From the Guardian: How will Brexit affect Britain's trade with Europe?

What did you really expect?

June is vacation time, and people have more important things to do - like surfing ...
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Lafayette said:

Aint gonna happin.

Nothing, but nothing, gets done in Europe over August. Everybody and his brother are on vacation.

Just talking about a constitution is going to take three years, because there exists no such thing.

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This.

And this

The constitution of the EU does not exist,

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Meanwhile, as long as UK keeps itself in limbo, markets will put their trust more in areas that are not as much in limbo wrt UK and not at all with the rest of the world.

Nations or just areas offering no certainty are not considered secure and thus unattractive.

Chagos said:

They're worried about large amounts of discontent anyway and were so long before Brexit even came onto the table.

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The large amount of discontent is semi-permanent. It has existed in polls taken since a long time. If you give people a yes/no quiz on whether they like it or not living in the EU, about half will say Yes and the other half No. Also, they think that they live better in their country than their neighbors do in theirs.

The study worth reading is this one: PUBLIC OPINION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (that is, both Euro-zone and non Euro-zone).

Excerpt:

I. LIFE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
This Standard EuroBarometer of spring 2013 reveals several signs of a very modest improvement:
- Europeans are less pessimistic when evaluating both their personal situation, both financially and job-wise, and the economic situation at national
-European and world levels. However, for all these dimensions, it is the feeling that things will stay the same that has gained ground, rather than optimism.
- Concerns about unemployment continue to rise at national and European levels.

1. Personal aspects
1.1. The current personal situation of Europeans
-Three-quarters of European are satisfied with the life they lead
-The vast majority of Europeans continue to be satisfied with the life they lead, despite a slight dip since autumn 2012; 75% are satisfied, a fall of one percentage point since the autumn 2012 survey and two percentage points since the spring 2012. Two out of ten Europeans are “very satisfied” (20%, =). A quarter of Europeans are dissatisfied (25%, +1).

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Lafayette said:

Aint gonna happin.

Nothing, but nothing, gets done in Europe over August. Everybody and his brother are on vacation.

Just talking about a constitution is going to take three years, because there exists no such thing. There was one at the beginning (the 7-state "Common Market") but that has been superannuated by the addition since of a good number of of other countries.

It's easy to "talk about the constitution". Besides, just like Brexit, when you ask "the people" they assume it is a great opportunity to vent their anger. Which is why the French rejected constitutional changes in a vote in 2005. (Tony BLAIR, ex-PM of the UK announced to have a referendum on the "Constitution" and then cancelled it as "non-practicable".)

The constitution of the EU does not exist, but what does exist is a series of treaties mutually signed. See here. The foremost of which is the Maastricht Treaty that defines the Euro.

Any country's parliament can put down the treaties by means of a common vote. But they don't because, for the moment, the EU people see the benefit of keeping the EU as it is.

Still, if anyone is thinking that the EU will return to its origins as a grouping of separate-but-equal countries then they've gone off the deep end. The EU-people, for all their mutual bickering deeply want a European Union that binds them together. The polls consistently come up with this truth, though - in fact - all of the states have a beef with the "EU" management in Barlaymont (Brussels).

However, all those beefs are very different in nature.

Members of the EU have learned their lesson after two World Wars in the last century that decimated Europe - and they do not want that to happen again. Besides, Uncle Sam provides a fine example of a state-union within a Federal concept of governance .

Why should Europeans want anything less ... ?

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Stop beating on the worn out drum. And comparing it with a nation state is dishonest or dreaming. The Europeans could have have Union in fact and not only in mouth tribute, if they had been willing to write a decent Constitution and explain it in detail. Herzog, d'Estaing and the rest of the elitist mob didn't write it so nor was the currency thing viable and the Kohls, Junkers and Mitterrands decided it was too risky and after being turned down by the populous of two corner nations turned to sleaze and subterfuge trying to slip the thing they knew would never stand up without major loss of sovereignty through anyway. Fraud is no good bed for legitimacy and ideological treaties cannot stand against math. And now many of them have admitted their mistake.

If the EU wants to survive, it will have to change drastically. In theory, your proposal of a USE is perfectly possible. It would have been possible back then. But it was deemed impossible to persuade the populations to give up their national entities. I would propose it is more difficult now, after seeing how much the political personnel has lied, acted with negligence or worse and gone scot-free in spite of the massive harm they did willfully in pursuit of their own interests. Maybe this would work, if a short, generally understandable and academically solid constitution were on offer.

So the three yesterday said there will be change and the EU will go about it immediately not waiting for GB to hit the exit button. So off we go.

joG said:

Stop beating on the worn out drum. And comparing it with a nation state is dishonest or dreaming. The Europeans could have have Union in fact and not only in mouth tribute, if they had been willing to write a decent Constitution and explain it in detail.

