Chirac walks out of talks

[Mordac]

Thanks to some EU banking services directive whose name I can't remember I can transfer 1000 euros from a Spanish bank acc. to a Belgian one and pay 4 euros in charges, previously it would cost me 25 euros and take upto 4 days

And that's a good enough reason to pay £11bn a year for feck all in return?

[expat]

It's alright for you in Madrid, UK taxpayers are paying for all your roads. While you help yourselves to our fish.

That's because our politicians are stupid. Can you imagine the French sharing their farmland? That's what it corresponds to.

[expat]

Chirac walks

The French president, foreign minister, and finance minister stomp out because one of their businessmen is non-chauvinist enough to speak in the language of business. Are we supposed to take these clowns seriously?

[Shimano105]

This is why English people find it so difficult to learn another language - which other language would you choose to be understood worldwide?

Other countries know that learning English is the only way to be understood universally. God knows how many languages you would need under your belt to get by in Eurpoe alone if it weren't for a dominant language such as English.

Mandarin Chinese is probably your next best bet!

[DodgyAgent]

I say we stay put. The EU has done a few good things and up until Blair renounced the rebate, the reasons for staying in far outweighed leaving.

Such as ?

[DodgyAgent]

Thanks to some EU banking services directive whose name I can't remember I can transfer 1000 euros from a Spanish bank acc. to a Belgian one and pay 4 euros in charges, previously it would cost me 25 euros and take upto 4 days

I am afraid antman that this is all that most people see of the EU, there is so much more to this than transferring money, so come on give us some better examples of what the EU has done.

[Dundeegeorge]

I don't object to antman believing the EU

is a good thing.

I do object to him holding that opinion and having a vote at the same time.

(DG in 'as tolerant as islam' mode)

[The Lone Gunman]

Lone gunman I agree it is a vastly overrated talking shop, there is too much bureaucracy.

Explain the fisherman point though

We have always been a nation of fishermen with vast fishing fleets supplying the world from our territorial waters.
EU agreements meant we had to cede fishing rights to our waters and had to keep to fishing quotas so that other nations could profit. Other nations who had fished out their own waters years ago.
Our fishing fleets are tiny compared to what they once were and what was once rwasonably well farmed waters are now over fished by every other nation fishing its quota long after ours has gone.

I asked if you knew any fishermen as a I live in a coastal area where every tenth person you meet used to be a fisherman, this ratio is much greater in other parts of the country.

Just one example of the EU shafting the UK for the benefit of others.

[Antman]

DA, ok what, in your book, constitutes a valid example?

Dundee George, you know I think you've might have a point there

[Fungus]

Flash Gordon and the EU will between them shaft the UK by wrapping it in so much regulation that no-one can move without tripping over. The joke is that the French and other implement EU legislation but unlike us do not enforce it. Whereas if a UK dairy does not install expensive EU required equipment, it is taken to court.

Norway seems to have survived outside the EU. And there's no reason we cannot accept the trade related stuff and jack the rest.

And what about the 100K increase in unemployment due in (large?) part to Polish immigrants, and the shortage of housing due in (large?) part to ... you know the rest.