Norway rejected membership of the European Union in a referendum in 1994, but participates in the single market through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. Erik O. Eriksen argues that while the referendum campaign was won largely on the basis of an appeal to democracy and the principle of the country retaining power over its own laws, the opposite has occurred in practice. He writes that Norway has become deeply entangled in the European integration project and is, for all intents and purposes, part of the EU, but without any influence.
In 2014, Norway celebrates not only the bicentennial of its Constitution, but also the 20th anniversary of the EEA Agreement as Norway’s permanent form of affiliation with the European Union (EU). This is a celebration with an aftertaste.
Although the language and symbolism of the Constitution today may appear archaic and odd, its principles and ideals remain modern and radical. The Constitution is therefore interesting, and not only for historical or nostalgic reasons. It is meant to have prominence. The Constitution defines the basis and boundaries of political power. It decides who will decide.
The Constitution of 1814 was important to establish and ensure national sovereignty. It firmly established the principles of independent rule and self-determination, and the democratic chain of rule was gradually established in accordance with the ideals of the American and French Revolutions. It was in the latter that the members of a European state came to be regarded as political and social equals for the first time.
Thereafter, a constitution came to be regarded as a horizontal union of free and equal citizens who govern themselves through law and politics. This interpretation is shared by all modern democratic states and has been fundamental for the European integration process. Only democratic states can become members of the EU.
The constitutional context, on the other hand, has changed radically. Since World War II, the main issue has not been how self-declared nations should rule themselves, but how they should avoid harming each other. This gave rise to an unprecedented experiment in integration: the EU.
Shared sovereignty
The EU system is organised so that the different ‘peoples’ of a community rule themselves through institutions to which they have direct access and through which they can exert influence. As a political system, the EU has clear experimental features since it establishes its own criteria of legitimacy while not being a state in itself. It is based on the same type of democratic constitutionalism that Norway adheres to. The very same ideals of popular sovereignty and human rights that were introduced by the American and French Revolutions and that inspired the Norwegian Constitution have produced a European order in which the states relinquish state sovereignty to ensure peace and increase their capacity to act.
In contrast to Norway, most other European countries have formally relinquished partial sovereignty to the EU through constitutional amendments. The EU countries have closed their ranks in international affairs, in locked-in supranational cooperation, and transformed foreign policy into domestic policy. They have pooled and shared sovereignty between them, and have gained co-determination of common matters in return. They have established a legal and political order, an internal market and a common currency. Europeans are free to travel, work, study and invest wherever they want. The abolition of borders and customs barriers, trade barriers and protectionism has made Europe the largest market in the world.
Responsible Norwegian politicians could not disregard this order and this market. Despite a majority of ‘no’ votes in the referendum on Norwegian EU membership in 1994, the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which entered into force earlier the same year was kept. This is the most comprehensive agreement Norway has ever entered into. The EEA Agreement provides access to the EU’s internal market for Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The agreement is continuously upgraded and expanded. A large number of issues are relevant to the free movement of goods, services, labour and capital. The number of EU legal acts, regulations and directives has grown at an exponential rate.
‘No legislation without representation’
The EEA Agreement has constitutional implications, because in reality it means that Norway participates in the internal market on an equal footing with the EU member states. Every government since 1994 has brought Norway closer to the EU, and a number of additional parallel agreements have been signed. These include agreements on border controls (the Schengen Agreement), asylum and police cooperation. Norway even puts troops at the disposal of the EU’s battle groups. Approximately three quarters of the legislation that applies to the member states applies also to Norway. New agreements have been established over time, and existing agreements have been developed and expanded. Their cumulative effects are large and convoluted.
When considering the volume of agreements, the way in which Norway is affiliated to the EU through the EEA Agreement and the establishment of new EU authorities and agencies to which Norway renounces sovereignty; we are not left with any clear impression of national independence and democracy. On the contrary: Norway has relinquished sovereignty in a number of areas through regular majority voting, it pays (through the EEA financial contributions) and is subject to EU law on the same basis as the EU member states.
Norway has surrendered sovereignty without having received anything in return in the form of co-determination that EU membership would have granted. In Norway, the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’ from the American War of Independence does not apply. On the contrary, Norway obeys and pays, but remains without representation in the decision-making bodies. The democratic principle of ‘no legislation without representation’ is breached.
