economic situation is dire

[colhint]

I dont think he hates the EU. I think he sees it as a trading area we should be linked to, but on our terms. First and formost the UK government is accountable to UK citizens,Surely . Just because he believes there are flaws in the way the EU is run. It doesnt mean he thinks everything in europe is bad.

Anyway, I still don't know if you would have signed the agreement

[tonyh29]

At least with Unions there is a lot more democratic things in place in terms of elections and votes for actions,

taxi for Liam :-)

as opposed to the finance world (who are universal accepted as being a major part of the problem)

probably due to a lack of regulation if you ask me .. oh wait .... luckily Brown wasn't advised on financial matters by anybody anywhere near the labour front bench ...oh wait

[drat01]

I dont think he hates the EU. I think he sees it as a trading area we should be linked to, but on our terms. First and formost the UK government is accountable to UK citizens,Surely . Just because he believes there are flaws in the way the EU is run. It doesnt mean he thinks everything in europe is bad.

Anyway, I still don't know if you would have signed the agreement

See above if I would have signed it.

As for UK gvmt being accountable to its citizens, Cameron sort of disproved that, he did not even consult with fellow members of his cabinet - well not the LibDem ones

[tonyh29]

the best poker players are those who know when it's correct to play and as importantly when to fold - at least you are still in the game

you forget I've played poker against you .. well for the 2 hands that you managed to stay in the game that is :winkold:

[drat01]

At least with Unions there is a lot more democratic things in place in terms of elections and votes for actions,

taxi for Liam :-)

as opposed to the finance world (who are universal accepted as being a major part of the problem)

probably due to a lack of regulation if you ask me .. oh wait .... luckily Brown wasn't advised on financial matters by anybody anywhere near the labour front bench ...oh wait

:-) @ Tony so predictable mate.

Taking things out of context, I am surprised you did not try and slip a Prescott mention in there then :-)

For the record are you still happy with the funding of the Tory party from elements such as Hedge Fund industry being the biggest backers of the Tory paryt? :-)

[tonyh29]

As for UK gvmt being accountable to its citizens, Cameron sort of disproved that, he did not even consult with fellow members of his cabinet - well not the LibDem ones

with their current showing in the polls surely the Lib Dems don't represent any citizens :-)

[drat01]

the best poker players are those who know when it's correct to play and as importantly when to fold - at least you are still in the game

you forget I've played poker against you .. well for the 2 hands that you managed to stay in the game that is :winkold:

Yeah but I was not gambling away my future ability to buy beer and chips :-)

[Awol]

What evidence is there that these considerations existed? All I've seen is Sarkozy, Merkel, Barroso and some non entity from Belgium saying that the UK requests to retain control of its own financial regulation were unacceptable and against the spirirt of the single market.

AWOL you hatred of anything European is not good for you.

Fortunate for me then that the above statement has just been made up by you and is entirely untrue. I think Europe is great and the EU political project is an abortion (to use your venacular). There is no contradiction in those holding those opinions because Europe and the EU are different things.

Barroso told the European parliament in Strasbourg that he had tried to help Britain by tabling a clause which would have made clear that the fiscal compact should not undermine the single market nor distort competition. "Unfortunately, that compromise proved impossible, so it was not possible to have a solution that could allow all 27 member states to agree in the framework of current treaties."

I'm trying to find the detail of what was offered to have a read of that, thanks.

It's obvious that whatever Cameron did that pandered to the desires of the far right and the UKIP's of this world would get approval from yourself.

Are you still in denial that a majority supported Cameron's stance? Are you still in deniasl that a majority want to leave the EU? Are those people all 'far right' in your view and if so why do we have a coalition government between conservatives and a party further to the left than labour?

Doesn't really make sense does it?

The reality is that for us still in the UK, and working in UK and the rest of Europe there are now significant difficulties that will arise because of this action.

Such as?

but thems the facts.

I'd dispute that as well.

Also from the Guardian:

....This has nothing as such to do with Britain, nor can Britain be said to have impeded ever-closer union. But Cameron must have been right to stand aloof from what looks a hopeless last stand in defence of a common currency – even though, bizarrely, he wants the euro rescued. Another grandiose treaty seeking ever more intervention for Brussels would have triggered a series of probably disastrous national referendums. Cameron performed Europe a good deed in vetoing that.

