Fed up with European directives?

[tzijlstra]

There is NOTHING positive about the EU .

 

You are confusing the EU with your contribution to this forum. Have you explained why yet? Without falling into the typical Sun headlines of course.

[Nagel]

Pete, there already was a thread on this, not sure what it was called.

 

Anyway, England already imports most of its energy, doesn't it make sense to start becoming self-sufficient?

 

Why does it make sense to become 'self-sufficient'? What does the phrase 'self-sufficient' mean anyway? If you look at the situation globally, then we are already self sufficient.

[The Joker]

You are confusing the EU with your contribution to this forum. Have you explained why yet? Without falling into the typical Sun headlines of course.

 

Look, you just don't understand it, do you?

 

The main cultural and social difference between the Dutch and the British is that:

 

You have forgiven the Germans for World War 2.

 

We, on the other hand, have not.

 

And we're unlikely to do so for at least another generation yet

[tzijlstra]

Why does it make sense to become 'self-sufficient'? What does the phrase 'self-sufficient' mean anyway? If you look at the situation globally, then we are already self sufficient already.

 

There is a limited supply of electricity, limited by the amount that can be generated for the national grids of the world by plants, limited by the amount of natural fossil fuel that can be used in them. As the world develops there are more and more people using more and more electricity and we are increasingly seeing the capacity in Europe decline because it can be produced cheaper abroad.

 

Although it might seem the world is self-efficient, the rapidly developing countries (China, Brazil, India, Africa and South East Asia) experience regular power shortages, they will keep increasing capacity to meet demand, not imbued by green philosophies that we have here, nor by elaborate taxation, in other words, accelerating the use of finite resources.

[PeteMorris]

As a Dutch citizen I see/saw it as my democratic duty to be informed of what my party does and doesn't do. I have slowly got used to the cumbersome UK system which is designed to steer everything through 'local representation' in the form of MPs although these MPs seem to have little to no real influence in parliament.

 

There has never been an easier time to stay up to speed with what your democratic representatives do than now. I suppose it helps I have been trained as an EU-information specialist a decade or so ago whilst being part of the EU Information Point for my province in the Netherlands, that doesn't mean that I don't think everybody should have at least some notion of what their government is up to, something that is sadly lacking in our society.

 

 

 

Because the EU is a big organisation there are various complications to how law is formed, there is the phenomenon of bargaining: I will vote yes for this if you vote yes for that and so on.

 

All new EU law is co-decided by the member states AND the EU parliament, none of them come from the EU alone. Laws are not the result of a single person forcing through a topic, there are simply too many parties to work in that manner. What happens is that, for example, the British Labour party wants to see an amendment to the regulation of working-hours, they talk to their French, Italian, Polish counterparts who agree and together they form a majority in the PES (Party of European Socialists) who then go to work on the other parties in the EU parliament whilst the national parties lobby their respective governments to support something. Once this process completes new directives are issued.

 

All new legislation is proposed by the EU Commission which is in fact all heads of state, this is why EU summits like the recent one are so important, this is where new ideas are brought forward and handed over to the administrators to turn into practical proposals that stand a change to go through parliament.

 

If that sounds cumbersome, that is because it is, one big issue the UK (and other sceptics) keeps blocking is to streamline this by directly electing a council or linking the appointment of this council to the Parliamentary elections. Apparently this is too much centralisation so we are stuck with the creaky system we have now.

 

PS: You can literally find ALL documentation related to these summits and practically all Parliamentary debate on the EU websites, it is incredibly transparent although dense and huge.

 

WOW...that was a hell of a post! But it makes me understand why you are so Pro-European...You worked there!

 

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it just makes me understand where you're coming from, and also explains your avatar

 

I can see that you think the whole EU thing is incredibly transparent, but who the heck would want to trawl through all of it? I certainly don't, and I don't suppose many other people would. You say you 'follow' your MEP...That's fine if that's what you choose to do. I don't have a problem with that either.