Homogeneity and dynamism
The core of the EEA Agreement consists of rules pertaining to the four freedoms as well as competition law, government subsidies and public procurement. Certain additional legal areas are not directly related to the four freedoms, but help increase their effectiveness, as well as a number of so-called flanking areas. In the preamble to the agreement it is stated that cooperation shall ‘strengthen certain areas of cooperation, specifically research and development, the environment, education and social policy’.
The EEA Agreement is a dynamic framework agreement that does not need to be renegotiated each time the EU adopts a new relevant legal act. Instead, the agreement is updated on a continual basis to ensure that legislation remains uniform within the entire EEA. The dynamic aspect of the agreement is essential to maintain its main objective: conformity of the internal market. A homogeneity principle has been made applicable: i.e. the same rules apply to the EEA partners as to the EU countries. This requirement is embedded in the preamble to the EEA Agreement, but also applies as an unwritten principle for the Schengen Agreement and Norway’s other agreements with the EU. This means that Norway should not only incorporate EU regulations, but also interpret, enforce and abide by them in the same way as the EU member states.
The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) has direct authority in issues pertaining to competition, and makes decisions that have a direct impact on Norwegian enterprises, including fines that can be tried and confirmed by the EFTA Court. In these areas, ESA has powers similar to those of the European Commission. In practice, EU legislation takes precedence over Norwegian law. Norway cannot oppose EU directives without jeopardising the EEA Agreement. A right of reservation exists, but to date it remains unused.
Has the Constitution been overturned? No, not formally, since Norway can terminate the agreement and attempt to continue alone. This is not very realistic, however. For example, access to the EU market of 500 million inhabitants weighs heavily. No responsible politician can disregard this fact. The Norwegian example shows that it is impossible to live in Europe without becoming entangled in the European experiment in some way or other.
With this form of affiliation, Norway has in reality damaged its democratic chain of rule and achieved the opposite of the main objective of voting ‘no’ to EU membership. Self-determination, government by the people and democracy were the central arguments for a ‘no’ vote in 1994. The credo said that Norwegians should not be governed by laws other than those decided by the country’s own authorities. Paradoxically, however, voting no to EU membership and making the EEA Agreement our permanent form of affiliation have undermined Norwegian self-determination.
The integration trap
Norway has fallen into the integration trap, from which for the time being there is no escape. The way out through membership is blocked because of the prevailing EU scepticism. The EU is all but demonised in Norwegian public opinion, and no political parties have put a new referendum on the agenda. It will take a huge effort to change public opinion, and another solution than a referendum is unthinkable.
The other way out of the integration trap, termination of the EEA and the other agreements, is also blocked. In theory, Norway could protect her sovereignty and democracy by leaving the EEA and establishing a free-trade agreement with the EU. Evidence indicates, however, that Norway is blocked from obtaining a free-trade agreement similar to Switzerland’s. The EU has no interest in it and signals that more countries ought to join the EEA model, which is non-bureaucratic and entails little cost.
Moreover, Switzerland, which has a great number of agreements with the EU, seems to have the same problems as Norway in delimiting EU influence. This is because the EU is not an international organisation such as the WTO, NATO or the UN, which solves problems without infringing on the autonomy or identity of its members. The EU is a supranational unit that affects its members and changes their identity from being nation-states into becoming member states that pool sovereignty and share decision-making powers. The EU is not a regular inter-governmental organisation, the effects of which can be restricted. It is rather a quasi-federal organisation.
Incorporation without co-determination
The entire situation is disheartening. While the other countries of Europe convene around the same table to solve common problems, Norway must resort to old-fashioned diplomacy and lobbyism. The Norwegian Prime Minister must go on state visits to her colleagues in Europe to discuss Norway’s interests, whichever these may be now that foreign policy has been turned into domestic policy in Europe.
From a national point of view, it appears that Norway has lost sovereignty because of the European integration process. From a European point of view, however, it appears that Norway has rejected the opportunity for co-determination over the integration project in the belief that national sovereignty and real self-governance could be protected. Today, however, it is the EU that defines the framework for Norwegian self-governance.