Even so, what will now be a German-led "unequal treaty" will impose a battery of budgetary and fiscal disciplines on Greece, Italy, Spain and possibly France, in the hope of calming markets. This in turn means decisions over budgets, taxes, benefits and transfers taken away from elected national parliaments and put in the hands of ministerial councils and Brussels commissioners. Such decisions would carry no local legitimacy and risk being unenforceable....

Where is your evidence for any of that ?

As you well know, very many people are talking about it and there are plenty of articles discussing it. Thems the facts! :winkold:

[kidlewis]

I guess on the basis of the UK public polls showed the majority backed his decision, so over half the country are right wing anti euro nutters then.

[kidlewis]

also Awol I believe 5 live backs the piece in the Guardian which basically says countries budget has to be checked like a teacher checking homework of a child when it comes to managing finances.

Basically if you want to be in the classroom of the EU then you have to have your homework marked by them and if it isn't up to scratch you are having detention after school and no lunch break.

[snowychap]

I've been doing just that but am yet to discover what these options/conditions/ caveats were, other than the opt out that we requested?

From what I have gathered the concessions regarding the financial industry weren't an option.

From what it seems to me, Cameron went to these discussions with these concessions as a prerequisite to agreeing to anything. The EU leaders discussed their package (which we mostly seem to agree was bonkers) and Cameron appears to have said that he wanted the concessions otherwise he wouldn't agree to their plan.

I haven't really seen what points in this package Cameron disagreed with on the friday to have meant that he didn't agree to their plan. Obviously, since then, when the 'defence of the financial industry' line hasn't quite washed (including suggestions that there was actually no such defence), all sorts of things are being pointed out as unsuitable seemingly in order to find specific bits that do not appeal to specific parts of the elctorate.

[Awol]

also Awol I believe 5 live backs the piece in the Guardian which basically says countries budget has to be checked like a teacher checking homework of a child when it comes to managing finances.

Basically if you want to be in the classroom of the EU then you have to have your homework marked by them and if it isn't up to scratch you are having detention after school and no lunch break.

That is exactly what is proposed, except the penalty for not getting your budget within rules laid down by Germany and implemented through Brussels is to be fined. Yep, they want to fine skint countries. Clever, isn't it.

The Irish PM went mental the other day when it was discovered the German Parliament was scrunitising the Irish budget (which had been passed in confidence to Brussels for inspection as part of their bailout conditions) which was supplied to them before Irish politicians had seem it.

When he asked how the Germans had got hold of it from the EU no one could say...

[TrentVilla]

also Awol I believe 5 live backs the piece in the Guardian which basically says countries budget has to be checked like a teacher checking homework of a child when it comes to managing finances.

Basically if you want to be in the classroom of the EU then you have to have your homework marked by them and if it isn't up to scratch you are having detention after school and no lunch break.

That is exactly what is proposed, except the penalty for not getting your budget within rules laid down by Germany and implemented through Brussels is to be fined. Yep, they want to fine skint countries. Clever, isn't it.

The Irish PM went mental the other day when it was discovered the German Parliament was scrunitising the Irish budget (which had been passed in confidence to Brussels for inspection as part of their bailout conditions) which was supplied to them before Irish politicians had seem it.

When he asked how the Germans had got hold of it from the EU no one could say...

Shame they didn't check the accounts for Greece when they joined.

[snowychap]

Have we actually got any idea on how the discussions panned out last week?

Perhaps the talks kicked off with Cameron saying, "Right guys, you know I won't agree to anything unless you give me the following concessions." And then he sat quietly in the corner being ignored by the others for the rest of the session.

Or perhaps they discussed their plan, came to the agreement put forward and at the end Cameron said that, without these concessions, he wouldn't be agreeing to anything on behalf of the UK.

Or, maybe, throughout their discussions Cameron objected to each part of the agreement (including the inclusion of statutory obligations regarding deficits - a probably unworkable legal obligation to the kind of fiscal programme which Osborne and Cameron have been trying to get others to sign up to) and then at the end said, "Hey guys, I'm going to go with you wouldn't give me any concessions line as to why I've not gone along with your terrible plan."

