After Brexit, Northern Ireland may obtain a special status in the EU

It's the universal state, the individual actors within the state start squabbling and jostling for power while ignoring the real problems at street level..

I would rather think they are squabbling and jostling because of the problems...

But it's hard as the EU isn't anywhere near of being a universal state and hence Brussels can't solve most problems on the member states streets. The govs have to still do it themselves...some members are more successful than others, but that varies.

It fulfills the requirements in Toynbee's typology (or is getting closer and closer) the lack of creative responses by the elite (to self-inflicted problems like the Euro) is another symptom.

I think it did, because if you look at areas like Strasbourg today, the whole cross-border area is integrated economically. This should have been the goal, but at the same time, it really made no sense to try and integrate traditional basketcase economies like Italy, Greece or Spain into it. They weren't (and aren't) ready for the financial discipline needed, and should have been left out until the Eurozone had a single budget.


Hard to see what else can be done except continue vast amounts of transfers, and it's a terrible solution. The Greeks, Spanish, etc. will never accept German oversight over their budgets, and to be honest, the best thing that could happen would be Italy, Greece, etc. crashing out of the Euro and leaving them to run their economic policies. But of course, the exposure that the 'strong' Euro countries have is also a problem...

Considering the hubris of the architects of the Euro and their failure to take even basic economic precautions.... it's in the interest of the EU (also in terms of social solidarity etc etc etc) to ease Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy (at the very least) out of the Euro with as soft a landing as possible.

My real thought is that those responsible for its introduction belong in jail for the human misery they brought about through their shortsightedness but I'm a utopian that way. Again, Toynbee's universal state and a disconnected elite worried about maintaining their privileges over the health of the societies they're supposed to be running...

So in the case of greece you are ignoring the massive work fraud and compensation fraud and outright laziness, same in italy not to mention constant unstable governments, 20 other problems. You are just calling it the euros fault? This is the most ludicrous economic bs i have ever seen, are you a greek conman?

There is plenty of blame to spread around to all sides. That said, it's in the interests of the entire EU for southern service economies to have some chance for growth. Otherwise they just become emigration economies (like the Philippines) with permanently crippled economies and dwindling homegrown populations to be replaced by......?

The current status quo is not a viable option and there's no way for the southern countries to ever got on track without drastic restructuring of the Eurozone

"Back on track" to what? Do you have an idea about Greece before the Euro? They still used donkeys on their streets ffs...

Fewer suicides? Less emigration? Some kind of economic hope? If you're serious about the EU (beyond being a tool of Germany hegemony) then you need to try to find solutions that aren't simple German hegemony run amok.

Transfers and fiscal policy that works to some extent for everyone rather than treating the rest of Europe as an economic satrapy.
The Euro can never work for the southern countries (unless you want to maintain them as a source of low income labor). What's next?

I think you have it backwards...Countries like Greece and Portugal had been dirt poor backwards places whose only richness were the youth they send out in search for better life year after year...

These countries WANTED the Euro...they drooled alone at the thought to have the same access to the money coffers as Germany did...heavily supported and directed by France btw. It's proven now that at least Greece cooked their books to fulfill the absolute minimum standards.

They are no victims in this game!

The whole Euro was never a tool for German hegemony, quite the contrary it was cooked up by the French to chain the german economic power. Because believe it or not Germany doesn't need the Euro for european hegemony!

So you think of the southern countries just as sources of cheap labor.


they believed the propaganda by the lying mad architects of the Euro


very true, but don't expect other European countries to ever like or respect a Germany that holds them in such contempt.

You repeated that more often than me...especially with the meaning that they had been more than that before the Euro and that the "mean Euro" made them do it, which just isn't true. As I said, before the many billions out of the EU support funds flowed southwards and before they could help themself so cheaply to so much money alone through using the same currency as mighty Germany, they still used donkeys on their non-existent dusty streets.


Oh please...THE LIED TO GET IN!


What contempt? For what? To be the most powerful economy on the continent? "If Germany sneezes Europe get's a cold"...it's not our fault that with economic power comes alot of other power, wanted or not.

And believe me most Germans have absolute no appetite for any kind of real power in Europe...we don't see ourselves as leaders...we just want to work, produce and sell our stuff in quiet and be left alone. It's the French which want all the glory so desperatedly...they can have it!

Should Germany make itself poorer to gain your respect?

