1 hour ago, RayC said:

I agree with almost everything in 'The Economist' article. My only quibble would be with the title. I agree that Europe has emerged as the winner in the head-to-head with the UK but - as I have mentioned previously - I am firmly in the Barnier camp here: There are no winners, only losers.

 

Perhaps, a better headline would be something like: "Brexit has caused more pain to the UK than the EU".

economically it's not "more pain", it "much more pain" and to a large extend economy is not just about win-win so we do prefer having japanese automotive plants in the UE rather than the UK

let's have a look

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In 2020 britain devised a new tactic to insult its European neighbours, a long-standing hobby. The diplomat representing the eu in London would henceforth be denied the rank of full ambassador, a courtesy routinely granted to the bloc despite its not being a country. Instead, the Man from Brussels would be granted the lowlier status as an envoy of an international organisation, sending him tumbling down the protocol order. (The plan was later reversed after the eu reciprocated.) Contrast that with this week, when the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was invited to meet King Charles III at Windsor Castle. Forget the tabloid barbs about unelected Eurocrats; a royal aide dubbed her a “world leader” of the sort worthy of high tea. Whatever the opposite of a diplomatic snub is called, this was it.

that was really insulting and these simple things explain why the situation with Northen Ireland is suddenly solved. No magic, just basic courtesy

and it works well now, maybe too well

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Wonks are currently poring over the “Windsor framework”. It looks like a balanced agreement that allows both sides to save face and move on. Looking at the overall shape of Brexit as it has been haggled over in the past seven years, however, leaves a different impression. Just a glance at the cast present at the final stage of Brexit talks offers a hint of which polity has had a rougher time since talks began. Mr Sunak is Britain’s fifth prime minister since the referendum, and his Conservative Party is headed for a thumping defeat next year, thanks in no small part to endless spats over Brexit. Ms von der Leyen by contrast is just the second person in her job in that time, and will probably get another five-year term next spring. The manner in which Britain left the eu has turned into a national psychodrama; polls indicate most Brits think leaving the club was a mistake. In Brussels dealing with Britain’s latest twist was only an occasional agenda point.

@JonnyF do we agree on that one?

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Vote Leave campaigners had claimed London would “hold all the cards” in talks with the eu. In fact the opposite turned out to be true. Britain imagined it could craft a way to leave the union but retain the stuff it cared about, like some access to the single market. Or did it? In truth nobody ever worked out what Britain really wanted. Setting priorities was terribly square for the likes of Boris Johnson, the dishevelled foreign-turned-prime minister who steered Britain through much of the haggling. Far better to quip about wanting a cake and eating it too. A rotating cast of Brits arrived in Brexit talks with fuzzy notions of being treated like Switzerland or Ukraine. Opposite them were seasoned Eurocrats carrying weighty briefing packs pointing out why that was not to be.

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When it came to the nitty-gritty of coming to an agreement on terms, the triumph of the eu side was to play to its reputation as an inflexible bureaucracy capable only of ticking boxes. Countries looking to join the eu are familiar with this approach—here’s what you have to do, now do it—which was broadly recycled for the only country trying to leave it. Once the 27 remaining countries had decided among themselves what they thought was fair, Britain had little choice but to jump through hoops designed by its negotiating foes. The tone was set early on. Britain had to agree to pony up over £35bn ($42bn) to get to the next stage of talks, for example, to fund its share of future Eurocrat pensions. It tried to quibble but ultimately just had to pay. And so it went.

indeed : I am not paying the pension of Farage !

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One last insult for the road

In an irony that slews of discarded Brexit negotiators in London will not have missed, the Windsor deal shows the inflexible-eu approach had been an act all along. It turns out the commission had lots of scope to accede to British demands, and ask for permission from member states later. It just hadn’t wanted to before. Indeed, Britain has achieved a better deal than anyone expected, though that may not be saying much. In part that is because the eu had long ago achieved its main aim: not even the maddest populist on the continent thinks leaving the club would leave it better off nowadays. The departure of Mr Johnson, once a purveyor of souped-up Brussels-bashing stories for the Daily Telegraph, also helped. 

https://archive.is/Ns7Z1#selection-737.0-753.15

3 hours ago, JonnyF said:

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we already have a 5-years picture and for the next 5 years investments already tells us the tale: "oven-ready" sunlit uplands? They are not in sight

Ahhh - I see you are able to predict the future. Why didn't you tell us that before? 