 

I've been berated by others for my lack of knowledge and understanding of how it all works, and that's fine. Someone even said educate yourself in how it works. By extension, that means effectively that you have to have a full in depth knowledge of every single nuance and fact about everything before you venture an opinion on this forum. That's clearly not going to happen.....is it?

 

Why on earth would I keep tabs on what's happening in the EU decision making process, when effectively there's nothing I can do about it anyway...(Yeah I can hear the keyboard warriors already saying yes you can...vote your local MEP out.....At the end of their term there?) Also, with you telling me that a lot of back room bargaining goes on....You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours....That sounds an awful lot like it's wide open to corruption..Yeah...Sorry, it's the cynic in me creeping to the fore again.

 

It doesn't inspire me to agree with the EU, or have faith in decisions which like it or not, good or bad get foisted onto the unsuspecting majority of the populous, once they've already been agreed.

[L00b]

<...> Someone even said educate yourself in how it works. By extension, that means effectively that you have to have a full in depth knowledge of every single nuance and fact about everything before you venture an opinion on this forum.<...>

That someone was me, and absolutely not: I suggested that you look into it, to gain at least some of the understanding which you claim to lack entirely, so as to inform your opinion at least a bit instead of just posting (someone else's earlier-) nonsense.

 

It's laudable to be curious, but what sets us apart from animals is that we have the cognitive capacities to sate that curiosity. Especially in this day and age of instant-on-everywhere-Internet. So make the most of your humanity

 

...Or are you happy to keep letting others do your thinking for you?

Why on earth would I keep tabs on what's happening in the EU decision making process, when effectively there's nothing I can do about it anyway...(Yeah I can hear the keyboard warriors already saying yes you can...vote your local MEP out.....At the end of their term there?) Also, with you telling me that a lot of back room bargaining goes on....You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours....That sounds an awful lot like it's wide open to corruption

That is how politics work, always have, always will, the world over.

 

Why do you keep asking/posting about "the EU" and "Westminster" and "law making processes", when clearly there's no point whatsoever since you consider it all to be cut-and-dried dishonesty all-around?

 

You're not trolling us, are you?

[PeteMorris]

Hahaha...Absolutely not Loob. I'm not trolling. Although I do suspect others might be!!

 

I merely expressed my opinion in the first post and immediately got jumped upon. You'll also find that that there's an awful lot of lurkers watching this thread and agree with me, but are not too keen on saying so, for the very reasons that they get jumped on by the 'intellectual squad', who routinely savage anyone who has the temerity to venture their own opinion.

[andyofborg]

Look, you just don't understand it, do you?

 

The main cultural and social difference between the Dutch and the British is that:

 

You have forgiven the Germans for World War 2.

 

We, on the other hand, have not.

 

And we're unlikely to do so for at least another generation yet

 

You might not have but most of the rest of us have.

[L00b]

I merely expressed my opinion in the first post and immediately got jumped upon.

Not by me you didn't

 

Though you later posts did get to me a bit: I don't ever expect posters to take my word for it, but then what I do expect when posters disagree with my posts, is that such posters who don't know much at all about the topic (and openly say so, FGS!) research it at least a bit for justifying their contrary opinion, instead of just burying their head in the sand with their fingers in their hears and wallow in prejudice. Otherwise, I might as well debate the topic with a brick wall.

You'll also find that that there's an awful lot of lurkers watching this thread and agree with me, but are not too keen on saying so, for the very reasons that they get jumped on by the 'intellectual squad', who routinely savage anyone who has the temerity to venture their own opinion.

I'm quite certain of it. Though I'd like to think that I debate, rather than "savage"...the same as e.g. tzijlstra and many others, AFAICR we haven't ever insulted genuine posters.

[andyofborg]

Is there no possibility whatsoever that, 'we' couldn't have thought of these things (ie Westminster).

 

Most of the advancements in employment protections which have happened in the last 40 or so years have arisen from the EU. The one exception which springs to mind is the minimum wage.

 

While they may have thought of it, I very much doubt any government would have introduced such legislation if left to their own devices, indeed the general thrust of the Tory (and UKIP http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/ukip-workplace) desire for employment legislation seems to be to reduce employment protections to nothing or even less.