For all practical purposes, Norway is part of the union, but has no influence. Norwegians must wait in the corridor when decisions are being made that affect them. This violates the entire idea of the enlightenment project and the European integration project. Here, everybody should be equal participants in the exercise of popular sovereignty: instead of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Germany got the status-raising Schuman Plan in 1952. The Germans were treated as equal participants in the decision-making bodies and were given co-responsibility for the reconstruction of Europe after the war.
Many Eurosceptics want the EU to go away. This is wishful thinking, however. No alternative project is in sight in the age of globalisation. With all its flaws and shortcomings, the EU is here to stay. It is ‘the only game in town’. Many EU critics in Europe have recognised this fact, and want to help improve the EU; to make it democratic and solidaristic. More Europe, not less, is their slogan.
However, as cooperation increases in scope and integration deepens, the problems that Norway is facing will grow. Norwegian democracy must lean on the EU for its legitimacy. In this country, the Norwegian Constitution is in fact being increasingly replaced by that of the EU. Norwegian citizens have become second-class European citizens.
Thus, in Norway we can speak not only of the impotence of popular rule in the sense that, like all other countries, Norway is subject to the effects of globalisation; but also of democratic self-harm since our form of affiliation is based on choices that could have been different, and that would have been less harmful in a democratic perspective.
The EU system is organised so that the different ‘peoples’ rule themselves jointly through institutions over which they have direct influence. The states have relinquished sovereignty, pooled and shared it among themselves to rule jointly, while Norway has opted to go it alone to ensure self-determination. This has incurred a loss of democracy, because we have renounced sovereignty without having received the compensation that co-determination provides. This is the Norwegian paradox.
For a longer discussion of this topic, see Erik O. Eriksen and John Erik Fossum (eds) Det norske paradoks: Om Norges forhold til Den europeiske union (The Norwegian Paradox: On Norway’s relations to the European Union), Universitetsforlaget, 2014
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. Feature image credit: Falk Lademann (CC-BY-SA-3.0)
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Erik O. Eriksen – University of Oslo
Erik O. Eriksen is Professor of Political Science and the Director of the ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo. His main research fields are political theory, public policy and European integration. His latest book is The Normativity of the European Union (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).
Switzerland has similar problems: a bit more room for manoeuvre than EU-member states, but no influence at all in the “uploading” of policies.
No one has any influence inside the EU unless they open up their cheque book to the blood sucking leeches that are permanently living of subsidies from the few net contributors. Those subsidy junkies out vote the contributors thanks to QMV. It is time everyone with any sense walked away from these leeches & left them to sink. The UK was always a net contributor even when it was a basket case economy on an IMF program in the 1970’s so there is no excuse for so many junkies still being hooked up to subsidies.
We’re talking about a situation in which you have some influence (the UK does relatively well in this study, for instance: http://bit.ly/WoU2Dd ) against a situation in which you have no influence (Norway).
This is really the key point for me when it comes to the EU. I’m no great fan of integration per se, but the single market is hugely beneficial to our economy. If we want to be part of it then it makes sense for us to have a role in creating the single market’s rules, not simply sitting on the outside like Norway waiting for Brussels to send us over our latest regulations/laws. If we don’t want to be part of it then 1) we’re writing off a large chunk of our prosperity overnight and 2) we’ll be de facto sucked into it in any case due to regulatory spillover.
The great myth that UKIP live off is the idea that by leaving the EU we can just sign a treaty and make everything in Brussels irrelevant. Norway proves conclusively why that isn’t the case and why being half in/half out is really the worst of all worlds. Much like the Norwegian experience, we’re being driven there by short-sighted rhetoric about self-determination and democracy, while ignoring the very real loss of self-determination and the far greater democratic issues that leaving the EU would entail.
If we join any EU institution we have to apply their rules in our own internal market. If we go go a straight trade deal either like Canada, Korea or Singapore we do not & if EU wants to sell to us they have to apply “OUR” standards to access it. If we have WTO rules (Best Solution) we will again have control over our own market place & have to apply EU rules to EU exports as we have to apply rules to meet US, China, India, Japan etc when we export to these regions. WTO tariffs are pretty minimal now and with a floating currency our trade will simply not be effected unless the EU wishes to lose access to UK internal market. We will at a stroke regain control of our skies & seas with all the benefits of same.
