No they're not. They had a 13% budget deficit before they even joined the Eurozone and long before the economic downturn even. Which as they now admit to, they lied about to the EU. If there was ever a more blatant example of a country getting itself in a financial mess it's Greece.
In my eyes it was plain to see that at some point the weaker EU economies would drag the rest down I even studied the possibilities of it happening in 'A' level human geography in 1988/9, it's just quite worrying that as an 18yr old student I could see it coming when the Euro economy boffins can't. On the physical geography side I can indeed declare that we are definitely part of Europe but far enough away to stick 2 fingers up at you all and you not see us do it.
On the downside we have a load of Euros in our bank that I could have sold at 1.12 a week or so ago but was waiting for DSM to pay us a load more before I traded them..... Damn the Dutch.
There's not much the EU can do as the member states independently monitor their own banks and there still is protectionism galore even within the Eurozone. That to me is the irony of the EU debate. When things go wrong people blame the EU's increasing power while in fact it's their lack of power that causes problems.
DSM aren't doing so great at the moment. They're selling off a lot of their mass volume manufacturing businesses.
That entirely depends on context. When discussing the continent of Europe, of course they do. When discussing matters of the EU, it's inclusive of the UK.
This whole conversation is really funny -- whenever I am asked why I moved to London, I say "For work, as I always wanted to live in Europe for a while". To which every true Briton then says "If you wanted to live in Europe, why did you move here?"
You know what I mean Matt. In Britain, Europe generally is more 'them' than 'us'. I don't think the Brits in general feel they have a lot in common at all with the continentals. Which is a shame as you really really do. I know what I'm talking about, I'm married to one of your lot. Besides, as far as I know the last time the EU made it to say the BBC breakfast news it was about the European presidency and they talked about the Dutch prime minister being a candidate and they showed a pic of the Belgian prime minister. Can you blame us continentals for thinking that the Brits don't give a shite. I know this is the media and they're not necessarily representative of the public but still.
It's hysterically funny the way you people pick and choose when you're British and when you're English.
Actually, after 5 months living here, I can tell you the BBC cares a lot more about the EU than the general public does. But the EU (or at least the Greek bailout) is all over the BBC this morning. Word is Gordon Brown is about to save the world again.
Shouldn't the UK worry about their problems first?? Or are they diverting the attention so that British citizens don't start worrying about their coming financial collapse?? Booming public deficit (and not for 'social' reasons but to bail out private financial institutions) No industrial network Heavy reliance on foreign investments Privatized welfare No public properties Sky-high average private debt (clearly worse than having high public debt...unless you believe in mainstream macroeconomics) Little signs of recovery from the crisis London still losing importance as world financial capital
I wasn't talking about geography, I was talking about culture. But it's OT, I apologize for that comment.
Well we don't. Because by definition, "the continentals" is an amporphous mishmash of enormously diverse places and people. The issue is not misconception in the UK, but wishful thinking by some of these "contintentals". You have very little in common with someone from Portugal or Poland, above and beyond the usual facets of daily existence, but because you belong to this arbitrary "Club" you behave as though everyone from Galway to the Bosphorus is one big extended family. Not really, because we don't. I'm surprised they managed to narrow it down to any politician from any Benelux country. In fact, they probably only have the two photographs for the entire region - one for a generic Benelux male politician and one for his female counterpart. When Rompuy or whatever his name is was made EU High President and I asked some of my new Belgian colleagues about him, they couldn't really tell me anything either. Can you blame any other country's citizens?