I can indeed, anyone can 

for example the future of the British car manufacturing is being set in stone right now,  

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“Ultimately, British car manufacturing will migrate to where the battery factories are, which is going to be in central Europe.”

 

The startup, which struggled to raise funds for a major electric-vehicle battery factory in northern England, failed to get past the stage of developing prototypes for an industry that is vital for the UK’s prospects in the global race to become self-sufficient in EV technology.

 

It has left the UK sorely lacking the battery manufacturing capability that would be absolutely critical to the auto industry’s future. Industry experts estimate Britain needs four to six large battery plants to sustain a healthy car industry. Currently it has one small 1.9 gigawatt-hour Nissan plant in Sunderland, northeast England.

investments today have consequences that extend beyond the present moment. In this regard, we not only have learned a lot since 2016, but we already know what's next in the automotive industry.

Is this news to you? Really?

3 hours ago, RayC said:

Maybe not 40 years but imo the UK's reentry into the EU is not going to happen anytime soon. 2040?

20 or 40 years, this is a distant future, so right now it doesn't matter.

Regardless of the fact British public opinion is now one of the most pro-EU in Europe, the UK is out.

Issues we could discuss :

1.  "what happened to get us there", The Economist  just published a provocative article, that we can read / comment as a starting point (?)
2. "What is going to happen" in the medium term. Long term might be membership in a very federalist Europe or not, but it's too far away to really matter.

1 hour ago, RayC said:

Opinion pieces by the former Presidents of the Union of European Federalists and the Secretary General of the European Federalists (France)  hardly constitute objective sources of information. It's akin to quoting Nigel Farage as evidence in support of a piece entitled 'Why Brexit is a good thing'!

bah

no one is "objective", you just need to recognize their arguments  (which are mostly mine as well and are indeed backed by solid facts over many, many years) : that's what matters.

we think experience has shown again and again the EU is better off without Britain as a member.

This is sad indeed, but having Britain with all the prerogatives and privileges of permanent membership, including the right of veto has been a drag all along.

1 hour ago, RayC said:

???? You win!

 

Thanks for posting the clip. Great TV series.

yay !

now what for the future?

My take is Britain ended up spending forty years inside the UE negotiating opt-outs.. and now we're in for forty years out negotiating opt-ins

3 hours ago, RayC said:

EFTA/ EEA might be used (and useful) as a staging post for full EU membership but I can't see much appeal from a UK perspective of making it a permanent home. The cost of membership would be probably be high with likely limited influence over EU regulation of the Single Market and input in the decision making of the various programmes.

beside denying the UK was at best an annoyance, at worst a free-rider all those years : a summary of the British government’s attitude at the European 2011 summit

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When reality dawned in London, the government had to stand traditional British policy on its head. Gone were the days of divide and rule, of keeping a seat at the negotiating table, of damage limitation, of defensive “red lines”; in came the new British policy of sabotage.

save the Tony Blair years, the UK has always been a drag : it was a pleasant surprise the UK slammed the door on its own initiative (I wish Hungary would do the same, though Orban is not *that* stupid)

2 hours ago, RayC said:

This is becoming very repetitive. 

you are too actually UK constant obstruction is so famous it was featured in Yes Minister ????

10 hours ago, RayC said:

A misplaced, incorrect over-generalisation to ascribe one viewpoint to all Brits.

didn't say "all brits" but what you hold here is the very typical british view of the EU as a big market with no political power.

The remainer argument I read over and over is not about a common European project, but about making more money, fostering economic growth etc... nothing wrong with that but it shows having the UK as a EU member was a mistake all along.

I'm fine with having lots of collaborations with the UK, as long as we are not again taken for a ride. Fine with EFTA, but no full membership, the British influence was detrimental.

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In this regard, Brexit (combined with Covid and the Ukraine crises) has allowed huge political advances that used to be vetoed by the brits when they had power in the EU.

I'm surprised you don't know about NextGenerationEU (EU bond, €800 billion to fund the recovery), REPowerEU, the Stand Up for Ukraine campaign,  joint procurement in defence investments: all of these major advances would have been watered down or vetoed by the brits.

I couldn't care less that the short-term economic effect of Brexit on the EU has been negative.

so

• for the European project, Brexit was great. We have a stronger EU (and many problems indeed, but we can face them in a better way)
• in the longer term, we'll probably have the UK back in the single market, though we need to be very careful = we have to take back control of our €uro forex, bonds, and stock markets
• Brexit has been great for public opinion across Europe

2 hours ago, RayC said:

What it indicates is what Barnier said all along: There are no winners with Brexit.