[snowychap]

also Awol I believe 5 live backs the piece in the Guardian which basically says countries budget has to be checked like a teacher checking homework of a child when it comes to managing finances.

Basically if you want to be in the classroom of the EU then you have to have your homework marked by them and if it isn't up to scratch you are having detention after school and no lunch break.

That isn't really the reason that it's silly, though.

It's the nonsense about having statutory targets of deficits and, worse still, 'strutural deficits'.

Here's a blog from WSJ:

Most of the 27 European Union countries at their summit last week agreed to adopt a new budget rule: a limit on the “structural deficit.” What’s that?

It’s the government budget deficit, adjusted for changes in the business cycle. When the economy is weak, as it is now, the structural deficit will be lower than the actual deficit. The structural deficit accounts for the fact that a recession depresses government revenue (the unemployed pay less taxes) and raises spending (unemployment benefits and other social services cost money). The governments agreed to limit structural deficits to just 0.5% of gross domestic product, a target they are calling the “Golden Rule.”

But there are some serious problems with the concept. First, it requires a determination of the economy’s position in the business cycle and defining how long the business cycle is. That in turn requires figuring out how much an economy is capable of producing were it operating at full speed, a determination that is complicated by significant uncertainties.

Consider the experience of the U.K., which is one of the few governments that officially targets a structural deficit. (The “Golden Rule” was adopted by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown when he took office in 1997. He was subsequently suspected of altering the starting date for the business cycle so the government could borrow more without breaking the rule.)

There, U.K.’s Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent agency created in 2010 in an effort to take political manipulation out of such fiscal decisions, recently lowered its estimate of the U.K. economy’s potential output, meaning that more of the deficit is now considered structural rather than cyclical.

The economist Chris Dillow makes good points about this move and the problems it highlights with targeting the cyclical deficit:

It makes policy pro-cyclical. If estimates of trend growth fall when growth is weak, then the desire to balance the structural budget imposes fiscal tightening in bad times.

And it’s not just fiscal policy that becomes pro-cyclical. So does monetary policy. A lower output gap estimate means–other things equal–a higher forecast for inflation and hence, under inflation targeting, less justification for loose monetary policy.

Like the U.K.’s OBR, the European Commission appears to be taking a particularly dim view of potential output around the world. In the commission’s autumn forecast, its economists project the U.S. output gap–the difference between actual and potential output–at just 1.1% of GDP, despite unemployment of around 9%. The U.S. Federal Reserve sees the third quarter U.S. output gap at 7.3% of GDP (using data here and here). Big difference.

The commission has also cut its estimate of the euro-zone output gap, from 2.7% of GDP in the spring forecast to 2% in the latest outlook. With the economic outlook significantly downgraded since the spring, the commission appears to be taking the view that a depressed economy reduces potential output. This may be true, but it can also serve as an excuse for politicians and policymakers throw up their hands in the face of high unemployment and slow growth.

How big are the EU’s structural deficits? The commission already publishes these estimates; for most countries they aren’t much lower than the actual deficit. For example, Ireland’s structural deficit this year is expected to be 9.1% of GDP, compared to an actual deficit of 10.3%. So, the commission believes most of the deficit is structural, despite an unemployment rate of around 14%.

In fact, the commission believes the euro zone’s structural deficit was 4.6% of GDP in 2009, the worst year of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. So the 0.5% structural deficit limit rule would have prohibited most of the fiscal stimulus the governments put in place to prevent euro-zone economies from tanking during the crisis.

Of course, whether the stimulus would have been prevented under this new rule depends on whether the governments adopt the commission’s formula for calculating the structural deficit. We’ll keep an eye on that debate in the weeks to come

[peterms]

Any ideas on these options the PM had, Drat? Still dying to read about them.

I suppose the most obvious option was to agree to go along with what was proposed as long as it was framed in such a way as not to affect the UK.

That would mean that if other EU nations wish to damage themselves in the way they seem bent on doing, we could advise them against it but not stand in their way.

