Did Davey do the right thing?

[John Skelton]

And

"Franco-German hopes for a sweeping new treaty to bind the region’s economies more closely came under strain on Tuesday as several European Union leaders warned of difficulties pushing a far-reaching pact through their national parliaments.

The pressure was particularly acute in non-eurozone countries, where at least four governments warned that the precise legal text would determine whether they could sign up to the treaty or otherwise join the UK on the sidelines."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d75ccb8-2...#axzz1gSRt7ovM

The pressure was particularly acute in non-eurozone countries, where at least four governments warned that the precise legal text would determine whether they could sign up to the treaty or otherwise join the UK on the sidelines. Officials in several of those countries said their most pressing concern was whether the new rules giving Brussels powers to police national budgets would be binding only to eurozone governments or to all signatories.

“Right now, there is not much more than a blank sheet of paper and even the name of the future treaty might still change,” said Petr Necas, the prime minister of the Czech Republic. “I think that it would be politically short-sighted to come out with strong statements that we should sign that piece of paper.”

Even inside the 17-member eurozone, cracks emerged, with Irish opposition leaders calling on Enda Kenny, prime minister, to allow a referendum on the new pact – a vote that would almost certainly fail – and pro-EU opposition parties in the Netherlands attacking the minority government of Mark Rutte, prime minister, for his handling of the deal.

“We need to get some clarity on what this treaty might include,” a senior diplomat in Brussels said. “There are so many unanswered questions.”

European leaders have repeatedly insisted the pact’s substance will not be tailored to get through national referendums or parliaments, but growing questions in national capitals could force their hand.

...


Meanwhile, British MEPs felt the chill of their new existence on the fringe of Europe, with parliamentary leaders vowing to challenge the country’s sacrosanct annual rebate from the EU budget and quipping that the UK would be “on the menu” next time it was at Europe’s top table.

It looks more and more like a spectacular mess that will 'solve' nothing even within its own terms of neoliberal reference, provoke further instability, and that it is in any case dubiously legal at best. What it does seem to have done, though, is to unite the rest of Europe against Britain. (Or what Cameron has succeeded in doing is to unite the rest of Europe against Britain, depending on how you look at it).

[Biffo]

Re: Cuts: 'Like the ones that have already been pledged by government and opposition (more or less) alike?' - no far more severe, at least £130bn according to (admittedly unsubstantiated) claim on the BBC website. In any case the cuts will have been decided by our own Government to meet its own targets not targets imposed by Brussels.

Last night's Newsnight (the third part) made gloomy watching. It discussed charts prepared by 11 economists (available on the Newsnight webpage). Briefly, the bits relevant to this discussion were: -

(1) The Eurozone has been dysfunctional since day 1 and is getting worse
(2) The markets now believe there is a 100% probability that Greece will default completely in the next 5 years

The program finished with tomorrow's (ie. today's) headlines, including the FT (see above). Well that 'accord' didn't last long.

And finally, from Robert Peston: 'The Italian central bank's net claims against the eurosystem have jumped from 57.5bn euros in August to 147.5bn in November - which indicates there has been significant capital flight in recent weeks (no surprise there)'.

Finally (again), news from Germany more discord:
'In a separate development, Christian Lindner resigned as general secretary of the Free Democratic Party, Mrs Merkel's coalition partner, amid dismal poll ratings and wrangling over an internal referendum on the eurozone deal' (BBC News)

[Lateralthinking1]

The Eurozone has been dysfunctional since day 1 and is getting worse

Blimey. It could almost be human.

[MrGongGong]

Surely this SHOULD be the end of this so called "coalition" ?
given that the Lib Dems joined in to try and get some of their "policies" implemented

so we have had

Electoral reform ........... abandoned for most of our lifetime
Engagement with the EU ............. abandoned in a hissy fit

what on earth is the point of them continuing with this gross charade of chummyness ?