I’m going to try and be very clear about this because there are a number of fundamental misunderstandings in what you’ve written here. Let’s go completely back to basics. The purpose of the EU’s single market is to create compatible regulations across the entire market. This means that when a business in the EU wants to export to other EU countries it doesn’t have to confront 28 different rules, it simply has to comply with one. That’s a very valuable thing economically because it means businesses don’t have to pay transaction costs (i.e. having to adapt their product constantly to meet different rules) and it allows for a purer form of competition (because all businesses are competing on an equal footing). That’s the theory and in practice it’s worth a great deal to EU economies. We don’t *need* this, the point is that it’s *valuable* and we would be worse off if we didn’t have it.
Leaving the single market and not complying with these regulations in the UK would mean that we’d lose that benefit. We can’t simply replace it with “WTO rules” because there are no WTO rules that harmonise regulations to this extent across the world. We’re either part of the single market (and our economy benefits from it) or we’re not part of it and our businesses have to pay transaction costs and can’t compete on an even footing with other businesses in the EU. The point that EU businesses would also have to comply with our standards is completely irrelevant – that doesn’t change the fact that leaving the single market makes us worse off, it just means that we inadvertently also make other EU countries worse off.
Similarly, the point that we already have to comply with the standards in the US, China and so on is also completely irrelevant. We don’t have the option to pursue a single market with any of these countries, but we already have one in Europe. Leaving it therefore carries a real economic cost. We don’t *have* to be part of the single market, the point is that leaving it *costs us* something and you don’t just randomly lop off a chunk of your prosperity for no particular reason.
So on leaving the EU we would have a simple choice. Either we accept that fundamental loss of prosperity as a price that’s worth paying or, like Norway and Switzerland, we remain a de facto part of the single market, we maintain that level of prosperity to some extent, but we have to implement the vast majority of the rules that govern the single market without having any say over what they are.
It’s a simple choice and there is no easy answer to it. Pretending that somehow this dilemma doesn’t exist, and that we can leave the single market without it having any consequence, whatsoever, for our economy, is just a nonsense. We absolutely have to acknowledge that if we’re going to have an honest discussion about EU membership. I can’t be any more clear about that and I really hope you can take that on board before coming back with a response.
Hi Joe,are you perhaps pushing the proverbial uphill?
Jacob, please feel free to enlighten us with your thoughts on the subject, if you have any.
We comply with US regulations to export to America, We comply with Chinese regulations to export there, we apply Indian standards to export there & we apply other peoples standards to export there. Now you say we influence the agenda on standards in the EU, we don’t. We are one of 28 a voice diluted into insignificance by qualifies majority voting. Only 5% of the UK economy exports to the EU yet the other 95% of the economy has to apply its standards, why? to access a market that we can access with a simple FTA or WTO arrangement.
Much of what we export to the EU they have to take whether we are in or out of the EU, can you see Airbus planes selling without Engines or Wings? They come from the UK. Much of the volume of “EU” exports merely pass through the EU are are simply on their way to their customer via Rotterdam or Antwerp. Its fine to say 45% of exports go to the EU but that as a percentage of our GDP is 7% and after the Antwerp/Rotterdam effect that is less than 5%.
This country would have more influence from outside the EU club as the EU would have to come to the table to negotiate on a one to one basis with us and not hidden away in a corner & ignored. The EU would have to seek access to our fisheries & pay access rights & we could make our own FTA’s with any other country we chose & also with countries with some substance rather than the minnow’s the EU has negotiated with. Switzerland has more FTA’s than the EU does. We want FTA’s with China, America etc. Did you see the joy on the faces of the EU officials when they achieved a FTA with Canada? Singapore? South Korea? imagine their delight in securing a similar deal with the 6th largest economy in the world?
Do you believe the UK is less able than Singapore or Canada to secure FTA’s?
There are a number of underlying misunderstandings behind most of what you’ve written here. First, you keep approaching the subject as if you can simply replace the gains from the single market with a “free trade agreement” – as if there’s no difference between an extensive system for eliminating barriers to trade and a treaty that simply provides a framework for countries to reduce tariffs or other limited forms of co-operation.