That would protect our interests, but also maintain the good will and support of the other nations, which we now seem to have largely lost.

As it is, we have ended up with the other countries deciding to go ahead anyway, but being extremely pissed off with us and having to go about things in probably a more convoluted way.

Apart from the damage of the specific incident, there is some longer-term reputational damage. Tabling some unrelated demands at 2am having failed to give the normal notice of them or seek support and views beforehand gives an unmistakable impression of trying to bounce everyone else in a crude and confrontational manner. It strongly suggests an absence of good faith. This will reinforce unhelpful impressions and mistrust of the UK, and make it correspondingly harder to get support for other measures in future.

On the positive side, it seems likely that Cameron's shocking lack of skill and sensitivity in his approach will mean that other countries will now be more determined to impose tighter regulation on the City, to teach him a lesson. That will be a very positive outcome, though the exact opposite of what he intended.

[colhint]

Any ideas on these options the PM had, Drat? Still dying to read about them.

I suppose the most obvious option was to agree to go along with what was proposed as long as it was framed in such a way as not to affect the UK.

That would mean that if other EU nations wish to damage themselves in the way they seem bent on doing, we could advise them against it but not stand in their way.

That would protect our interests, but also maintain the good will and support of the other nations, which we now seem to have largely lost.

As it is, we have ended up with the other countries deciding to go ahead anyway, but being extremely pissed off with us and having to go about things in probably a more convoluted way.

Apart from the damage of the specific incident, there is some longer-term reputational damage. Tabling some unrelated demands at 2am having failed to give the normal notice of them or seek support and views beforehand gives an unmistakable impression of trying to bounce everyone else in a crude and confrontational manner. It strongly suggests an absence of good faith. This will reinforce unhelpful impressions and mistrust of the UK, and make it correspondingly harder to get support for other measures in future.

On the positive side, it seems likely that Cameron's shocking lack of skill and sensitivity in his approach will mean that other countries will now be more determined to impose tighter regulation on the City, to teach him a lesson. That will be a very positive outcome, though the exact opposite of what he intended.

is that bit true Peter?

[Awol]

Any ideas on these options the PM had, Drat? Still dying to read about them.

I suppose the most obvious option was to agree to go along with what was proposed as long as it was framed in such a way as not to affect the UK.

Wasn't that precisely the line taken?

That would protect our interests, but also maintain the good will and support of the other nations, which we now seem to have largely lost.

I#,m amazed you feel that there was good will to lose frankly, have you ever watched any debates in the EU Parliament? It's like Christians being tossed into the lions den as far the UK is concerned.

As it is, we have ended up with the other countries deciding to go ahead anyway, but being extremely pissed off with us and having to go about things in probably a more convoluted way.

As Tony pointed out it looks extremely unlikely that those EU members that are accountable to national parliaments where treaties are concerned will get these proposals through anyway.

his approach will mean that other countries will now be more determined to impose tighter regulation on the City, to teach him a lesson. That will be a very positive outcome, though the exact opposite of what he intended.

I'd suggest that such an insistence by other members would be the catalyst to a fast track UK exit from the EU entirely. I know you hate the bankers Peter but FS is still our largest industry, 10% of GDP and 11% of Treasury revenue. It's not that great to simply piss it up the wall for no good reason, besides which some of the proposed UK regulation (particularly ref bank capitalisation levels) is more stringent than the EU actually want.

[peterms]

is that bit true Peter?

It's what is claimed, here.

It was also suggested that although the British demands to their EU partners on concessions over the future handling of financial services were agreed in the coalition's Europe committee, key background explanatory papers were not sent out to UK allies, and the circumstances of a veto was not mentioned.

Commission officials, meanwhile, claimed that Kim Darroch, the UK permanent representative to the EU, was not given details of the UK negotiating strategy until 48 hours before the summit, prompting him to complain to his political masters that he had not been given time to build the necessary diplomatic alliances.

No names of the people giving this account and no direct quotes. However, this simply illustrates what is being accepted (without being denied, as far as I know), that the UK had not sought to build support for its position and make alliances beforehand. It makes no great new claim, just gives a little of the practical detail behind the claim already made. It looks very plausible to me.

[colhint]

yup it does