I might even have a tiny bit of respect if Clegg stood up and said "we tried, we failed, lets start again"
but there seems no chance of that

It's deeply ironic that folk moan about the lack of EU "democracy" when we hardly have a "democratic" mandate in the UK anyhow .......

so time to call a halt to the whole sad business methinks

[french frank]

Surely this SHOULD be the end of this so called "coalition" ?
given that the Lib Dems joined in to try and get some of their "policies" implemented

Well, 75% of the election manifesto has been implemented, or is due to be.

so we have had

Electoral reform ........... abandoned for most of our lifetime
Engagement with the EU ............. abandoned in a hissy fit

If people were able to discuss the facts rather than restate their prejudices there might be some purpose talking about it. Clegg's view came out more clearly than any other party leader's. The party en masse abstained from the vote welcoming Cameron's action - and even that wasn't enough with the numbers against them, which should give an inkling of how much they can realistically hope to achieve; what they have achieved (e.g. pupil premium - rising again next year - to help poorer families; setting up the Green Investment Bank; raising the tax threshold to take lower paid people out of income tax) is in proportion to the influence they have.

what on earth is the point of them continuing with this gross charade of chummyness ?

I might even have a tiny bit of respect if Clegg stood up and said "we tried, we failed, lets start again"
but there seems no chance of that

No, you wouldn't have even a tiny bit of respect for Clegg; you will never forgive him for going into a coalition with the Tories, nor for the Lib Dems' about-turn on tuition fees - even though it's now generally agreed in political circles (i.e. by the Labour party too who have, post-election, revealed how much they would have raised them by) that tuition fees could not possibly have been frozen.

It's deeply ironic that folk moan about the lack of EU "democracy" when we hardly have a "democratic" mandate in the UK anyhow .......

so time to call a halt to the whole sad business methinks

Well, it looks as if you'll have a year or two more to blame Clegg for the recession, the crisis in the eurozone, climate change or anything else you fancy.

It doesn't matter who the politicians are governing us at the moment: the attempts at solutions are going to have to be pretty much the same. The idea that some sort of glorified 'Government of National Recovery' (or even the Labour Party on its own) will magically hit on the solutions is moonshine.


Add: One might also say it didn't matter what Cameron did in Brussels: though it would have made a more genuine case for him declaring that 'We're all in this together'. Which we are, as far as the EU economic crisis is concerned.

[amateur51]

Well, 75% of the election manifesto has been implemented, or is due to be.If people were able to discuss the facts rather than restate their prejudices there might be some purpose talking about it. Clegg's view came out more clearly than any other party leader's. The party en masse abstained from the vote welcoming Cameron's action - and even that wasn't enough with the numbers against them, which should give an inkling of how much they can realistically hope to achieve; what they have achieved (e.g. pupil premium - rising again next year - to help poorer families; setting up the Green Investment Bank; raising the tax threshold to take lower paid people out of income tax) is in proportion to the influence they have.No, you wouldn't have even a tiny bit of respect for Clegg; you will never forgive him for going into a coalition with the Tories, nor for the Lib Dems' about-turn on tuition fees - even though it's now generally agreed in political circles (i.e. by the Labour party too who have, post-election, revealed how much they would have raised them by) that tuition fees could not possibly have been frozen.Well, it looks as if you'll have a year or two more to blame Clegg for the recession, the crisis in the eurozone, climate change or anything else you fancy.

It doesn't matter who the politicians are governing us at the moment: the attempts at solutions are going to have to be pretty much the same. The idea that some sort of glorified 'Government of National Recovery' (or even the Labour Party on its own) will magically hit on the solutions is moonshine.


Add: One might also say it didn't matter what Cameron did in Brussels: though it would have made a more genuine case for him declaring that 'We're all in this together'. Which we are, as far as the EU economic crisis is concerned.

With hindsight, I tend to agree with pretty well most of what you say french frank but for your somewhat blasé view of the genuine outrage that people felt over the tuitions fees fiasco. That was an entirely predicatable own-goal, an opportunistic gamble that may have got them a seat or two but all it achieved long-term was to sour politics for an entire generation of young people who want to go to Uni.