You have really curious arguments...

And everybody knew it. _I_ knew Greece was lying before the Euro was rolled out. And then later they're acting shocked as if they had no clue? Those in charge of rolling out the euro share responsibility.

The Euro might work on a very restricted basis in a few countries but it can never work in southern service economies.


Its the universal state - it always fails because individual members put their own national well-being over the community. Nothing wrong with that as long as you realize that's what they're doing. The EU's responses to the Eurozone and migration crises and Brexit have been and continue to be stunningly inept. And it's why the EU will ultimately fail. Who has any confidence that the EU will act in anybody's interest but Germany's?

Maybe that argument will now become the mainstay, but maybe just maybe these experiences had to be made. The Euro was a first, errors were and still are expectable, there was nothing much to fall back on.

But imagine that in the beginning Germany saying to Greece and others:

"No, you can't have it, you are not good enough. You are nothing like us selected few successful countries and you never will be".

It wouldn't had gone down well I guess, but now a restructuring of the Euro, with these lessons learned might be possible.


You keep mentionig that, from some Toynbee...must have been good reading stuff! :)

I'm not sure what's innit but when I think about the future of the EU I think more along the lines of a United States of Europe. The United States of America had been also not that "exceptional" country as we know and love/hate it yet from the beginning....

But it works because one Montana or Alabama or Florida or Iowa etc. alone would be weak and alot poorer...but together with the 50 other states they are the most powerful and rich country on Earth.


Compared to whom?

That's already gone bust. No functional common currency no united states.


And they have lots of features that just don't translate to Europe without the mass destruction of local cultures, languages and institutions. And nobody wants that.

Gone bust? Are you kidding? The Euro belongs to the top three currencies of the world...even after all that discrepancies and grow up pains.

Imagine what it could become once that's cleaned up...


Okay...I'm bowing out here...that get's crazy!

It could work, but again, only with a single budget and without local national banks able to manipulate the currency in any way. For instance, there was a very good lesson from Yugoslavia in 1990 - Milosević 'persuaded' the National Bank of Yugoslavia to print $1.8bn to finance his election campaign when the economy was in a horrible state. It destroyed the 1990 version of the dinar completely, but it shows how local politicians can wreck a currency union.

I completely agree with you that the architects of the Euro got it wrong. They should have known from the very recent example of Yugoslavia (and if I remember rightly, the 1992-era ruble zone was also a good example) that a currency union can't work if local governments can dictate economy policies, and that an example of a successful currency union (the sterling area) relied on strong central governance from the Bank of England.

Of course, the problem in the southern countries is mentality and culture. Any economist looking at them in the mid 1990's should have refused to let them near the Euro until they could demonstrate their ability to manage their economies through good times and bad with a fixed exchange rate to the DM/later Euro. Italy had crashed out of the ERM in 1992, and others like Portugal or Spain had no real history of a fixed exchange rate to the DM. As I said before, a small, close-knit group in the beginning would have made sense, which would have allowed them to see the strengths and weaknesses of the Euro through at least one financial crisis and without the danger of reckless lending by banks to weak Eurozone countries. You only need to compare how the Baltic countries responded to their own crisis to see how the southern mentality differs, after all.

When you say "what now?", I think it's too late. We're going to see at least one country spectacularly exit the Euro, if not more. The currency itself won't fall, but I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with half the members that there are now.

Very good points.

I wonder if one of the unpublicized goals of Catalan independence is to free themselves from the Euro... they say they want it, but I know one independiste who friggin' hates it.

What's especially infuriating is that the culture and mentality of the south has been well known for _centuries_ (as was the Jugoslav example) but the EU is run by feckless technocrats with no understanding of cultural difference or human nature - they assume if they craft the correct policy then the real world results will follow and that too often doesn't happen because they've ignored/misdiagnosed the real problem.

Again, it's in the interests of the EU (as a whole) to provide as soft a landing as possible for the countries that need out (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece who else?) But so far short term national (read: German) interests have prevailed to the detriment of the long term survival of the EU.

Heh:) So the Catalans want to keep the Euro after they will have won their independence, but you know ONE who doesn't and that of course means the Euro is gone bust???