 

Given that the overwhelming body of data demonstrates that - rather than bring economic benefit - .

You make the usual British mistake : the European project is about much more than economy, it's political, it's about defending our common interests when the West and liberal democraties are in comparative decline to totalitarian (China), or illiberal (Turkey, India, Russia...) countries.

In this regard, Brexit (combined with Covid and the Ukraine crises) has allowed huge political advances that used to be vetoed by the brits when they had power in the EU.

Brexit has proved a timely and very good thing for Europe.

For the UK it doesn't make a lot of sense: idiotic populist  politicians and media have taken control of the country for years, it accelerates issues with the Union and of course there are economic issues with "global britain" for example, a trade deal with New Zealand, Australia or now Mexico makes no sense for UK farmers 

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“Environmental impacts are why beef was a sensitive sector, both in New Zealand and in Australia. And now in Mexico. And we want them now to really show that they are keeping their promises of not undermining farmers and trade deals. We don’t want to see further imports of beef.”

 

“I can see no justification for importing any beef into the UK – it certainly won’t help UK farmers or food security if the standards or price of that beef is lower than that which we can produce in the UK.”

 

Dustin Benton, the Green Alliance policy director, added: “Mexican beef is somewhat more carbon-intensive than UK beef. It doesn’t make sense to undermine British producers with higher carbon imports.”

 

Actually, UK farmers have much more stakes in common with European farmers, politics and economy are interwined.

.

about the “Stormont brake”

 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pres...tsheet.pdf.pdf 

• for the for the brake to apply, power sharing at Stormont would have to be restored. That would require the DUP to allow the assembly to start sitting (by backing the election of a speaker) and to lift its boycott on participating in the power-sharing executive.
• If the DUP were to continue to boycott the executive, the “Stormont brake” would not apply.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...rthern-ireland

unclear to me : in the case EU law is blocked, I'm not sure what the UE will/can do

Uk currency is the result of what the UK economy has turned into : an emerging market. 

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For just a minute, imagine a country that has been buffeted for years by political instability. It has seen four prime ministers in just six years and three general elections over the past seven. This country also held a referendum on its relations with its neighbors, and voted to leave its main trading bloc, leading to a collapse in its trade volumes and stalling growth.

 

While this country calls itself a democracy, its new prime minister was chosen by members of an elite club comprising just 0.2 percent of the actual electorate. And now, this prime minister — who hasn’t even won a popular mandate to rule — has launched a populist pro-growth agenda: Taxes on the top 5 percent are to be cut in hopes of kick-starting growth and creating a trickle-down feel-good factor.

 

Welcome to today’s Britain, a mature G7 country, where it all sounds very emerging market.

https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-emerging-market-crisis-gdp-growth-economic-policy/

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All of the above sounds like a classic emerging market (EM) crisis country. And as an EM economist for 35 years, if you presented me with the above fundamentals, the last thing I would now recommend is a program of unfunded tax cuts.

 

Sri Lanka tried to do just that between 2019 and 2022, and it ended up in currency collapse and default.

Labour has a plan to fix the problem

Note the Russian Sputnik V has the same ADN technology.. Along with a very dubious reputation in manipulating testing data. 

35 minutes ago, CG1 Blue said:

- The UK has fully vaccinated (2 jabs) around 5% of the population. That puts them 14th on the list of fully vaccinated citizens per population across Europe. 

- The UK has received around 10 million (not 21 million) doses of vaccine from companies who manufactured the vaccines in EU countries (not produced by the EU as you say). 

- The EU was slow to negotiate deals with the pharma companies, and ended up with weak deal terms. 

- The EU was slow to approve Covid vaccines giving the UK a big head start in vaccinations. 

- Some EU countries paused rollout of AZ vaccines (including France who flip-flopped by banning it for older people, then banning it for younger people!).

- This flip-flopping caused reluctance among citizens, with a third of Germans and only 23% of French people happy to take the AZ vaccine. 

- Meanwhile the UK just cracked on and rolled both vaccines out across the nation. 

- And by the way, Germany placed a side order of 30 million Pfizer Biotech vaccines in a side deal which contradicts the bloc's deal - but you seem to be ok about that. 

most of these info seem right to me, though there are some points we could either check (for the data) or discuss (for the interpretation)

for example 

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The EU was slow to negotiate deals

As you know the EU signed its AZ deal before the UK

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The EU was slow to approve

still the EU approved all covid vaccine before 95% of the countries in the world, why do you call that "slow".