This is a bit like saying there’s no difference between having a £100,000 a year job and a £20,000 a year job because they’re “both jobs”. Trading under a free trade agreement and trading in a single market which has eliminated the vast majority of barriers to trade are completely different situations. Fundamentally you don’t seem to acknowledge that there’s a difference between an agreement to avoid imposing tariffs and a system like we have in the EU for harmonising regulations and standards to remove barriers to trade. Everything you write in this discussion seems to imply that you think these two things are exactly the same and that there’s no extra benefit to eliminating trade barriers. That seems to be why you keep bringing up China and the United States – as some kind of odd “well we trade fine with them so why do we need the EU’s single market?” type argument.
Second, you’ve made statements about our influence in the EU without offering any evidence to back up your argument. I posted a direct link to a study of bargaining power in the EU which completely contradicts this and your response is simply to write “you say we influence the agenda on standards in the EU, we don’t”. You provide nothing to back that up beyond noting that there are 28 states in the EU. By the same token Germany is one state out of 28 so you presumably think they have no influence either? The statement “we are only one state out of 28 so therefore have no influence” applies equally to every EU state – therefore no state has any influence under your logic (an absurd statement).
Third you keep bringing the argument back to the idea of the UK’s negotiating power with the EU. Again that only makes any sense if we’re discussing some kind of free trade agreement. If the object is to alter the rules of the single market then the argument that we have more influence from outside is completely outlandish – as the Norway example shows.
Overall your argument seems to be based on the confused idea that what we really want is simply to avoid paying tariffs and that EU regulations are a kind of “cost” that we have to implement within the EU, but wouldn’t have to implement if we left. The implication being that we could just get rid of tariffs through a free trade agreement and get all of the benefits with none of the “cost” in terms of EU regulations.
This entire argument (if that is what you believe) is based on the misunderstanding that eliminating tariffs through a free trade agreement provides exactly the same magnitude of benefits as eliminating trade barriers through the EU’s single market. That’s the underlying misunderstanding behind virtually everything you’ve written in this comment section and until you acknowledge that it’s pointless even attempting to debate whether we should stay in or leave.
Of course I know the difference, with a single market you are shackled to one rule fits all & you can’t make arrangements outside of the EU umbrella without it being applied to the others that are sheltering under the umbrella. The UK is an enormous economy & well able to fight its own battles. If UK companies want to trade with the EU they have to apply EU standards just like they will have to apply UK standards like putting the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car & a three pin plug to fit UK wall sockets. In the grand scheme of things the EU’s significance to the UK is tiny you seem unable to grasp that only about 7% of UK GDP revolves around the EU and only 5% if you remove trade that simply passes through Antwerp/Rotterdam. their is no magnitude of benefits to the UK the single market doesn’t even cater for our largest industry and after 40 years of trying to make it so it is never going to happen because we have no say we are diluted by the other 27 in the community. Now, from without we can say you will allow us access to services or you will not be selling your cars r priced food to us without tariffs being applied & your trawlers will be told to steer clear of our waters, from within we simply cannot apply such pressure. We are Germany’s biggest export market & over night will be the EU’s biggest export market. Which bit of £65 Billion trade deficit don’t you understand? the boot is on our foot, it is our football to play with not theirs.
“Which bit of £65 Billion trade deficit don’t you understand?”
Again we have a popular soundbite founded on several misunderstandings. You bring this up for two reasons (I know because people throw this line out there regularly):
1. As a kind of odd attempt to pretend that EU trade isn’t actually that important to our economy.
2. As an attempt to argue that we would have some special leverage over the EU in a negotiation on the grounds that “we’re more important to them than they are to us”.
Both are simple misunderstandings. In the first case, having a trade deficit doesn’t make trade less valuable. For instance, we have a massive trade deficit with Norway in no small part because of oil imports. This is extremely important to our economy and it’s a relationship that we gain a great deal from: we get an incredibly valuable product at a reasonable price from a stable supplier.
Using your logic, ceasing to trade with Norway either wouldn’t matter or would actually be a positive development because we currently have a trade deficit. That’s clearly complete and utter nonsense – it’s the logic that comes from the widely held misunderstanding that you should view trade deficits with a country as simply “losing money”. This is something economics teachers generally try and drill undergraduate students out of in the first year of their studies, yet we still have to hear it regularly brought up in arguments like this one as if it’s some kind of insight into how trade functions.
