Have just watched the BBC Weekend News, covering the rift between Boris and Dave re ‘Sovereignty’, etc…but for me the most interesting bit was the complicated and potential confusing statement by Wolfgang Schaeuble…and I quote, verbatim…
"You are either in the single market, or you are not, and if you are not, then you have trade agreements.
Of course, there are countries within Europe, that are not part of thesingle market,but they still have to pay into the budget of the community and accept the free movement of people, so actually, they have all the disadvantages of the common market and they are not involved in the decision making process of the internal single market’.
Hmm…So surely that means that whatever happens they can’t make things difficult, boot us out and tell us to ‘go home’, when and if the time comes. Well that at least is some relief…Of course there is still the problem of whether IDS or someone of his ilk, will refuse us our state pension increases (surely this is interfering in the notion of ‘free movement ?’).
The other thing that occurrs to me is - does he know his stuff, is this legally correct ?
I don't see why you should find it offensive Evans unless of course it were to apply to you. We all know of the type that John refers to. One who mutters about immigrants in the UK but is too thick to see that they are the immigrants here. If you really believe voting to leave the EU will help UK to a golden future then you ought to look up a few facts try this page for a start http://infacts.org/
I believe that the DSM referred to is "Deux-Sevres Monthly" --- a free English language magazine published in the west of France.
Hopefully this link will take you to the current issue of the magazine which is being referred to, and then it is necessary to flick through the pages to Page 46 :-
Certainly a must read document for anyone living permanently in France who is any way concerned about health care provision. The article is reasonably comprehensive in detail, and explains the new system brought in on Jan 1st 2016. The reader will see that a form S1 is no longer necessary in order to be able to obtain care from the French State Healthcare system.
I think 9% (or is it 8?) is always significant Jonathan, regardless of circumstances. I’m comfortably off and can afford it but I don’t want to pay twice, once through a lifetimes’s contributions to my “competent state” and again on an ongoing basis to the French system.
The difference between having an S1 as a retired person and joining the French system directly will be 9% (I think) social charges on pension income above the statutory limit. This may or may not be significant depending on people's circumstances.
If you look at page 46 in the DSM March edition The law changed 01/01/2016 Anybody working or living permanently can now enter the French health system without the need of an S1 from Britain.There is proof of living here permanently needed.The article explains it in detail Hope this helps Dorothy Escott
Interestingly Jeremy I was talking to a senior MNC exec the other day and he told me that his company was embarking on a serious European redundancy programme. This Company has a significant presence in quite a few EU countries but they have decided to execute the lions share of the layoffs in the UK. Why? Because in their opinion the UK has the weakest employee protction laws and the lowest redundency payments. So union “flexibility” works both ways. I also note that the number of UK zero hours employment contracts (which I regard as a scandal)has risen to over 800,000. That’s a lot of people supposedly “employed” but really surviving day to day. While I’m not a fan of unions in general and accept that in France they hold too much power, the UK laissez faire approach isn’t correct either and can, unintentionally, actually loose jobs, as in my example above.
Dead on Robert, now all the UK has to do is downsize the population by around 85% then find oil, like Norway or retrospectively emulate centuries of Swiss fiscal prudence - good luck with that
I must admit that I am struggling to understand why you would think that being a country outside of the EU, and being extremely wealthy as a country, is actually a BAD thing ? I don't doubt what you say about Norway and Switzerland being wealthy countries, but perhaps their wealth has come about precisely because they are NOT in the EU. Seems to me that from what you say, the UK should definitely leave the EU as soon as possible, follow the Norwegian / Swiss model, and rapidly become a lot wealthier as a nation as a result. Were the UK's net contribution to the EU budget of 23 Million Pounds a day to be placed in our own Sovereign Wealth Fund, then perhaps our country would be a lot wealthier than it is now.
Good idea Jeremy. I'll happily second your proposal to elevate Mr Farage to a Knighthood, and hopefully we will be sending our letters of recommendation to Prime Minister Johnson.
At least Boris Johnson is prepared to admit when a cock up is made. Makes a refreshing change from all the other seemingly Teflon coated politicians who can never even think of admitting that a mistake was made.
The links that you referenced make interesting reading but only refer to a very limited range of goods. When comparing buying power variations of a currency over a long period, it is necessary to use a much broader based index that includes such things as the cost of transport, housing, clothing, food, and energy etc. Using goods that attract Excise Duty, such as Intoxicating Liquor, Road Vehicle Fuel, or Tobacco goods to make a comparison is particularly treacherous ground, as the unit price is hugely affected by taxation issues decided by the Chancellor. I am sure that you are aware that in the UK the price that is paid by the consumer even includes VAT charged on the Excise Duty. Therefore it is generally the case that the more reliable inflation indices exclude these excisable items.
I’m sorry if you became somewhat lost in the complexity of the calculations I referenced previously, but unfortunately that complexity is inherent to obtaining a result which has true meaning, especially when comparative buying power of one currency in relation to another is being calculated over long period of time.
The bottom line of all this is that over the 50 year period from 1966 to 2016, the buying power of the British Pound in Germany has actually increased by 6.9%, and so I don’t think that I can agree with the claim that it is the British currency which is ‘in a mess’, or that the value of Sterling has depreciated or declined over that period in relation to it’s buying power in the German economy.
John and Hilary- in our life times we have seen several so called giants of the UK being absorbed by larger, more aggressive companies from Europe. I have several friends who started their working lives working for standard bearing companies such as Willis Faber, various London merchant banks, insurance companies etc and finding that eventually worked for a German company. I have been around for so long that I can admit to having worked on projects for that old lame duck British Leyland in the 70s. The then UK government squandered millions on trying to keep the fundamentally corrupt company going. Remember Canute? However I firmly believe that the British nation can take a leading role in Europe providing it choses to do so. On its own I fear that there are far too many other larger groupings which will do better, but I fully agree that financial success is not the only measure of a system that works.