The USA has still not approved the AZ how do you call them?

Canada took exactly the same measure as France did : stop injections for 55 yo or younger. how do you call them?

the truth I think is not that the EU was slow, it's that the UK was lighting fast and took a gamble approving the vaccine despite incomplete data and injecting with a first jab without setting aside the second jab

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I think you need to tone down the anti UK rhetoric. I understand your frustration, and we all want the whole of Europe vaccinated as quickly as possible. But blaming the UK all the time is not doing anyone any good. 

why shouldn't we blame the UK? We are in the midst of a pandemic and we send more doses to the UK than we keep for our own

you're talking about 10 millions doses, but the closer we look, the more we discover : this article mention the world sending 30 millions doses to the UK

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/eu-has-exported-more-vaccine-doses-than-have-been-administered-to-its-citizens-1.4520417

what I mean is we saved you at the expense of the lives of our own citizens.

OK the AZ testing is a mess, its one of the worst vaccines available, but first it's not the time to be choosy and second most of the vaccines we have sent to the UK are Pfizer.

Pfizer is German, highly efficient, perfectly tested, with no issues.

So I think we can blame the UK for not even saying "thank you" and now "demanding" that we produce more vaccine for them while they are quite safe and the rest of the world is literally dying.

This is both ungrateful and a parasitic behavior how else should we call this?

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

 The law in the EU may permit such bans or it may not - I have no idea. 

As shared here multiple times it's article 122, I suppose it is like the Internal Market Bill, it is simple yet you cannot take it into account

..  no matter how many times we remind you of a very very basic event or fact

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

Is that why they resorted to export bans -

Article 122 cannot be challenged and is immediate

court action takes years. Right now, we are in the crisis of the century and we have a parasitic country which we just got out of the woods at our expense and is not even saying thank you. 

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

All this is set against a background of late approvals, temporary bans and generally bad PR regarding the AZ product by both the EU and senior politicians of EU member states 

Do you read this thread? Count how many times we have mentioned that the USA contested AZ data and has not authorised its use? 

Did you read Canada just banned the AZ for 55-? It's just a few post above? 

So it's not the EU, some of the EU countries did not even stop the AZ jab (and I believe they were right), some suspended 72h and started again, some are still suspending. Including Sweden I think, the home country of AstraZeneca. 

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

And our EU brethren

In this situation the UK is more a parasite than a brother, but I'm not sure you factored that in. 

The UK has sucked 21 million vaccine produced by the EU (a few AZ but Pfizer mainly). 

And they would like some more Europeans to die, just because it is the way the current UK government behaves. 

Ironically, I think that if the situation was reversed and the EU was at almost zero dead, we would probably help the UK. 

I'm not sure you realise how much of the "bad guys in the story" you are at the moment. 

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

For the sake of its people, I really hope the EU sorts out its vaccine rollout out as soon as possble

No problem, we have a very simple solution:

E.U. Will Curb Covid Vaccine Exports for 6 Weeks https://nyti.ms/3cbYaZb

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

You can quote me and deny any or all that I've said, 

I'm not sure I can "deny" something you just wrote, but I can deny what I said... 

.. or deny my signature on a treaty if I'm the UK ????

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

I won't be replying to any further posts.

If you have useful information to share, I think everyone here will still welcome your contribution. 

9 minutes ago, Monokuro said:

Again, I am truly sorry that your country is being hit by another wave, but that doesn't change the signed deals that the UK has with AZ ????

I have no doubt you're a decent person, but I'm just making a point about what we currently think of the British government declaration

quote

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demanding the European Union

I do not think that in the short term, will be any vaccine coming your way from the EU plants, whatever demands the UK makes.

Unless the UK is in a position to blackmail us, I mean. Which remains open for discussion

1 hour ago, vinny41 said:

EU chiefs fail to secure new vaccine supply deal - 'It's rebounding on them!'

I'm not sure this is a real issue

@vinny41 I supposed you had a look a the list of orders on the EU page I shared above? With all these orders already passed can you confirm an additional one makes any difference to start with in an orderbook stuffed until 2022? Looking it up in the Guardian I do not see any coverage of the issue.

any chance it's just a swallow provocation to flatter the readership of this tabloid?

I remember you lately posted dubious data from a fringe brexiteer group.