Comments on: What a difference 48 hours makes in Europe

By: sukienki

sukienki — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:53:57 +0000

Very good blog!

By: Stephen Southworth

Stephen Southworth — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:16:10 +0000

Greec have now gone for the unlimited bank guarantee. All EU nations will surely have to follow suit now, and the Commission will effectively be left to realise that it is not quite as all powerful as it thinks it is in times of crisis.

By: DennisA

DennisA — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:35:14 +0000

As Brown is discussing the situation with Sarkozy before the British Parliament has even met, I wonder when the general public will realise we are not in charge of our own affairs.

The block on new accounts at Northern Rock by EU diktat and the censuring of the Irish action by the EU commissioner highlights the disgraceful handover of sovereignty to these unelected mandarins.

It is never mentioned in the media for some strange reason. Even the ubiquitous and slightly over-acting Robert Peston never mentions the role of the EU in all this.

By: Stephen Southworth

Stephen Southworth — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:41:33 +0000

Ah…but this area is an EU competence. EU changes are like etchings in stone – once they are made, they are very difficult to remove. A proper national democracy could do whatever it feels is right to combat a problem in the best interests of it’s economy and people. We on the other hand must defer to the unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats in the Commission to do anything. The EU is like the Titanic, as soon as it gets holed below the waterline, it is always going to sink taking us all with it.

By: paul coombes

paul coombes — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:25:27 +0000

APL: “Then just pass a law through the British Parliament saying British Law recinds and takes precidence over European Union Directive 2006/49/EC.”

But wouldn’t that mean removing the UK from the EU? Or was that your implied suggestion?

BTW I am all for it.

By: figurewizard

figurewizard — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:24:35 +0000

Until the Irish Republic announced that it was going to guarantee all depositors cash with their banks without limit there had been a deafening silence from the EU on the worldwide banking crisis. Instead we had to wait for this; prompting some EU bureaucrat to take a look in the competition rule book, before we heard anything from them on it at all. If anything demonstrates that while a European Free Trade Area may be a good thing, a European Union is most certainly not.

By: Johnny Norfolk

Johnny Norfolk — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:04:46 +0000

The EU are very secretive, so it is no suprise that things are far worse than they want us to believe. It showed when we were in the ERM that we can never count on Europe to help us, and they wont now.

By: Bazman

Bazman — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:55:46 +0000

How is such a great capitalist country as Ireland making guarantees on banks? A while ago they where all (poor people) scrounging off Europe! I’m confused.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:36:33 +0000

According to Open Europe, the EU is heading for the rocks.
First of all, the Mediterranean countries have been playing fast and loose with their debts, their vast bureaucracies and so on. Now the dear old Germans are finding it hard to reconcile all this with their Deutschmark mentality. So the Euro is in real danger.

As the need for some governments with a really sound investment in reserves to step up to the plate materialises, I wonder if that will be enough to stave off a disaster like the 1930s?

By: APL

APL — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:27:39 +0000

JR: “Yes. We need to amend them temporarily as the US are now doing”

If the requirement to mark to market is the cause of the problem,
Then just pass a law through the British Parliament saying British Law recinds and takes precidence over European Union Directive 2006/49/EC.

British banks miraculously saved. The City grows as there is a stampede of the remaining European banks to move their HQ to London to take advantage of the new British law.

If this is really the cause of the problem – just do it!

Cameron, slithering along on his belly, won’t of course.

By: alastair

alastair — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:15:21 +0000

I have seen suggestions on other websites that this has been exacerbated by the mark to market requirements of Basel II. Do you think that this is correct? If so, what should be done?

Reply: Yes. We need to amend them temporarily as the US are now doing