157
Britain will rejoin the EU within 15 years, former Brussels chief predicts
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
157 points (98.2% liked)
Europe
1581 readers
600 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.
founded 5 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm an American, so it's maybe hard to put myself exactly in the same shoes, but if I were in the EU and able to act freely, I'd personally make the concession to permit the opt-outs to the UK if it permitted for Rejoin (that is, I don't think that there is great harm, as things were working all right earlier and that any precedent concerns could be addressed arguing that this is a special case) and if I were in the UK and could act freely, I'd make the concession to the EU to give up the opt-outs if it permitted for Rejoin (that is, I think that ultimately, the UK was going to have to give up the opt-outs anyway if staying in the EU...I don't think that Sweden's approach of kicking the can down the road repeatedly on monetary union, for example, is going to be sustainable ad infinitum).
I'm just skeptical that political leaders are going to be able to act freely on this matter, as they have their own domestic political pressures.
Yeah, the existence of the TCA does mean that this is considerably less of a factor than otherwise would be the case, but there are still going to be affected parties -- the economic disruption that Brexit would cause was one of the most-prominent arguments in favor of Remain I saw pre-referendum (auto factories using JIT manufacturing will close, vendors doing cross-Channel sales will go under, etc), and this would run through that again.
The EU would be nigh insane if it were to grant the UK its previous opt-outs, in my opinon. They only got them in the first place because they acted as though were special. They never really committed to the idea of the Union and kept using their potential exit from the union as a bartering chip. But, unfortunately them, they fell flat on their faces when they actually left.
And, honestly, things were not all right before; the UK loved to block just about anything that went beyond trade deals.
The EU has nothing to gain if it went back to giving the UK special treatment. And not really a reason to do it, either, because the UK needs the EU much more than the other way around, as the Brexit negotiations demonstrated clearly.
Giving them back their opt-outs would be like giving in to a child that keeps throwing tantrums when things don't go its way. If the UK wants to come back, then the EU cannot allow anything but a regular membership – if it greenlights the UK's application at all.
Yeah. There are political realities to take into account but there's a lot to be gained by both sides, so it'll be a negotiation with a lot of give and take. But the deal that the UK had is gone forever.
The TCA is a very bare bones deal. It's pretty close to a no deal actually. The main problem is that the UK isn't trading with "the EU" anymore. They're trading with France, with all the rules that France has for 3rd countries. And with NL, that might have different rules.