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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 06:35 AM Jun 2014

Decision Time: Britain Must Choose Now If It Will Stay in Europe

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-editorial-argues-britain-must-determine-future-in-eu-a-972903.html



For years Britain has blackmailed and made a fool out of the EU. The United Kingdom must finally make a choice: It can play by the rules or it can leave the European Union.

Decision Time: Britain Must Choose Now If It Will Stay in Europe
A DER SPIEGEL Editorial
June 03, 2014 – 11:42 AM

Following last week's elections for the European Parliament, Europe finds itself at a historical turning point. It faces two questions. The first is that of how seriously the European Union is about its promise to become more democratic. The second is whether Britain can remain a member of the EU.

The extent to which those two questions are inextricably linked became clear last week when Prime Minister David Cameron refused to recognize the results of the European election and nominate winner Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, the EU's executive. Most countries and leaders in the European Council, the powerful body representing EU leaders, had previously agreed to this procedure. It was a significant promise to the people of Europe -- they were to be provided with a greater say and they were supposed to be given a sign that their vote counts, that it has concrete effects. But Cameron threw a spanner in the works.

The crisis in European democracy is also the consequence of an unsettled relationship. Both the EU and Britain have perceived their relations as a burden in recent years. People in Brussels suffer under a London that is constantly thwarting European unity, that has slammed the brakes on progress and has doggedly prevented a deepening of relations.

The Tipping Point

In Britain, people suffer under the EU itself. It is a chronic suffering, one without any prospects of relief. During the May 25 European election, the anti-EU UKIP party garnered 27.5 percent of the vote, making it the strongest British party in the new European Parliament. And this, despite the fact that Britain's other political parties -- with the exception of the Liberal Democrats -- are about as EU-friendly as Germany's euroskeptic AFD.
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Decision Time: Britain Must Choose Now If It Will Stay in Europe (Original Post) unhappycamper Jun 2014 OP
It's not nations that define us. It's cultures. EU can do without UK. DetlefK Jun 2014 #1
True but the inverse is not true Prophet 451 Jun 2014 #2

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
1. It's not nations that define us. It's cultures. EU can do without UK.
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 07:09 AM
Jun 2014

And it it turns out necessary, EU should do without UK.

Prophet 451

(9,796 posts)
2. True but the inverse is not true
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 09:57 AM
Jun 2014

We (the UK) really can't afford to pull out of Europe. The EU is our biggest trading partner and we'd stand to lose an estimated £12 billion a year.

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