The second point is based on the misunderstanding that the balance of trade determines your leverage/importance to another state rather than the volume of trade. Using that logic a tiny island nation with a trade deficit with the United States has more leverage in negotiations than the US government simply because it buys more American products than it sends the other way. By the same token, I should have leverage to go into Tesco and demand a reduction in the price of my groceries on account of the fact that I buy huge quantities of goods from Tesco but sell them nothing.
Both examples are simply flawed logic – and very common examples of flawed logic at that. What determines your leverage is volume of trade. In our case ceasing to trade with the EU would deprive us of 40-50% of our export market while it would deprive the EU of a much smaller percentage of their export market in the UK. Do you understand why the soundbite is therefore deeply misleading?
…I’m not even going to attempt to respond to everything you’ve written because it took six paragraphs just to illustrate the underlying errors in that one sentence. Let’s stick with this topic and see if we can at least have a normal discussion about it in which you can accept the basics of what’s been written.
We buy a lot of foodstuffs from the EU which can be sourced elsewhere cheaper & at a higher quality, we buy cars too that can be sourced more cheaply direct from none European countries. We buy so many European cars because we are tied to European standards. There is nothing wrong with Japanese standards and as they also use right hand drive cars it makes good sense to be importing from these destinations direct. We can spend our deficit where ever we like once we are free from the EU.
You were attempting to cite a trade deficit as a reason to trade with other parts of the world when, as I explained in detail above, logically that doesn’t make the least bit of sense.
Saying things like “there is nothing wrong with Japanese standards” also doesn’t make the least bit of sense. Who has the better standards is completely besides the point, what matters, as I’ve repeatedly tried to bash my head against a brick wall to explain, is that we all benefit from harmonising standards and reducing trade barriers. That’s what the single market does. Abandoning it would write a certain percentage of our current prosperity off. That’s why Norway is still de facto a part of the single market and it’s why we would almost certainly still be part of it even if we left the EU.
Everything else in this discussion – the confused misunderstanding of trade deficits, the conflation of tariffs with trade barriers, the quibbles about the Rotterdam effect – is completely irrelevant to the point being made. In the simplest of terms, leaving the single market entirely would damage us economically. Nobody, not even UKIP, is proposing this. If you want to argue that we should do this then start by acknowledging the cost of what you’re proposing and then justify it.
You can’t just meander around the issue throwing out random irrelevant soundbites about trade deficits, Japanese standards or any of the rest of it and think that classifies as a convincing argument for why we should damage our public services, create unemployment and damage growth simply to pay lipservice to some “attack the EU at all costs” brand of rhetoric.
No actually we don’t all benefit from harmonisation of standards. Big corporations benefit immensely as they can offshore production to mega complexes in low wage sphere’s cutting out jobs that would otherwise be taken on the lower scale of the employment ladder. These people simply end up being long term unemployed with their benefits subsidised by those that perform high income jobs, the drawback is they have to pay excessive taxes to fund the public purse which in turn pays people to be idle.
Where possible it is better for individual economies for manufacturing to be based locally & allow the few with brains to move around. I am not upset by our trade deficit I am saying we can make far better use of it by moving it offshore & out of the EU where goods, food & services are considerably cheaper. You seem simply to think that the world ends on the borders of the EU
Haha… the UK is an enormous economy… You’re a funny chap! Did you notice, that Moodys recently downgraded your bond rating? Besides cutting hair and doing fancy banking business, what is left of the UK’s economy? Your perception of the UKs economy reminds me of the picture the average Brit has of living in the most successful soccer nation on earth. Yeah.
You can fight your battle alone? I’m curious whats going to happen, when investors discover the UK as their victim to speculate on. With some 63 Million people you want to speak up against rising powers like Brasil, Russia, India, China? You want to defend our European values, our political system on your own? Well, good luck.
One comment on the importance of the rest of Europe to your economy: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/itis/international-trade-in-services/2011/sty-international-trade-in-services.html
How more successful Europe could be, if rich nations like Norway, Switzerland and the UK would put in some more skin into the European project instead of leaving all the work to countries like France, Netherlands, Germany etc. You just try to extract the benefits instead of trying to make this a better place. You’re selfish. Well, maybe you will soon pay the price, just like Norway.
