Indeed.

Instead they'll do exactly what they did with the original Schengen agreement - make an inter-govermental agreement outside the structures of the EU. It's far faster and easier as far as the various countries are concerned.



Congrats Euro-skeptics - you just allowed Euro-land to proceed even faster.

why do you think the conservatives removed themselves from the centre party of the EU and are on the fringe

they will support the country's outside the 17 but be the controlling party within this group because they have the only veto

interesting times ahead if the Euro and the EU survive ...



thats called blitzkrieg ...

It's possible to blow this story up to greater proportions than it deserves. Cameron has outed himself as an inept negotiator with the attention span of a canary, and the rest of the European leaders won't be showing him much respect for the foreseeable future, but it's not only us Brits who will want to repair the damage. We form part of a block with Germany, Holland the Nordics and recently some of the Eastern Europeans who favour free trade and open competition (what the EU is supposed to be for).

That is balanced against - traditionally - France, Italy, Spain and the southern nations who tend to favour protectionism. We tend to do the main fighting for our team, and the French do the legwork for theirs.

There are competing analyses of what is going on in the EU right now. One is that Merkel is the new Nero, moronically fiddling while her currency union burns down around her. The other is that she is more like the new Thatcher, ruthlessly exploiting financial difficulties to force reform on sections of the European population who have become too used to getting subsidised to keep doing the same unproductive [LIFTED] every day of their lives.

In the former scenario it doesn't really matter what we do to piss off the Europeans, because they are all going to be homeless next year.

In the latter scenario, after Merkel has rammed austerity down Italy's throat (the Spanish seem to have caught on for themselves), she will have to allow the ECB to save the Euro by inflating some of its debt away. But she still wouldn't have finished. All those countries need significant reform if they are ever to grow again now they can't run up huge bills on Germany's credit card anymore - they have to open up their markets for services to competition from countries like Holland and Britain (and France), they have to reform their ridiculous labour laws, unlock a staggering array of closed professions, and there's a huge list of other woes. But most politically dangerous of all is the issue of foreign ownership of companies. Italy and France had a major row when a successful French cheese company tried to buy a failing Italian one. Buying a French company is virtually impossible without Govt support because they own golden shares in practically everything. All this means that the economy is distorted by politicians for political gain, at the expense of competition and efficiency - which is why Germany has to pay for dinner on every date.

For all of that stuff, the free trade block of the EU (which includes pretty much all of the net contributors to its budget) need their best fighter in the ring. Right now, with Spain changing teams, all the fights that got put on hold are winnable. But that will require some pugnacious diplomacy - the Germans will patiently console the Italians after we make them cry.

So they still need us for something (yay!)

That's the point though - they don't.

By swinging his veto around, DC has forced even the free-trade bloc to work round him and seek an interventionist, inter-governmental agreement. What will happen next will happen not only without the UK, but without the EU as well.

Irrespective of what DC did, the quotes form the credit rating agencies are quite interesting:

"Moody's threatened all European sovereign nations with a rating downgrade after concluding that their leaders had unveiled measures that were "similar to previously announced ones"."

"[They] therefore do not change Moody's previously expressed view that the crisis is in a critical and volatile stage, with sovereign and bank debt markets prone to acute dislocation which policymakers will find increasingly hard to contain," the agency said. "While Moody's central scenario remains that the euro area will be preserved without further widespread defaults, the shocks that are likely to materialise even under this 'positive' scenario carry negative rating implications in the coming months."

"Fellow rating agency Standard & Poor's warned that "time is running out" for European leaders to agree concrete fiscal and monetary measures. An exasperated Jean-Michel Six, the chief economist at S&P, reckoned that only another banking crisis would "shock" European leaders into agreeing proper resolutions. "

So it would appear that everyone is looking in the wrong place - putting too much emphasis on what DC did rather than what the rest of the EU decided to do - which by the above comments appears to be very little.

At the end of the day, this whole episode is a storm in a teacup. Whether we're in or out, whether we have influence or not, the future of the EC depends on whether or not they can sort out the Euro and ensure that all the countries do what they're told (and the EU is serious about imposing sanctions on those who don't).

To be quite honest I can't see it being an easy thing to accomplish - it'll be quite a culture shock for some and given the response in Greece to austerity measures that are being "imposed" by the EU, I can see some governments being turfed out, and less compliant ones being elected in their place. I don't think the EU in 5 years will look the same as it does now.

What I find interesting is even Nigel Farage was alarmed at DC’s actions. If your anti-Euro actions shock a serious EuroSceptic, you must be doing something wrong.

i believe that the Euro sceptics are worried that they may have all their dreams and wishes and very soon become unemployed ...