The European Union; Pros and Cons ?

Being firmly against the EU, I don´t want to start the whole thing off with a loaded question. I´ll even try to stay neutral as the topic moves on. But as Norway sooner or later seems bound to become a member ( the majority of the Parlament is in favour of Norway joining the EU, and has been for quite some time, but the people has voted 'no' twice ), I thought I should open my ears to those of you who already live in the EU.

Let the debate commence. :smok:

 

Personally, I think the EU might be more popular if it actually told people what it did...

 

i think the EU would be more popular without France :lol:

 

......hilarious!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Any reasons for that??

 

Given the backlash against the constitution and ever increasing control, Norway may join just as the whole thing falls apart.

 

Maybe, but the simple fact that it is so demanding on the individual to keep him-/herself updated on what the EU are up to should itself turn on the warning lights for most of us ( not very neutral, sorry ).

 

But what does it do?
What is its role?

All that we hear about is regulations governing the curvyness of bananas, or large amounts of tax going there, or the fact that their budgets never, ever add up, and that auditors are not allowed to follow up the fact that large sums of money seem to vanish every year.

 

It has been a customs union greatly advancing trade within its borders because of the lack of tariffs. It has become mostly a charity organization sending money from the West to the East and from tertiaory to primary sectors of the economy in an attempt to ensure that Europe might still produce something half a century from now.

I don't know what to think of it but from here it seems like much ado about very little indeed. The customs and monetary union might be advantages to trade but as far as I'm concerned, unity need not and probably can't even go any further than that.

 

I can see the advantages of the customs and monetary union, but what about the demographic challenges connected to the open borders ?

 

All those bloody Norwegians streaming into Newcastle (or is it the other way round).

:smok:

 

At least this time they are spending money , not raping and pillaging.

 

Didn't Harold put an end to that??

:smok:

 

Norway should stay out. Unless it can find a way of guaranteeing that it will receive more money in subsidies than it is charged in levies.

Or just behave like the French (No offence) who carry out the directives that benefit them & ignore the ones that don't!

 

I have a question about the Euro.
Now, I do not pretent to fully understand the niceties of economics.
How can many countries share the same currency, when previously their individual currencies had different (and constantly changing) relative values?

 

They "fixed" their currency to Euro, therefore there was fixed changerate bethween euro and national currency and no changing relative values.

For example, here in Finland you needed 5.945 FMK in order to get 1 Euro. I'd liked it more if it was 6 FMK sharp but this is within 1%.

 

I understand how they started it off, but as each country has different economies, and would normally have fluctuations in the relative value of their currency (for example, 1 DM = 2.5 Francs one week, but next week 1 DM = 2.7 Francs), how does that work???

 

After you fix your currency to Euro, you use Euro in your international transactions etc.
Your economy is based on Euro, you just used your national currency in every day shopping etc. After all, papermoney and coins are just pieces of paper and metal sheets.
Major change wasn't that 2001/2002 change to Euro coins etc, it was when we fix our monetary system to Euro.

 

I think I need more explanations.

First up - why do different currencies change their relative values?
And why is this effect negated by simply saying 'we will have the Euro, it will be worth the same as a Greek Euro'?

(oh, and thanks for your answers so far Notmi )

 

Argh, you are asking too hard questions (its been 14 years when I last time studied economy. I was 15 back then...). If I remember correctly, Castelot does know a lot about EU, lets hope he'll give you better explanations.

But I try to give you some answers. Like you said, our Euro is worth same as a Greek Euro but it doesn't mean you can have same amount of stuff with it in different countries. In Greek you might get a bottle of wine with 7€ while here in Finland it could cost 15€.
But that doesn't answer your question, I just wanted to use that example showing how ridiculous expencive alcohol is here in Finland (Skua, I know, it cost even more in Norway).

If I remember correctly, after joining EMU (European Monetary Union?) each country had to maintain their economy in certain pace, in order not to have too much pressure on currency exhangerates (as they were fixed).

I think I have to stop here because my other "ideas" how to explain this aren't based on very good knowledge and could very well be wrong.

Your welcome, pleasure is all yours

 

Sorry if I made your brain hurt!