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Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

bbc.com

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Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#381

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

inigyou wrote: post #370
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if time limited? So you bid for 5, 10 years or whatever becomes a good balance between stability to invest in the business and an agile market.

Yes, then you become a landlord for 5 or 10 years. Once the rights are given out by whatever method and set for 10 years, then anyone else who wants one in the next 10 years has to buy or rent one from whoever has one. That's landlordism.

But that would trend to cutting out the middle man due to the inefficiencies they create.

Middlemen will only work if either these middlemen make the utilization more efficient or you make the requirements to bid so onerous that only these specialized middlemen have the competency to do fulfill them.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#382

Post by WalterBright »

rozab wrote: post #317
bluGill wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to join the EU to use the euro. There are countries that use the U.S. dollar even though they're not the U.S. Sometimes it's just de facto use the dollar. There is technically a local currency and people use it when forced to but they would prefer the dollar. If you're a small country, something like the dollar or the euro is probably your best bet because of the stability it affords. The advantage to…

This means giving up all the advantages of central banking and is generally only done informally by countries experiencing hyperinflation without capital controls. It's a marker of a failed state. I remember in live TV debates for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Yes leader insisted that Scotland could not be prevented from using the Pound sterling. It's technically true, but a very, very bad idea.

> This means giving up all the advantages of central banking and is generally only done informally by countries experiencing hyperinflation without capital controls. It's a marker of a failed state.

The US did not have a central bank until 1914. And there was zero net inflation from 1800-1914. The central bank introduced endemic inflation, which appeared immediately.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#383

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

badc0ffee wrote: post #303
jonnybgood wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say NATO is fraying? Because of Russia, NATO has increased its membership, increased military budgets, and increased European military cooperation. It probably has never been stronger.

The US keeps talking about leaving.

I hope this finally motivates the Europeans to step up their game long-term. They should be able to defend themselves without the US and also develop and produce their weapons within Europe. NATO will be better if it's an alliance of equal partners.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#384

Post by aleph_minus_one »

xaxbxcxdxe wrote: post #376
amenghra wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in... There are so many treaties besides EU.

Is there any "western" values coalition? Like really adhering to them, not just the "free trade" lowest comon denominator.

> Is there any "western" values coalition?

I would claim (both by living in Germany and the posted diagram) that for each of these values, most share this value, but not everybody. The problem is that for each value, the stakeholders who do/don't share it can be different. So, a lot of agreements are very complicated.

This is also in my opinion a central reason for the rising anti-EU sentiments in many countries: the more is dicated from above in Brussels/Strasbourg, the more often it happens that in some group who has a really strong opinion on this topic strong anti-EU sentiments will become socially very accepted in this group.

The solution that I would thus propose to keep these anti-EU sentiments not to escalate would be to keep the areas where the EU has any influence to those areas

- where there is an insanely strong consensus over what is "right" vs "wrong" over the whole EU, and

- which are politically rather uncontroversial (i.e. the opposite of being a political minefield).

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#385

Post by squidbeak »

Petersipoi wrote: post #379
squidbeak wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a mixed bag of UK friends, and it's about half-half. Polls show the population regrets Brexit. [1] > One thing I think myself is that there was an ugly _hope_ that the UK would suffer as a result. A hope which, as far as I can see, wasn't realised. Living in Europe, I saw a lot on the news about how the UK had shot itself in the foot and things were going badly, but when I visit friends, not so much. The UK…

> Polls show the population regrets Brexit 57%? Sorry, but a poll of 57% is a tossup. And could even swings the other way when you factor in closet brexiters/trumpers/etc in polls like these

The gaps aren't toss-ups. For instance a recent poll on rejoining the EU: https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54567-how-strong-is-uk-sup...

> Support: 55% Opposition: 34%

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#386

Post by orphereus »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #91
ekidd wrote: post #7

> The No campaign fears losing control over Iceland's prized fishing grounds under the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and has vowed never to share the country's waters with anyone. Brussels has indicated Iceland could earn some kind of exemption, but it is considered potentially the biggest obstacle to any agreement. As noted in the article, Iceland's fishing industry makes up something like 40% of their exports. Which…

One of the factors leading them to reconsider EU membership is monetary policy. The Icelandic króna is a very small currency that fluctuates considerably. Switching to the euro would protect them from exchange rate risks with their main trading partner. One solution for Iceland would be to join the eurozone without becoming a member of the EU, as Kosovo and Montenegro have done. However, this would only be desirable…

Well, Kosovo and Montenegro haven't joined the Eurozone. They just use the Euro, but they have no influence in the monetary (?) policy.

Edit: I'm not the first one to point this out, so to add some new information: both of them used Deutsche Mark prior to Euro, Montenegro even under the union with Serbia.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#387

Post by brendoelfrendo »

xaxbxcxdxe wrote: post #376
amenghra wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in... There are so many treaties besides EU.

Is there any "western" values coalition? Like really adhering to them, not just the "free trade" lowest comon denominator.

What does "western" values mean?

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#388

Post by lokar »

orphereus wrote: post #386
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the factors leading them to reconsider EU membership is monetary policy. The Icelandic króna is a very small currency that fluctuates considerably. Switching to the euro would protect them from exchange rate risks with their main trading partner. One solution for Iceland would be to join the eurozone without becoming a member of the EU, as Kosovo and Montenegro have done. However, this would only be desirable…

Well, Kosovo and Montenegro haven't joined the Eurozone. They just use the Euro, but they have no influence in the monetary (?) policy. Edit: I'm not the first one to point this out, so to add some new information: both of them used Deutsche Mark prior to Euro, Montenegro even under the union with Serbia.

An at various times others have done the same with the USD

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#389

Post by gizajob »

inigyou wrote: post #358
gizajob wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you join the EU you will lose control of your fisheries and have worse management policies pushed on you. Fantasy to think it will be any other way.

EU member states can just ignore EU laws, as Hungary did for a decade. The EU is not sovereign.

Then why join

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#390

Post by anal_reactor »

bluegatty wrote: post #108

These debates are hard to watch. 'Loss of sovereignty' for some reason is perfectly fine for Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, but not UK or others wanting to leave. 'Fisheries' was a small but founding and perennial concern before and during Brexit but they were labelled 'ugly nationalists'. The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now, and the crazy paradox is tha…

The core purpose of EU was not to have a war with each other. I think on that front it's been astounding success - there have been zero wars recorded between EU countries.

This might sound like low bar, but my grandma was literally genocided.

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