If only Brits were as smart as the Norwegians

[gingerjedi]

Are you saying the EU can take money from member states' pension pots?

According to the hysteria whipped up by our press every time the UK edges closer, it's part of the grand plan.

[Mich the Tester]

According to the hysteria whipped up by our press every time the UK edges closer, it's part of the grand plan.

Oh right, yeah, the Truth according to Daily Mail.

The EU haven't nicked anything from my pension fund. Banks and insurers, not restricted by any kind of effective legislation, have taken huge margins from my contributions and left me with a pretty weedy fund though. Trouble is, no government dares to regulate the banks effectively because they're scared that the big banks will then move their head offices elsewhere, taking the revenues with them. I can't see any effective banking supervision working without international cooperation, at least at European level. Now the EU is far from ideal, but at the moment it's what we have for dealing with things that are too big for national governments to handle or involve cross-border affairs. Like it or not, there has to be close cooperation in Europe on a whole range of issues like the financial system, organised crime, environmental issues, migration issues, transport issues, defence at Europe's margins/borders etc; at the moment that cooperation is primarily through an inefficient apparatus known as the EU; maybe there's a better way to cooperate, in which case I'd be delighted to hear it. Maybe the EU just needs significant reform.