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Some of the great moments of history sneak up on businesspeople. Two years ago, Britain looked to be Europe's most economically rational country; now its companies seem to be rolling from one economic earthquake to another, with Brexit looking increasingly likely to be followed by the election of a near-Marxist prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn.
Looking back, two things stand out. First, there were some deep underlying "irrational" causes that business ignored, such as the pent-up anger against immigration and globalization. Second, there was a string of short-term political decisions that proved to be miscalculations. For decades, for example, attacking the European Union was a "free hit" for British politicians. If David Cameron had it to do over again, would he really have made the referendum on whether to stay in it a simple majority vote (or indeed called a vote at all)? Does Angela Merkel now regret giving Cameron so few concessions before the Brexit vote? Would the moderate Labour members of Parliament who helped Corbyn get on their party's leadership ballot in the name of political diversity really do that again?
Now, another rupture may be sneaking up on Europe, driven by a similar mixture of pent-up anger and short-term political maneuvering. This one is between the old West European democratic core of the EU, led by Merkel and increasingly by Emmanuel Macron, who are keen to integrate the euro zone, and the populist authoritarians of Eastern Europe, who dislike Brussels. This time the arguments are ones about political freedom and national sovereignty.
Eastern Europe's gripes are nothing a little anschluss couldn't cure.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 10 2017, @04:40PM (6 children)
So the rules are that you can use either a passport, or a national ID, and you're complaining because UK doesn't have a national ID so you're forced to use a passport? Isn't that your own dumb fault for not having a national ID like everyone else? Do you think you should get some kind of special privileges just because you're from the UK or something?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:27AM (5 children)
But the UK _did_ have an alternative national ID - the British Visitors Passport.
The EU rules were written to block that but to allow other European non-passport IDs.
The British visitors passport was killed as a result.
Yes, the UK could change and do everything the European way rather than the way we have done it for decades but the perception is that the "harmonisation" is all one way - the imposition of the european way (and the costs of changing) on the UK - and that is dangerous, it could lead to things like disillusionment with the EU and possibly people voting to leave it. Oh wait, it already did, QED.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:19PM (4 children)
Harmonization is necessary if you're going to be part of a union; you can't have everyone doing everything differently, it's just too inefficient. If every EU nation wanted to do things differently, it'd be a complete mess.
If the Brits don't want to get with the program and do things the way the rest of the union does, that's fine, they can leave. It won't be good for their economy though, but that's OK, if they want to have a crappy economy that's their right. Independence has its ups and downs: you get to do everything in your weird, quirky way without having to adopt someone else's way of doing things, but you miss out on the economic benefits of being in a union.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday October 13 2017, @09:36AM (3 children)
You have just neatly illustrated the problem: instead of harmonisation being about compromise, about evaluating the various systems and settling on the best one or meeting in the middle or agreeing to stay different, or choosing one country's system for some things and another country's for other, your attitude is "the brits should be the ones to change or should get out".
Well, fine, that's what we're doing. We may miss out on some economic benefits but we get to keep, for instance, the NHS, and I can no-longer survive without it so I am happy with that.
I'd be happier if I had the option of living in France (have family there, speak the language, sort of), but the French rules require residents to have health insurance, which I cannot get (insurance market has a blanket ban on people with my condition). The French state health system would take me regardless my condition, but only after a 3month wait (with PUMA - used to be 5yrs to wait under CMU, doesn't matter, I can't survive 3 months without health care and I can't get insurance to cover the gap). So France will have to stay somewhere I visit with EHIC card or travel insurance (which I can still get), but even the EU freedom-of-movement doesn't let me live there. Of course if you are coming to the UK from EU you can (if you do it right) declare yourself ordinarily resident and access the NHS for free from the day you arrive, but that's a weird quirky British way of implementing freedom-of-movement, obviously...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 13 2017, @03:06PM (2 children)
You have just neatly illustrated the problem: instead of harmonisation being about compromise, about evaluating the various systems and settling on the best one or meeting in the middle or agreeing to stay different, or choosing one country's system for some things and another country's for other, your attitude is "the brits should be the ones to change or should get out".
What the hell are you talking about? Presumably, they already *did* compromise, and settle on the best system or meet in the middle. The Brits are the ones who are mad because their crappy system wasn't good enough, and because everyone else didn't want to make an exception for them.
We may miss out on some economic benefits but we get to keep, for instance, the NHS
How the hell would staying in the EU take away your NHS? And with a wrecked economy (what does Britain still make again? Nothing?), how do you expect to pay for NHS? The only reason Britain still has any economic power is because it's a financial center, but that's going to wane after they leave the EU.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday October 14 2017, @11:17AM (1 child)
You already answered that question - the NHS is unique in Europe, it is in fact Europe's largest employer. It is a different system from the rest of Europe (but better, despite it's many faults, from my point of view), from your point of view it is a "crappy system that wasn't good enough" (_because_ it is different, and British).
The NHS would inevitably be killed by EU harmonization in one way or another because (in your words): "The Brits are the ones who are mad because their crappy system wasn't good enough, and because everyone else didn't want to make an exception for them." Notably TTIP (for one threat, and yes it's dead now but may be because of the brexit vote) had exceptions to protect the European-style state health care systems, but none for the NHS.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:49PM
Ok, now you're not making any sense at all. I'm not even a European, and I still know that healthcare systems are NOT homogenized across EU countries. The UK's is very different from Germany's, which is very different from France's, which is very different from Belgium's, etc. They're all entirely separate entities. I've never read of any attempt to create a homogeneous pan-EU healthcare system. What we were talking about before is ID cards, which is absolutely an issue the EU has every right to regulate and homogenize across the EU, if you want to be able to travel between EU member nations without a passport. Asking border guards to know about dozens of different ID cards and totally different rules for each one is simply stupid and absurd, and it's unfair because that means you're proposing that different countries' citizens get different rights in other nations. Healthcare isn't like that; there's little reason to homogenize it unless you're going to turn the whole EU into a big federal nation, which isn't going to happen in our lifetime.