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UK Prime Minister Theresa May has given a major speech calling for a clean break from the EU:
Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". But the prime minister promised to push for the "greatest possible" access to the single market following Brexit. In a long-awaited speech, she also announced Parliament would get a vote on the final deal agreed between the UK and the European Union. And Mrs May promised an end to "vast contributions" to the European Union.
Previously: Brexit: The Focus is on the EU Single Market
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PM Theresa May: UK Must Leave the EU Single Market
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @07:29PM
Ship has already sailed my friend long ago. When Greece screwed the pooch, it stopped any countries not in Euro common currency from even thinking about joining. That in itself set off the dominoes down the chain.
EU is only an economic alliance. No one will join it if there are no economic benefits. For defense you have NATO. EU has no cohesive military might. Only benefits are economic. And these benefits do not benefit everyone within the member states equally, and some none at all. Worse, some are disadvantaged and will seek to get the hell out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @09:37PM
The EU will be in a fiscal squeeze if Trump comes through and insists upon them paying their fair share to support NATO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 17 2017, @10:17PM
Fun factoid: the US contributes at most 33 percent (the highest reasonable calculation I've seen myself, in a letter to the Financial Times) to NATO's budget -- the one concrete figure given by the White House itself is in fact 22 percent (NATO Common Funded budgets) [whitehouse.gov]. As the White House website declares, "every $22 the United States contributes leverages $100 worth of Alliance capability."
Your -- and Trump's -- illusion that it's in fact the US which pays for NATO comes from another factoid published on NATO's website: total US defence expenditure amounts to 77 percent [nato.int] of the whole defense budget of all allies combined. In other words, (a) in relative terms, France, Germany and the UK alone, which contribute over 50 percent of the rest of NATO's budget, far outplay the US in relative terms [per head of their population] of funding NATO, and (b) the defense budget of all European members of NATO combined is larger, by a serious margin, than the US (official) military funding in total.
Facts [cbsnews.com] -- ain't the Internet grand for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:12AM
Here's some more fun factoids:
Don't provide links if you don't want people to read them. From your own NATO link section on Indirect Funding where you are trying to school me in a very patronizing manner:
Note the deft use of language to split hairs. They're saying "this does not mean the US pays 73 percent of things covered by Direct Funding, but they do pay for 73 percent of Indirect Funding for things like intelligence, etc., etc., etc."
Your 22 percent number, incidentally, is the cost-sharing amount set for the US for Direct Funding. That is based upon a formula taking into account the GDP of each country. However, the US does pay the "lions share" of the indirect funding. So the US pays 22 percent into keeping NATO running and alive, but it pays 73 percent when it actually does something.
You also ignore the fact that out of 28 member nations, only five have met the 2-percent contribution level (US, Britain, Poland, Greece, and Estonia). However, in defense of NATO on this point, their response now is basically "well, now that Putin is rolling tanks into other countries, we're going to start throwing in some more money in the pot."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:14AM
Crap, sorry, forgot to add a condescending tag at the end to tell people how stupid you are:
Facts [your own NATO links], yes, indeed, the internet is great for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:52PM
It clearly isn't great for reading comprehension, though I stand corrected: replace the 77 percent I mentioned with 73 percent, and we're all good. No?
(Score: 1) by Kawumpa on Tuesday January 17 2017, @09:40PM
Yeah no, that would make sense if the EU were actually the reason for the economic woes of the southern members.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:45AM
Yeah no, that would make sense if the EU were actually the reason for the economic woes of the southern members.
It does make sense. Most countries [wikipedia.org] with the sort of woes that Greece has, can't get more than a few tens of their GDP as public debt (for example, Argentina with public debt 42% of its GDP). Greece had a solid 179% public debt to GDP ratio as of 2015. A shifty country like Greece can't get into that kind of trouble without the backing of a more reliable party, such as the EU. And of course, once Greece has borrowed that much, the EU is a decent tool for extracting the wealth out of Greek society to cover those debts.