What effect has greece had on your decision to leave euro?

[unbeliever]

Read unbeliever's link, understand what it says, then revert back to my original post about this new £642m, and the ramifications of the EU invoking the EFSM to bridge-fund Greece for non-€Z member states lije the UK. Zero sum game. Balances on spreadsheets and in headlines, and no money actually paid out yet, nor likely to. It's not rocket science, but your bad faith borne from your Europhobia is making this hard work. Needlessly so.

 

 

Hang on a second. If a fund we've got shares in is used to bail out Greece and then the Greeks don't pay it back (which they won't), we've lost money.

Saying it's a balance on a spreadsheet doesn't mean it's not money which we could have spent and has gone. That's our money and we're going to lose it.

 

The £1.7b is has been collected from the UK citizenry and rather than being spent on things for us, it's going to be sent to Brussels. It's being given to somebody else.

 

It's the future. All money is just entries in a computer somewhere.

What on earth are we discussing here?

 

---------- Post added 15-07-2015 at 20:32 ----------

 

Edit-same @ unbeliever. Get back to me when the UK actually sends that 'cheque', and I'll happily resume on that point. Meantime, for the time being, you're both factually wrong.

 

I don't see why I should. We've made a commitment to pay. It's done. The government will already have adjusted their spending plans to account for the loss. This is all just silly.

[L00b]

Hang on a second. If a fund we've got shares in is used to bail out Greece and then the Greeks don't pay it back (which they won't), we've lost money.

Saying it's a balance on a spreadsheet doesn't mean it's not money which we could have spent and has gone. That's our money and we're going to lose it.

 

The £1.7b is has been collected from the UK citizenry and rather than being spent on things for us, it's going to be sent to Brussels. It's being given to somebody else.

 

It's the future. All money is just entries in a computer somewhere.

What on earth are we discussing here?

That £1.7bn hasn't been collected yet. You've admitted it yourself. Most if not all of it (or another budgetary obligation of the UK to the EU-same result at bottom of balance sheet) will be written off against the UK's share of the EFSM as a sweetener for the UK to let the EU use the EFSM to bridge-fund Greece. Denmark will get a similar sweetener. €Z and ferociously anti-Greek-bailout Finland and Balkans member states are gonna get even bigger sweeteners to get the Greek bailout voted through their national Parliaments. It's how the system works, and has worked for years and decades.

 

Edit-we're discussing Greece's bailout and, in this thread, its effect on British residents' referendum intentions. Topically, the EU's power relationship with non-€Z member states (the UK chief among them) has been diminished, because the EU needs to break legal commitments to them for bridge-bailing Greece through the EFSM. Means Cameron has Brussels over a (small, but real) barrel, for the hard of understanding. And, like or loathe him, I've yet to see Cameron fail to capitalise on just this sort of opportunity.

Edited July 15, 2015 by L00b

[unbeliever]

That £1.7bn hasn't been collected yet. You've admitted it yourself. Most if not all of it (or another budgetary obligation of the UK to the EU-same result at bottom of balance sheet) will be written off against the UK's share of the EFSM as a sweetener for the UK to let the EU use the EFSM to bridge-fund Greece. Denmark will get a similar sweetener. €Z and ferociously anti-Greek-bailout Finland and Balkans member states are gonna get even bigger sweeteners to get the Greek bailout voted through their national Parliaments. It's how the system works, and has worked for years and decades.

 

Edit-we're discussing Greece's bailout and, in this thread, its effect on British residents' referendum intentions. Topically, the EU's power relationship with non-€Z member states (the UK chief among them) has been diminished, because the EU needs to break legal commitments to them for bridge-bailing Greece through the EFSM. Means Cameron has Brussels over a (small, but real) barrel, for the hard of understanding. And, like or loathe him, I've yet to see Cameron fail to capitalise on just this sort of opportunity.

 

You're quote wrong. Our £1.7b is gone. Is was our money and now the EU is getting it.

They've taken our £1,700,000,000. Your double-talk does not change that.