Dare I mention Vince's indiscretion over his planned handling of the BSkyB bid? Still we now have the Leveson Inquiry to amuse, astonish and outrage us in equal measure

[MrGongGong]

Not wanting to go over old ground again !

75% ??????
Really ?

maybe I should have read it in detail but to me at the time it seemed that a closer relationship with the rest of the EU, long overdue electoral reform and a commitment (actually it was a PLEDGE) to a policy on tuition fees that differed from the Tories was something worth voting for !
the whole "its now agreed that the tuition fee thing was not viable" is no excuse for dishonesty

I don't blame the Lib Dems for the recession nor do I blame Gordon Brown either

is making Cancer Patients go to work one of the 75% ?

but I do blame him for being dishonest and complicity in a coalition that is intent on making the most vulnerable in society suffer whilst protecting their mates in the city

[french frank]

Not wanting to go over old ground again !

I'm more than happy to do so [ad nauseam, if necessary] - on a different thread . And, as we say now, '@amateur51' also ...

[MrGongGong]

I'm happy not to
and to agree to disagree

[johnb]

Even at this late stage I am still trying to understand what actually happened last week.

How would the proposed treaty have affected the UK?

Contributors to this thread have taken for granted that we would have been subjected to the proposed cap of 0.5% of GDP for structural deficits, punishments for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP and the requirement to submit their national budgets to the European Commission.

BUT

It has been reported on the BBC Website that the new accord aims to hold eurozone members to these strict budgetary rules and the UK would not have been affected by them.

OpenEurope website (hardly a Europhile organisation):
There was never any discussion of the UK taking part in the new ‘fiscal compact’ but merely whether it would approve the treaty change or not.

Then there are the measures that Cameron proposed to protect the UK's financial services industry: the proposed treaty changes didn't touch on those areas - the situation would have been unchanged. (Indeed, by not being in the room with the 26 the UK is now in a worse situation with regard to those areas that Cameron was wanting to protect.)

My only conclusion is that Cameron was determined to show he could repatriate some powers by holding the rest of the EU to ransom (as his backbenchers and members of his cabinet had been urging).

Even so, his negotiating strategy was just about as incompetent and crass as possible. His list of demands was only circulated within the tight Downing St circle, the FO was kept out of the loop, he didn't seem to enlist the help or advice of any of the people knowledgeable and experienced in EU negotiations, and he then attempted to bounce the other EU leaders at the eleventh hour.

Is it any wonder that he spectacularly failed to will over any other EU leaders and then provoked unanimous antagonism when he walked out part way through the negotiations? Mind you, it might well be that he never really intended to get an agreement and the whole episode was a charade as far as Cameron was concerned.

[Lateralthinking1]

Contributors to this thread have taken for granted that we would have been subjected to the proposed cap of 0.5% of GDP for structural deficits, punishments for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP and the requirement to submit their national budgets to the European Commission.

I accept that I might inadvertently have given that impression. It wasn't entirely clear but what was clear was the imposition on Eurozone members. That was enough for me.

As a European, it matters to me on principle whether democracy is being overridden in other European countries. Then there is the worry about consequential unrest and its potential impacts across Europe to here. Thirdly, the moment that was surely waiting to happen - a country saying that this must apply to the UK too, whether or not it has the Euro, for that would "be only fair".

As for the Foreign Office, it is difficult to comment. Was it lacking in its briefing? Did it tailor it to Hague and did Hague then have considerable influence on Cameron's strategy? We all know he appeals to the Eurosceptics. Then you have to bear in mind that O'Donnell is going. There is the feeling he is steering clear of any involvement in controversy and that no one is at the helm.

[aeolium]

It has been reported on the BBC Website that the new accord aims to hold eurozone members to these strict budgetary rules and the UK would not have been affected by them.

johnb, my understanding that it was primarily an accord applicable to the eurozone countries but that other countries were invited to participate and all except Britain agreed either to do so or to consider joining after submitting the accord to their national parliaments. If Britain had agreed and the accord had become a formal EU agreement then there could well have been calls for a referendum here (and elsewhere) since it would represent a significant departure from the Lisbon treaty. In any case it looks now as though there is much less unanimity over the accord in Europe.

