differently. What is their alternative to the European idea? Everything that came before?
I think my European Law lecturer summed it up very well in a comical way by opining that the unification of Europe came about after the second world war because people never wanted that kind of war in Europe ever again. The idea being if you unify Europe you are less likely to have the wars that had previously occurred. His comical slant on it was "Everyone was all like 'hey man' *hippy 'v' sign* lets be all peace and love and not have wars" His opinion was - the aftermath of the second world war is the only time that people would have been up for something as big as trying to unify Europe. His thoughts were that if someoen tried to do that now it would never get the approval of the various countries.
To my mind, if it does stop a war like the second world war, then that is reason enough to have it and i can't complain! But then history has shown us that civil wars happen all the time, and the countries in Europe are still separate enough (and always will be - can you imagine any local government signing up to get rid of itself in favour of an all encompassing european government?) that it would not really be like civil war.
But everytime I am discouraged about the fact that in my opinion people just don't get it, or when some country starts a new solo dance, or when I read British newspapers - I just remind myself of a story I heard / saw sometime ago. It was about Italy. Italy was founded as the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, that was the first time since the Roman Empire that the entire area was united under one flag again. A few years, or I think even a few decades later, they conducted polls all over Italy and asked the inhabitants: "What is Italy?" And only a few knew what Italy was, the rest has never heard of it. And now, more than 100 years later, it's a proud united country (though with an abysmal taste in politcal leaders - but who am I to judge - and one of the most mercurial political scenes in Europe). This story gives me hope.
But that is the point isn't it? How do you strike the balance of power? Like you say - Italy has as you perfectly put it an abysmal taste in political leaders. Italy also rarely bothers to enact european legislation within the time scales required. It's citizens often have to sue it's own government for failure to implement european legislation. How do you hadnle countries like that?
I think the main reason the British don't want to sign up is relinquishing any power they may have. Their sovereignty. Personally i think it could work, fairly easily. Right now we do have to enact European legislation - it hasn't taken anything away frmo government or the judiciary. I just think there are enough raving Euro-phobes in positions of power that easily influence the growing number of ignorant peopl ni this country, and that's all you need to get a majority!
Ant
And that guy from California - you should have definitely told him you'd take his California money, but that it would be a 10% surcharge.
). My mum and I seriously consider a trip to London in the next weeks because of the ridiculous exchange rate - you get 1 pound for 1 euro right now. 
some of us were merely territories 