Do you know that the Brits have talked down the EU from the beginning? That they later joined only as they understood that she is here to stay? The same with the Euro...so, for it's future I have no fear! :)

Wishful thinking will only get you so far...the Brexit will be a cruel wake up call! If Britain ever hoped to fight the "dastardly Germans controlling the continent" they threw their best chance just out of the window, totally unnecessarily and voluntarily. Now you are "out", with no possibility anymore to influence the EU in any way...congrats, great work! ROFL

They were never enthusiastic members and the remain campaign was terrible.


I dont' think it will happen the government is all against it and doing everything it can to sabotage it, but the EU has already failed in its primary task of creating a broader European identity. That's not saying it will always fail but its response to the Eurozone and migration were clear failures in the sense that they've weakened pro EU sentiments. Simply calling for more integration as a cover for an ossified elite to cling to power isn't going to work.

Oh it will happen...you know why? Between the first shock of the referendum and now the world watching that dramedy unfold the EU has already changed. A few months back one of the biggest happened at a grand meeting in Rome, the unanimous rule was ended. Now a majority is only necessary for all but a selected view points (like the acceptance of new members).

Meaning GB lost the main tool to throw the clog into the wheel of the EU, meaning GB would now need to work and search for allies, a thing it found always hard in the past as his wishes and expectations were often so different to what the continent wanted. No cherry picking anymore. No special privileges anymore, no granted seat at the top table anymore.

In the wake of the Brexit and the rise of one Donald Trump the EU is forced to re-examine itself and put long overdue changes into motion...new plans and projects like a common defense are already being started, talks about a common budget, the core of a USofE.... things Britain used to nip in the bud, hating the possibility.

These most important and far reaching changes could only happen because Britain had already lost it's power to veto these changes. Should Britain stop the Brexit for any reason it will find the EU a different place, not to forget that it will be hard to find friends and allies again, who will ever trust them anytime soon again. It will be uncomfortable to say at least.

So..no chance!

He is an American living in Poland. Not a Brit.


THE EU is a failure from the very start. It has been build on a lie and deception. Reality of it is a something completely different. Also if you want to build United states of Europe - you do much better job of it. In a sense you prepare a system of governance not some EU nonsense in Brussels where pen-pushers are trying to impose themselves on weaker members,

ALL with Germans gov approval - after all if that works for you.

Interesting obsession then...


Yeah...since 70 years...and will probably remain so for the coming 70 years! :)

Dude...I know you are some kind of an artist or thereabouts but really? The EU stared with the Maastricht treaty.

Sad part. You think that no Britain in the EU is that crucial ingredient that had been missing for it to work?

Nope...the EU started as the smoke from WWII wasn't even gone yet with the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)...the main tools for war now being shared and used only for rebuilding and peace, to end the ongoing suicide of Europe.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community

That's where it all begun...


Not anymore, no....their reason for wanting to take part was all wrong....the bag slapping Thatcher wanting "their money back" was all wrong....their stopping all closer integration became a huge cog....so no...not anymore.

What will be missing will be the atlantic world spanning view point though...the future EU will be much more Europe centric than before...led and made up by countries whose viewpoint is concentrated solely on Europe, not the world. Who don't see and don't want an alternative, for the good and bad.

GB had been developed as a kind of Europes gate to the bigger world, also a kind of a lighthouse and a bridge. Now the EU will lose this gate and bridge and GB will lose it's anchor, no longer part of Europe. It will now swim freely or rudderless, depending on your viewpoint.

Bratwurst Boy - "It will now swim freely or rudderless, depending on your viewpoint"

Freely,no longer chained down by The EU.

I believe The EU will shrink and become less and less important,if not break up altogether.

Whereas The UK will re establish it's connections with the rest of the world and with economies that are growing much faster then The EU.

Yeah...I remember these arguments from before the referendum...shortly followed by a made up bill of how much money GB will now spend on it's own NHS instead of wasting it in Brussels...promising a tomorrow land of milk and honey for free and happy people instead of the current sad existence as grey dab overrun slave shop for Germany.

Nothing...NOTHING came true of it yet...instead many of these arguments have been proven wrong already (or as plain lies)...so I'm not holding my breath waiting of a sinking EU and a thriving GB...excuse me.

We can meet here again in...say...10 years though and compare! :)

Because we are still paying in............hope you enjoy making up our contributions in your tax payments.....

See you in 10 years time!

Okay....:)

As far as I know, Northern Ireland has been trying her best to disband from Ireland, much less the EU, for at least several decades by now.