 

Cameron failed completely to capitalise on his strong bargaining position when treaty changes were required to establish the ESM which they needed the UK to sign off on. He got us exactly naff all in return.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Stability_Mechanism

Edited July 15, 2015 by unbeliever

[L00b]

You're quote wrong. Our £1.7b is gone. Is was our money and now the EU is getting it.

They've taken our £1,700,000,000. Your double-talk does not change that.

Believe what you will.

Net borrowing for December alone stood at £13.1bn excluding banks, £2.9bn higher than in the same month a year earlier.

 

This increase was entirely explained by a £2.9bn bill owed to the European Union.

 

"No cash has changed hands yet, but the statisticians record payments in the accounts when they were incurred rather than when they were paid," Mr Wood said.

 

The so-called European Commission budget contribution is due to be paid in the coming months, but had to be included in December's figures in order to comply with statistical rules.

 

The bill's net size will be smaller than the gross sum according to the Treasury, at just £0.9bn after what the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates will be a £1.2bn refund and a £0.8bn rebate.

 

No money will be paid until the second half of 2015.

link, 22/01/15.

Cameron failed completely to capitalise on his strong bargaining position when treaty changes were required to establish the ESM which they needed the UK to sign off on. He got us exactly naff all in return.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Stability_Mechanism

Do you know the difference between the ESM and the EFSM? Because it looks like not.

 

Now, the British has made a ton of PR hay about the EU's plan to use the EFSM for Greece, because

in 2010, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron got the EU to agree that the emergency fund, the EFSM, would no longer be used to fuel massive bailouts for the 28 members of the EU.

...but, 2 days later, Osbourne is now considering OK'ing it?

 

Connect the dots.

Edited July 16, 2015 by L00b

[unbeliever]

Do you know the difference between the ESM and the EFSM? Because it looks like not.

 

My mistake, but the point stands.

[L00b]

My mistake, but the point stands.

The ESM is €Z-only, the UK is entirely unconcerned by it in any way, shape or form.

 

The EFSM is EU-wide. A fairly fundamental difference, don't you think?

 

Because the EFSM is EU-wide, and because Cameron is no dafter than any other North European country leader and knew all too well about the risks associated with the €-PIIGs (and France, longer-term) at the time, he got the EU to guarantee the UK in 2010 that the EFSM would never be used to bail out €Z member states. And the EU is now looking at using the EFSM to temporarily bail out an €Z member state and break that guarantee.

 

The UK has the EU over that barrel, and though we don't (yet) know what Cameron-Osbourne have managed to get out of Brussels a short time ago (expectedly yesterday when Osbourne was attending the Eurogropup meeting of FinMins), Osbourne's positive noises this morning make it sound like Cameron has extracted something just fine.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Or else the UK will (as usual) roll-over and let the EU empty our pockets again.

[unbeliever]

The ESM is €Z-only, the UK is entirely unconcerned by it in any way, shape or form.

 

The EFSM is EU-wide. A fairly fundamental difference, don't you think?

 

Because the EFSM is EU-wide, and because Cameron is no dafter than any other North European country leader and knew all too well about the risks associated with the €-PIIGs (and France, longer-term) at the time, he got the EU to guarantee the UK in 2010 that the EFSM would never be used to bail out €Z member states. And the EU is now looking at using the EFSM to temporarily bail out an €Z member state and break that guarantee.

 

The UK has the EU over that barrel, and though we don't (yet) know what Cameron-Osbourne have managed to get out of Brussels a short time ago (expectedly yesterday when Osbourne was attending the Eurogropup meeting of FinMins), Osbourne's positive noises this morning make it sound like Cameron has extracted something just fine.

 

I think you'll find that QMV will allow the €Z to overrule the UK on the use of the EFSM for this purpose. Not sure we can do much about it. We could withdraw from the EU in protest at their broken promise.

[Harrystottle]

I see that M. Hollande has been talking about the need for a Eurozone government (again).

With the French in charge and the Germans supplying the money, I suppose.

 

I wonder if this will be on the BBC news tonight?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

I think you'll find that QMV will allow the €Z to overrule the UK on the use of the EFSM for this purpose. Not sure we can do much about it. We could withdraw from the EU in protest at their broken promise.

...or just withdraw in any event. Who wants to stay on a sinking ship?