European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 753

On April 05 2017 07:38 farvacola wrote:

Has she attained her place in French politics mostly because of her lineage then, I take it?

On April 05 2017 14:11 lastpuritan wrote:
Spare my little trolling, people were going hard at each other, thread needed a friendly troll.

Back to topics, will Francois Asselineau have chance with his Frexit plan? He's strongly promising it but I doubt public will agree with him?

On April 05 2017 07:23 Big J wrote:

Abort plan, the French remembered about belgium.

On April 05 2017 16:56 Nebuchad wrote:
I kind of wish Hamon would just go away at this point. Socialists always talk about "useful vote" now it seems he's the one not being very useful in the equation. From a quick glance I believe I'm more aligned with Hamon than with Mélenchon politically but well...

Only problem I have is that Mélenchon-Le Pen is the only match-up that she can actually win.

On April 05 2017 04:53 a_flayer wrote:
Is it just me or does Le Pen speak a different kind of French from the others? It sounds very crude or harsh somehow. Maybe it is just her voice...

Also, Lassalle must be nicknamed 'The Nose' right? Holy crap.

Is the leftist gal also against the EU and its 'financial dictatorship'?

I'd do a lot better if it was written French. I can't follow this at all.

On April 05 2017 12:42 LegalLord wrote:
Word on the grapevine says Melenchon won the debate. Is that accurate?

On April 05 2017 14:11 lastpuritan wrote:
Spare my little trolling, people were going hard at each other, thread needed a friendly troll.

Back to topics, will Francois Asselineau have chance with his Frexit plan? He's strongly promising it but I doubt public will agree with him?

On April 05 2017 16:56 Nebuchad wrote:
I kind of wish Hamon would just go away at this point. Socialists always talk about "useful vote" now it seems he's the one not being very useful in the equation. From a quick glance I believe I'm more aligned with Hamon than with Mélenchon politically but well...

Only problem I have is that Mélenchon-Le Pen is the only match-up that she can actually win.

On April 05 2017 06:57 bardtown wrote:

We are the 2nd largest net contributor, you moron. By your logic you owe us somewhere in the region of £300 billion.

We eagerly await the cheque.

User was warned for this post

On April 05 2017 20:52 Philoctetes wrote:


I would concede the point to you that the 60 billion number EU negotiators came up with is probably too high. I say this not because I did the counting, but because I suspect it is a negotiating tactic. Both parties know the actual number is somewhere in between the numbers both sides came up with now. So somewhere between 15 and 60 billion euro.

The notion that you propose that the UK will get paid money to leave is preposterous.
Yes, this whole Brexit will cost the UK taxpayer a lot of money. But that was their conscious decision. They voted to get poorer but with more sovereignty. That's what the Brexit voters wanted.

Now if you want to concede me that the majority of the people that will live with the consequences of Brexit would rather have more money and a bit less sovereignty, I'd concede that as well. But we mainland EU'ers are already busy enough with the democratic deficit in our own countries and in the EU as a whole. We cannot fix the huge democratic deficit within the UK. Why? Because the UK has it's own sovereignty.

That your own right wing neoliberal politicians want to blame their mistakes on the EU, that is not my problem. All these grievances that people had and that made them vote Brexit, that's directly connected to Thatcher, Blair etc.

On April 05 2017 20:52 Philoctetes wrote:
Yes, this whole Brexit will cost the UK taxpayer a lot of money. But that was their conscious decision. They voted to get poorer but with more sovereignty. That's what the Brexit voters wanted.

On April 05 2017 21:34 Biff The Understudy wrote:

It's an illusion that Brexit means more sovereignty, it certainly means much less. The EU will have the UK by the balls and the UK will need to conform to rules and decisions they will have no say about, just like Norway for example.

The EU is made of a council of elected government representative and a parliament. To have 15% of the decisional power in an ensemble of which you account for 15% is not a loss of sovereignty. The same way, Texans wouldn't be more politically powerful if Texas was independant. They would be able to make theit own decisions, but would lose the very, very big weight they have in Washington. You lose from the left hand what you just won from the right.

The difference is that while the UK has lost all power to influence the EU rules, it will most probably have to keep following them unless it wants to do a commercial and economic sepukku.

On April 05 2017 20:52 Philoctetes wrote:

We cannot fix the huge democratic deficit within the UK. Why? Because the UK has it's own sovereignty.

That your own right wing neoliberal politicians want to blame their mistakes on the EU, that is not my problem. All these grievances that people had and that made them vote Brexit, that's directly connected to Thatcher, Blair etc.

On April 05 2017 05:45 mustaju wrote:
As I said before, there are few options left considering the existence of these russians in the Baltics is illegal in the first place. The ethnic russians have 0 grounds for citizenship other than having lived here, since it's strictly illegal for an occupying force (as the Soviet Union was) to resettle population. This is not to be confused with natural immigration, Narva is a great case in point. It now has less than 5% Estonians compared to the 54% that lived there before the war, with a large portion forced away from their homes or sent to Siberia. Every resettled russian is a breach against the Fourth Geneva convention, which, co-incidentally, is also a huge conflict issue between Israel and Palestine, though legally more dubious. While it is individually tragic to put the russian population through this ordeal, the citizenship test is widely considered fair (the article LL linked briefly mentions this), except, of course, in Russia and in remote border regions where Estonian is barely spoken. According to the latest census, any change in this system would mostly affect 65+ year old people who have so far refused to integrate in the first place. If this were racism institutionalized, you would not see vastly increasing citizenship (54%!) in the period 1991-2011.

My current girlfriend is ethnically Russian, a naturalized citizen, and so are quite a few of my friends. (insert your own my best friend is black joke here) While there certainly are problems after long periods of occupation, LL overblows them and inadvertently insults a large part of the integrated population.
He also fails to mention the spectacular failure of Russian resettlement programs from the Baltic nations inviting ethnic Russians back to the motherland, because it does not support his narrative.

On April 05 2017 21:37 bardtown wrote:

We're leaving the single market. We're not following your rules, except where appropriate for our exporters who actually trade with you. And we're now able to trade with the rest of the world without your protectionist tariffs. And make our own trade deals. And laws. And border controls.

The mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify the EU and claim that being a member of a would-be superstate gives you more sovereignty are frankly embarrassing.


We are fixing our own democratic deficit by leaving the EU. Thank you for your concern, though. And you're right that it has everything to do with Thatcher, who took us into the single market, and Blair, who pushed the Lisbon Treaty through against his promise to hold a referendum.

On April 05 2017 22:01 Danglars wrote:

How common is the Biff "you're actually losing sovereignty" or Philo "the problems with EU membership are the result of Thatcher/Blair" (aside from the trivial case of first inclusion) arguments in UK remainders? I want to think that's the left-wing fringe and moderates find leaving is more trouble than it's worth, the costs/regulatory burdens were manageable, the diminished sovereignty wasn't that bad.

On April 05 2017 22:04 warding wrote:
Is the plan for the UK to have its own regulations as substitute of CE marking? That would be a big cost on both importers (bad for consumers) and exporters (bad for UK competitiveness), for no perceptible advantage unless you believe British people are somehow better at creating regulations. It's a choice between lack of sovereignty and insularity.