Plan B Forum

Germany and France have warned UK Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain cannot pick and choose EU membership terms after he pledged a referendum.

Mr Cameron said a poll would be held if the Conservatives were returned to power at the next general election, which is expected in 2015.

Voters would be asked to choose between renegotiated membership or exiting.

Germany said the UK could not "cherry-pick" while France said "a la carte" membership was not on the table.

However, in an apparent concession to Mr Cameron's concerns, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a "fair compromise" between the wishes of Britain and other EU states.

BBC Europe editor Gavin Hewitt says that Mrs Merkel is, as usual, being cautious. She wants to explore ways of keeping Britain in Europe but ultimately she is committed to more Europe not less Europe.

In Washington, the White House welcomed Mr Cameron's "call to remain in the EU", saying it believed that the UK was stronger as a result of its EU membership.

rubato wrote: The Republic of Ireland has a better economy, higher std of living, and lower crime, and, as my wife is fond of pointing out; more literature Nobels/population.

British taxpayers provided Ireland with a 'back-door' bailout of more than €16.5bn through their capitalisation of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, it can be revealed.

Accounts for the banks' Irish subsidiaries, Ulster Bank and Bank of Scotland (Ireland), show that one pound of every four injected by British taxpayers into the two banks ended up in the Irish economy.

Between 2009 and 2011, RBS made "capital contributions" totalling €9.13bn to Ulster Bank Ireland, while Lloyds transferred €6.41bn to Bank of Scotland (Ireland), before dissolving the business.

London analysts have estimated that RBS transferred another €2.3bn last year.

RBS and Lloyds used the funds to write off billions of euro of debt loaned to Irish commercial property developers and households in the Celtic Tiger boom years.

After the onset of the crash in 2008, Ireland ultimately fell into a €85bn bailout which included £7bn from Britain.

rubato wrote: The French seem to have more balls than the UK now anyway; they took the lead in Libya and again in Mali.

On 19 March 2011, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to events during the Libyan civil war and military operations began, with US and British naval forces firing over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles, the French Air Force, British Royal Air Force, and Canadian Royal Canadian Air Force undertaking sorties across Libya and a naval blockade by Coalition forces. Air strikes against Libyan Army tanks and vehicles by French jets were since confirmed. The official names for the interventions by the coalition members are Opération Harmattan by France; Operation Ellamy by the United Kingdom; Operation Mobile for the Canadian participation and Operation Odyssey Dawn for the United States

In January 2012 a Tuareg rebellion began in Northern Mali, led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. In March, military officer Amadou Sanogo seized power in a coup d'état, citing Touré's failures in quelling the rebellion, and leading to sanctions and an embargo by the Economic Community of West African States. The MNLA quickly took control of the north, declaring independence as Azawad. However, Islamist groups including Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who had helped the MNLA defeat the government, turned on the Tuareg and took control of the North with the goal of implementing Sharia Law in Mali. On 11 January 2013, the French Armed Forces intervened at the request of Sanogo's government.

rubato wrote: and, as my wife is fond of pointing out; more literature Nobels/population.

This article includes a list of countries by Nobel laureates per capita.

09 United Kingdom 119

11 Ireland 7

15 United States 338

rubato wrote: The Republic of Ireland has a better economy,

Ireland's economic crisis is the most expensive and also deepest of any economy since the Great Depression, a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) report claims.
According to the Herald, the new IMF report says that Ireland is the only country in the world to suffer from fiscal costs, increases in public debt, and output losses due to a banking crisis.

Worryingly it also added that there is no sign of conclusion in sight to the country's debt crisis.

'Ireland holds the undesirable position of being the only country currently undergoing a banking crisis that features among the top 10 of costliest banking crises along all three dimensions, making it the costliest banking crisis in advanced economies since at least the Great Depression,' the IMF paper, titled Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update, claimed.

'And the crisis in Ireland is still ongoing,' the paper added.



Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irelan ... z2IrQy4BxN

The second graph compares Ireland with the UK. When the comparison is based on Irish GDP, it may be seen that we went way ahead of the UK between 1998 and 2007. After 2007 the Irish relative position deteriorated but by this measure we still remained almost 20 per cent ahead of the UK in 2011. When the comparison is based on national income the Irish performance relative to the UK is much less impressive. We drew ahead briefly between 2005 and 2008, but are now some 5 per cent behind.

Sean wrote:To be fair, we do both have the advantage of having been outside our mother's basements...

dgs49 wrote:UK already has "picked and chosen" EU membership terms - and rather profoundly, by opting out of the Euro.

Is this not too obvious? It is the Euro itself that is preventing Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy from rehabilitiating their economies by rational currency devaluation.