De: Steve Cottrell <co...@seeingeye.tv>
On 5/7/16, Jaume Lahuerta, discombobulated, unleashed: >>Interesting conversation. >> >>As a citizen of 'the rest of Europe' my view of the UK as a member of >>the EU is: > >>- They just want the good things of the Union (free trade) but not the >>bad things (immigration,...). Brexit leaders promised to achieve this >>perfect equation. >Your assumption that immigration is a bad thing puzzles me. Why is it bad? I actually think immigration is a good thing. That said, complete freedom of movement, unrestricted, to a relatively small island with a population already in excess of 65 million is untenable. We have an overstretched national health service, housing shortages (pushing prices up) amongst many other problems. Our government has already agreed to immigration quotas that have been negotiated within the EU frame. >Beyond this, one has to ask the question: why the UK ? Why do so many people want to come here? Many people travel from the middle east, all the way through Europe and strive to reach these shores. Why? This is not the land of plenty that somehow has seemingly burned itself into the immigrant consciousness. Well, maybe I should have said 'but not the (apparently) bad things'. It is not me who says that is bad thing but the Brexit advocates who used it as one of the main reasons for it. And it is not only the UK the destiny for immigrants and refugees. I remember hearing the Hungarian Prime Minister (I think it was him) saying that this was a 'only' German problem, because all refugees wanted to go to Germany and not stay on their country. I live in Spain and we have also experience with people coming from Africa and dying in the Mediterranean trying to do so. And, from the 90's the situation has changed a lot and we have more and more immigrants in our cities. Even my hometown (14K people) is full of foreign people, specially during the summer, were there is demand for the fruit picking campaign. And this is not always been well accepted by the locals, that forget too quickly that we were a country of emigrants in our civil post-war, not that far ago. And actually, we are having a comeback with the crisis, specially for the young people that is unable to find a decent job in Spain after having spend lots of yers in the University. >>- They are (were) in, but with their own rules (currency, somehow >>restricted borders,...) >Believe it or not we are still 'in' and will likely be so until 2019. We do have some opt-outs from the EU, currency being the main one. This was negotiated and agreed upon by the EU. It is not a unilateral decision. Your government, Juame, agreed to this opt-out along with all the other EU governments. So how is this all our fault? No, of course. But being part of a club, with specific rules for you and with the permanent menace of leaving out doesn't seem the best way to progress. They (the Governments that you mention) probably though that this was the lesser evil, but then the crisis came in and the 'special ones' decided to leave. >The somehow restricted borders are also negotiated. Britain is not the only EU member with restricted borders. Please see this wiki page on the Schengen Area: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area> Well, in the map everybody seems to be in or planning to be in (even if not EU member) except for...the Islands (UK and Ireland) in green color. >>- They always try to deactivate (from within) all the attempts for a >>closer political union. >I don't understand this statement at all. To my knowledge this is not true. >Where's Bob Walkden when you need him ;-) (he's cycling in France!) >My idea of 'a closer political union' probably mirrors most Brits' by being part of a central union of countries standing together with trade and social links. It does *not* include any notion that overall control of our country will be decided by a European Parliament, a European defence force (army). I am in two minds about a single currency, but given the financial failings of some member states, at the moment, I would prefer to keep the British Pound. Regarding opinions about other's countries, sometimes we received a very biased point of view, that is true. For instance, just after the Brexit referendum someone here said that he was fearing that the next one to leave was Spain. This sounded very weird to me since nobody in Spain is saying that we should exit the EU, not to mention the referendum. The most critical were the left-winded-populists Podemos (a sort of Siriza in Greece) specially about the EU economic measures. And, 3 days after the referendum, we had our general elections and this party was the clear loser (-1 Million votes). Analyst say that the Brexit played a significant role in this fall. So, no, there is no 'infection' in Spain, all the contrary...and maybe the UK citizens in general are not as eurosceptic as we think...but, hey, you make it really hard to believe !! ;-) >>So, yes, probably the Brexit is a bad thing in the short term, but maybe >>is a good opportunity for both parties, specially for the Europeans that >>are willing to build a closer and more supportive Union. >How close do you want to get? As closest as needed in order to be able to make decisions when there is a problem knocking at the door: refugees, terrorism, wars in neighbor countries, financial crisis...instead of the current: 'we have to meet and decide', which normally means 'meet and postpone the decision'. What about the U.S.E.? Regards, Jaume -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
