[Davij038]

Maybe I'm just ignorant but apart from being financially weak at the moment, why is the EU a bad thing?

UKIP people- No, it really isn't a German conspiracy to rule the world...

[sulpicia]

I'm rather apathetic on the issue, but the main arguments are as follows.

1.) Something of an artificial entity. We share very little in common with say, Bulgaria... so why should they have any say in decision that might affect us.
2.) Expensive
3.) Procedures are 'undemocratic'
4.) Inefficient - protects vested interests such as French Agriculture. Why do we need another layer of government.
5.) Limits UK say over who comes in and goes out of the country.


The ECHR isn't an EU institution, but they do have 'links'. European human rights legislation is often seen as a charter for criminals.


But I'm not sure you'll get anywhere with this question. Its a favourite on TSR, and there are no shortage of opinions on the issue.

[IAmNotKira]

If this post explodes I implore you to fact-check anything you hear. I'm personally for greater EU integration because I have heard some good arguments in favour of the EU and the arguments against usually don't stand up to scrutiny.

[Tamora]

(Original post by IAmNotKira)
If this post explodes I implore you to fact-check anything you hear. I'm personally for greater EU integration because I have heard some good arguments in favour of the EU and the arguments against usually don't stand up to scrutiny.

I'm sure I've heard all the classic pro-EU arguments and they're all easily rebuffed, so I'm intrigued ... what are these good arguments?

[Norton1]

I think 'Yes, Minister' summarised why we need the EU quite well:

Episode Five: The Writing on the Wall

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?

Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely?

Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We 'had' to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.

Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal?

Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.

Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?

Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.

Hacker: What appalling cynicism.

Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.

[Morgsie]

I think membership is a good thing. The EU is the largest donor to the UN and other Countries etc. 60% of British Trade is with the Eurozone

Europe needs reform though

[chrisawhitmore]

(Original post by Morgsie)
I think membership is a good thing. The EU is the largest donor etc.

Europe needs reform though

The largest donor to what exactly? If it is to the UK then what it is donating is our own money, and not a lot of that, as we get back some £9billion less than we put in.

[chrisawhitmore]

(Original post by IAmNotKira)
If this post explodes I implore you to fact-check anything you hear. I'm personally for greater EU integration because I have heard some good arguments in favour of the EU and the arguments against usually don't stand up to scrutiny.

Ok, here's a couple that do. They all figures from the European comission.

Cost of EU regulation to businesses in the EU: estimated at 500bn Euro per annum
Benefit of single market to businesses in the EU: estimated at 100bn Euro per annum. Thus estimated net cost of the EU to businesses: 400bn Euro per annum.

Estimated money lost through 'mispayments': around 6 billion euros this year alone.

Of which estimated to be fraud: 258.2 million euros (remember, these are EU figures, and there is no explanation of how they arrived at the decision that only one twentieth of missing money was defrauded)

Negs are interesting, care to clarify reasoning or have a debate? Or are you so committed to the European ideal that you would do away with debate as they have done with democracy?

[ukip72]

(Original post by Morgsie)
I think membership is a good thing. The EU is the largest donor to the UN and other Countries etc. 60% of British Trade is with the Eurozone

Europe needs reform though

51% of our exports go to countries outside of the EU, the perennial Europhile argument, now falling to pieces, shame...

GSTQ

[ukip72]

(Original post by Davij038)
Maybe I'm just ignorant but apart from being financially weak at the moment, why is the EU a bad thing?

UKIP people- No, it really isn't a German conspiracy to rule the world...

First of all UKIP don't believe the EU is a German conspiracy to rule the world.

1. Very undemocratic
2. We cannot govern ourselves in the EU
3. Far too expensive
4. EU membership entails ECHR liberal nonsense
5. Makes us unable to make our own trade deals

Quite simply I don't see any argument for EU membership


GSTQ

[Romek]

The EU is great in my opinion: free trade and free movement of labour don't have many negatives, and we need some way of competing with larger exporters such as the USA anyway.