Extract benefits? We have pumped in hundreds of billions even when we had a basket case economy & on an IMF program in the 1970’s & the country was on a 3 day week we were still a net contributor to the EU budget so don’t lecture me about contributing to the EU sunshine, we are not and have no intention of being one of the blood sucking leach countries that suck the life blood out of the precious EU project & on top of everything else these leaches want us to fund & run their defense so they can carry on bribing their electorate with social spending
I agree that the UK’s contribution to the EU budget should be remembered. The UK has contributed to the EU in many ways, not just through the budget and I think it’s unfair to portray us as all fundamentally Eurosceptic/unwilling to co-operate.
However a note on the budget is that we have to keep this argument in perspective. The budget receives a huge amount of attention in the EU debate in the UK despite the relative size of the contributions being quite small. In 2013, for instance, the total net contribution was equivalent to about 0.5% of GDP. That’s not an insignificant number, but it’s not the be all and end all of the argument.
That’s significantly less than, for instance, our 2013 spending on overseas aid (which is a humanitarian contribution, whereas the EU budget is partly about building infrastructure to make it easier to do business in the single market). It’s a drop in the ocean compared to things like the bank bailout we implemented from 2008 onwards (worth perhaps 30% of GDP), the annual interest we pay on our debt (about 3% of GDP) and so on.
There’s a narrative put forward by UKIP that our economy would see some massive boost in spending simply by removing EU budget contributions. Even ignoring the fact that this completely ignores the benefits of the single market to our economy, the simple size of our contributions makes that a nonsense. It’s an argument that seems to be perpetuated simply by UKIP quoting a silly estimate by the Bruges Group and rounding it down to “cost per day” to make it seem unfeasibly large.
@ Joe
If you don’t believe in the benefits of harmonising standards and regulations then you don’t believe in the benefits of free trade. You can’t argue for free trade yet argue against removing trade barriers (i.e. incompatible regulatory systems) that inhibit free trade. Either we support free trade or we don’t.
On the one hand you seem to support free trade yet you’ve essentially said here that you don’t support it on the grounds that it leads to companies outsourcing jobs.
Free trade is about zero tariffs & nothing to do with a single standard. A single standard reduces free trade as the biggest will always win out which leaves scraps to the minnows. Supermarkets will for instance have no issue with food standards & labelling while corner stores & markets will be wiped out because they don’t have packaging machines to display nutritional values of things like Carrots, Parsnips, Broccoli or a Potato. If you want to have access to an export market place you have to meet the local standards & if you do you can work away without the hindrance of protectionist tariffs.
I don’t care about jobs being outsourced, it doesn’t effect me in the slightest I am merely stating a fact about its practice which you are choosing to ignore
I’m not going to have a debate about whether trade barriers inhibit free trade. That’s like having a debate over whether a dam inhibits the flow of water. What you’re attempting to argue is something that you’d find contradicted in every undergraduate textbook on the subject in every classroom across the country. If you do want to do that then at least offer some kind of evidence for it instead of throwing it out there as if it’s some commonly held fact rather than a completely left-field statement almost everyone of any standing in the subject would regard as a basic logical error.
Feel free to read the basic guide on the subject produced by the WTO: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm
Since WW II the transnational West-based corporate media,scientific,political and academic spin machines have been churning out propaganda,research and academic papers for the express purpose of supporting an agenda with the goal to justify the means,ways and ends of corporate transnational controlled and owned global government.If you mean to argue against them,don’t fall into the trap of debating the issue on the grounds and arhuments provided by your adversary in discourse.The EU federalisation project is part and parcel of the WTO,Worldbank,etc.,etc.,global neo-feudal stitch-up.
The current EU reminds me of an overbearing and controlling Franchisor. The individual countries –franchisees -and Brussels need to re-think , review , reappraise , renegotiate the whole EU constitution to the BENEFIT of it’s member countries. Then a new Europe could immerge . Otherwise Bexit will be the beginning of it’s collapse. Europe should consolidate – but in a much more sensible and honest way -where member states get genuine benefits .There also needs to have checks and balances built in as there are many different countries with different abilities and different developments and different people.In other words plain common sense.