1: The End is Near
2: The End of the Beginning
3: What Next
4: M.I.A
5: Big Bang Looming
6: Setting Europe Ablaze

The Mekon up to her tricks again

"It is also pushing for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to give greater European control over policy. Germany's closest ally in Europe, France, opposes such a move, as do other member states."

Hmmn, why is that Merkel?

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The Mekon up to her tricks again

If Germany can preserve the Euro then It can preserve it's economics high status.
If the Euro folds then along with it goes a large tranche of German wealth
creating ability too.

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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

Hollande's Sauce (©Chris S) turns bitter

So we can expect an influx of Frenchies then...

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The English channel no longer needs watching, you forgot the Channel Tunnel.

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They are short of money, simple fact. I doubt it will affect the immigration figures. All it might do is invoke some civil unrest in France, but then again that is nothing new in their history. He has a sauce to do it but not much other choice. We'll just sit and watch from over the ENGLISH Channel.

Meh, it effects only a few top incomes and the vast majority of people agree with it, so I doubt you'll see any civil unrest.

This whole measure is more about symbolism anyways.

Hollande invoked this tax rise because of his waning support amongst the
French electorate. Had he still been popular I suspect he would have kept this
tax hike on the back burner.

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The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

Hollande invoked this tax rise because of his waning support amongst the
French electorate. Had he still been popular I suspect he would have kept this
tax hike on the back burner.

No, it was one of the first things he tried to do. Only people where doing difficult and it proved more difficult for him to actually create this little tax hike. What happened just now is that some court confirmed that he could go ahead with the tax hike.

We already have enough economic migrants who are here for their benefit but not for ours. I said before that the UK is not Europes refugee camp, and I'll go further and say that neither are we Europes Job Centre or Employment Bureau either. But with just 2 days to go it's likely going to happen.

Trust me, no one in Bulgaria and Romania thinks that you are. Most of them aren't even interested in going to Britain. They are all going to Southern European countries. The whole idea that millions of Bulgarians and Romanians are going to be moving to the UK or other Norther countries is a myth created by politicians for their own political benefit.

I believe the estimated total quoted over here was approx. 80,000 so where your statement of millions come from is unknown.

Care to enlighten us?

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But that's the main problem with the UK and the EU. Out of the 28 nations, we are the only one to fully implement their regulations.

Should we attempt to counter those regulations, we face fines.

Still haven't seen anything from the European Parliament or the European Commission regarding Spain's refusal to accept the EHIC's.

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But that's the main problem with the UK and the EU. Out of the 28 nations, we are the only one to fully implement their regulations.

Excuse me? The only one? Everyone has to implement them or face fines. And the UK gets opts out of every single bit of European legislation so half of the time new EU legislation doesn't even apply to the UK.

Is that a fact? So why hasn't Spain been taken to task regarding acceptance of the EHIC's?

Edit:

For those who are unaware of EHIC

European Health Insurance Card

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Yes I know. however, as far as I am aware, there has been no resolution to date.

Ah Yes I hear the Europhiles say, it will take some time as we have to follow procedures.

Yes, but the larger the EU gets the longer it's going to take - more bureaucratic B/S - Well, they have to justify their position don't they and all on the taxpayer's dollar!

Edited for grammmer - Don't want Ageless on my case over the use of its and it's :)

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Is that a fact? So why hasn't Spain been taken to task regarding acceptance of the EHIC's?

Edit:

For those who are unaware of EHIC

European Health Insurance Card

Several reasons. First, usually by the time a regulation is created, countries usually still have several years to implement them. So some countries might be slower than others. Second, when countries are clearly to late with implementation, the commission can start a procedure to get countries to implement regulations. However that is a pretty long process and it still may take months if not longer before the Commission finally reaches the phase where it can go to court. Court cases also take time, so by the time the Commission can begin sending fines its years later.

EDIT: and no, this procedure does not gets longer once the EU grows. Size of the EU is irrelevant in these cases.

Another case in point proving that the EU is becoming too large and unwieldy. Well done.

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The largest party in the polls is heavily anti Europe, and just like in the UK our politicians are also claiming that we will get a massive influx of Bulgarians and Romanians. Even though all the data suggests that only a few of them will choose to go to the Netherlands. And it was the Netherlands that voted down the European Constitutional treaty.

We used to be pro Europe, but now? Not as much and its slowly getting more and more anti EU every year.

That's sad to hear. Even though it seems that I have been constantly "bashing" the EU, I agree with the principles that was originally behind the concept of a United Europe.

First and foremost was to provide long lasting stability to prevent events like WWI & WWII from ever happening again.

The problem now is that it is trying to muscle in on each nations sovereignty and attempt too much centralisation which breeds it's own un-necessary red tape.

Merkel's idea of a centralised political union looks grand on paper and when orally stated, but for Europe as a whole, that concept is not only unacceptable but unbearable to many nations within the Eurozone at this time - there really is too much history between nations to ever see that occur - maybe in another 100 years or so, it may become possible.

Until then, [as Chris runs for his pills), the EEC was and still is the best option available - had everyone stuck to that, the economic crisis pervading Europe at the moment would not have been harsh as it is.

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Ah yes, the European Continent is well known for its night life :)

The Reeperbahn springs to mind, or as the Germans call it "die sündigste Meile"

Edit:

Ooh be careful there, with our chemical weaponary tablets, the blue ones were "deadly" or was that the pink ones?

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that was and still is a myth!

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Being of a mischievous nature in my younger days, I suffered the pains of KP Duty many a time for my pranks.

I can assure you, bromide was never put in the tea.

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