The Eurozone on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. A shared currency inherently means that the Eurozone members share interest rates and exchange rates, which I can only see causing more problems than it's solving. Economies as different as Germany and Greece (for example) shouldn't be bound so closely to each other, and should be free to manipulate monetary policies in whatever way suits the country.

[zakji]

I would say the EU isn't a bad thing as it opens up trade and promotes globalisation to an extent. I would say the issue is more the eurozone within the EU which has shown for some time it isn't sustainable

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e

[Snagprophet]

To be fair, I think the EU would be a good thing had it been reformed but a lot of people think it would be easier to simply pull out.

[Bobifier]

I think the EU is a good idea in principle, but our government are far too happy to bow down and give in to everything they say. I would like it a lot more if we had stronger politicians.

[andrewmc96]

The EU itself isn't really a bad thing in principle. The majority of the problems lie with the Eurozone where there are economically poor areas such as Greece and the economic heartlands of Germany sharing a currency without any sort of fiscal pact. If the Eurozone is reformed, the EU would on the whole remain a good thing.

[zakji]

(Original post by andrewmc96)
The EU itself isn't really a bad thing in principle. The majority of the problems lie with the Eurozone where there are economically poor areas such as Greece and the economic heartlands of Germany sharing a currency without any sort of fiscal pact. If the Eurozone is reformed, the EU would on the whole remain a good thing.

Yeah pretty much what I was saying. I think the EU would be a lot better without the eurozone.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e

[IAmNotKira]

(Original post by chrisawhitmore)
Ok, here's a couple that do. They all figures from the European comission.

Cost of EU regulation to businesses in the EU: estimated at 500bn Euro per annum
Benefit of single market to businesses in the EU: estimated at 100bn Euro per annum. Thus estimated net cost of the EU to businesses: 400bn Euro per annum.

Estimated money lost through 'mispayments': around 6 billion euros this year alone.

Of which estimated to be fraud: 258.2 million euros (remember, these are EU figures, and there is no explanation of how they arrived at the decision that only one twentieth of missing money was defrauded)

You seem to be assuming it is regulation the UK itself would do better or not do at all if it weren't in the EU. I'm not sure that is the case.
My apologies but could you link the commissions report with the figures? I've been trying to find the EU and the UK figures but I've been having difficulty.

[dem503]

(Original post by Davij038)
Maybe I'm just ignorant but apart from being financially weak at the moment, why is the EU a bad thing?

UKIP people- No, it really isn't a German conspiracy to rule the world...

It has its bad points, but we get so much out of it, its really very much worth it. For example it is 'expensive' for the government to pay the membership, but we get so much back by businesses doing....business (where's my thesaurus?) in the EU for free. Then via taxes etc the government gets the money back.

In regards to the 'other countries having power over things that'll affect us', well we haven't joined the euro which would have f****d us over. Why? because we have the power of veto.

A large majority of the decisions are for trade, environmental and EU wide economics, very few actually affect the day to day running in GB. To anyone who says the EU is a bad thing- what's the one defining moment that showed us that it is?

[meenu89]

(Original post by Morgsie)
I think membership is a good thing. The EU is the largest donor to the UN and other Countries etc. 60% of British Trade is with the Eurozone

Europe needs reform though

Reform has been about for as long as I've been interested in politics.

[chrisawhitmore]

(Original post by IAmNotKira)
You seem to be assuming it is regulation the UK itself would do better or not do at all if it weren't in the EU. I'm not sure that is the case.
My apologies but could you link the commissions report with the figures? I've been trying to find the EU and the UK figures but I've been having difficulty.

The mispayments figures come from the EU budget myths section on the comission's website (which does fun things like claiming that the EU can't cost too much as it is much cheaper than national governments, while failing to note that those governments provide things like education, healthcare, policing, transport, welfare and a host of other functions that the EU does not provide). The section is entitled 'The EU budget is riddled with fraud' and the page is here: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained...s_en.cfm#4of15

I'm working on finding the studies for the regulation costs, they seem to have moved since I last saw them.