I am puzzled as to what enforcement mechanism can be used to enforce penalties against erring countries, given that this accord cannot use the formal EU institutions (which in any case proved signally useless in enforcing the provisions of the Growth and Stability pact, which was broken by 14 countries including Germany and France). I am also puzzled as to the value of trying to enforce penalties against a country which has to increase its borrowing e.g. because of the collapse of one or more of its banks, a quite plausible scenario.

Hamish Macrae in the Independent argues that though there may be severe short-term problems, managed default may allow for a better chance of growth in the medium term. That might be a better option than trying to muddle through and ending up with disorderly defaults which seem inevitable if current policies are continued.

[Lateralthinking1]

Quote - I am also puzzled as to the value of trying to enforce penalties against a country which has to increase its borrowing

Isn't this much the same as UK banks charging customers 800,000% on overdrafts?

ie This week we are Greece and in a year we will be Zimbabwe (living conditions wise)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16002022

No democratic say. Anything could happen and it probably will.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i have been much persuaded by johnskelton's view that the voice of the people is absent and has no rationale in the midst of all this .... even the Torygraph is acknowledging the need to include the people previously known as 'left' ... ie pointing not only to their absence but their now almost total exclusion from power in the EU ....and speaking as a social democrat i despair of the Orange Book clique in the coalition ...

...what is clearer by the day is the utter irrelevance of the veto and the treaty template dave walked out on ....

[Lateralthinking1]

I am slowly and extremely reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the only way back here to social democracy or indeed democratic socialism is via UKIP. While my preferred option would be a radical reforming of the EU institutions as put forward by the Greens, that is an ideological position that just isn't going to happen unless there is force. In the absence of a threat - and actually I favour a threat ahead of any possible withdrawal because we have all been threatened enough now - a coalition in Government here with the Greens is probably more realistic than EU reform. That is how ideological reform is if not forced.

So what if force doesn't happen or achieve the desired objectives? What if Greens and other democrats just "hope" somehow to persuade? UKIP may be very to the right. However, they would allow democratic participation by all parties and those parties could, with separation, put in place their manifestos. Currently this means that they by proxy are also ironically to the left of almost everything else. According to the NYT, "Eurosceptics are a bunch of insular slobs who have a hard time restraining their inner Fascist". Maybe but how rum and indeed lame this seems given that unelected leaders are now in Italy and Greece.

Meanwhile American scholar Paul Gottfried has described what many people have been thinking. The left, whether here in the UK, in the EU or anywhere else, have managed to trash what was the wholly proper concept of political correctness. They are, he says, promoting in Orwellian fashion the 'politics of guilt', adding that today there are more Germans languishing in prison from "inciting the public" - on identity and 'Holocaust' issues - than there were in East Germany before the fall of Communism. If true that really is an absolute outrage and one that shows that it isn't only in economics where oppression is quite beyond the pale.

The old rightists and the old leftists are clinging to their old arguments and arguing among themselves what the nature of this modern totalitarianism might be. It is quite clear to me. Once we had a mixed economy and a balanced, open, culture. Now we have a mixed totalitarianism. It really is the worst of all worlds. The colour of systems is largely irrelevant. What we see is that those with power will always be too big for their boots and it is democracy that gets it in the neck every time. Regrettably, people are prioritizing the machines of nations and high street shopping. They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Perhaps particularly in the UK, with all the fretting about the economy, no one seems to give a hoot about Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos having been imposed on people Politburo or Nazi style. Take your pick, that is, if you are not currently in Tesco buying up for Xmas. This to me looks like a war. Ahead of any UKIP option here, and similar options in other countries, democrats should - already - be threatening to send the tanks into Europe on behalf of the Italian and Greek populations. They are the new oppressed. Peace is just not an acceptable place for any of us to reside in morally while these atrocities against humanity occur.