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When you get to the sale level of knowledge and comprehension regarding the European Union as I, I will let you know.

Till then, content yourself with my corrective emails. You are making a lot of silly mistakes of understanding.

Too bad for you - I, frankly, could not give a damn ...
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Lafayette said:

When you get to the sale level of knowledge and comprehension regarding the European Union as I, I will let you know.

Till then, content yourself with my corrective emails. You are making a lot of silly mistakes of understanding.

Too bad for you - I, frankly, could not give a damn ...
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I am afraid that you corrective "emails" are sometimes rather populist albeit once in a while they contain some degree of economic knowledge. But I do understand. Many people think they know things in my field and will argue heroic assumptions like a medieval preacher did God's truth. And funny it is. They frankly could not give a damn.

PeteEU said:

Lets see at the end of the day...and over the next few weeks. The longer the political chaos in the UK continues, the more insecurity there will be in the markets.

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It is much too early to see any but the extremely short term consequences. Why, we do not even know, what the facts are beyond the superficial.

Chagos said:

This.

And thisMeanwhile, as long as UK keeps itself in limbo, markets will put their trust more in areas that are not as much in limbo wrt UK and not at all with the rest of the world.

Nations or just areas offering no certainty are not considered secure and thus unattractive.

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The markets be damned. It's the people, their governments and their laws that matter first.

(Some people have "markets" engraved in their mind when considering the world that surrounds them. Markets are a "mechanism", they are not the governing body of a people - and as such they are answerable to governments and the laws of the land. Get it?)

Some are confusing the EU with the US. They are similar but not the same. The most important difference being that there is no Executive of the EU.

There are National Leaders, that is, Prime Ministers of Legislative bodies in the EU-member countries.

And the EU Legislature - elected by direct vote of each member-nation - is in Strasbourg. If any, it is these latter who should be dealing with the matter of a recalcitrant UK. Unfortunately, for Europe, there is no trans-national party configuration so no political grouping in the EU parliament can be obtained.

My point: The issue of appurtenance to the EU rightfully belongs with elected members of the EU parliament in Strasbourg - not in the national capitals of member states.

Besides, for any law to be made and applicable, given the fact that there is a EU Court of Law, there should be a "Constitutional Glue". The way the EU has gone about building its "United States of Europe" has been silly. It's as if the governors of American states got together regularly in Washington to determine national-policy in certain matters agreed in helter-skelter fashion. But with no regard for Congress. Which is stoopidity in governance personified.

The EU is a "country" (called the European Union) consisting of about 510 million people, the largest democracy on earth - having a GDP more or less equivalent to the US (both around $18.5T, depending upon the euro/$ exchange rate employed).

The singular difference between the two is that the US has an Executive and the the EU does not. And to my mind, therein lies the rub. The European prima-donna "heads of state" do not want to be relegated to an inferior rank by an EU "Executive" independently elected.

The EU has not been able to get beyond that stumbling block in governance, an important drawback, and frankly perhaps never will ...
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How to stop Brexit: get your MP to vote it down

Excerpt:

We don’t need another referendum. Members of parliament have every right to vote against repeal of the act that led us into Europe

It’s not over yet. A law that passed last year to set up the EU referendum said nothing about the result being binding or having any legal force. “Sovereignty” – a much misunderstood word in the campaign – resides in Britain with the “Queen in parliament”, that is with MPs alone who can make or break laws and peers who can block them. Before Brexit can be triggered, parliament must repeal the 1972 European Communities Act by which it voted to take us into the European Union – and MPs have every right, and indeed a duty if they think it best for Britain, to vote to stay.

It is being said that the government can trigger Brexit under article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, merely by sending a note to Brussels. This is wrong. Article 50 says: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.” The UK’s most fundamental constitutional requirement is that there must first be the approval of its parliament.

Britain, absurdly, is the only significant country (other than Saudi Arabia) without a written constitution. We have what are termed “constitutional conventions”, along with a lot of history and traditions. Nothing in these precedents allots any place to the results of referendums or requires our sovereign parliament to take a blind bit of notice of them.

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Well, he's got one point wrong. The Brits have no constitution either!

From here:

Unlike most modern states, Britain does not have a codified constitution but an unwritten one formed of Acts of Parliament, court judgments and conventions. Professor Robert Blackburn explains this system, including Magna Carta's place within it, and asks whether the UK should now have a written constitution.

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Key word: "Unwritten". Meaning "pie-in-the-sky". Meaning "interpretive". Meaning there is nothing legally binding other than those motions that are passed through Parliament. (And so, like Alice, we go down that rat-hole in the forest ... ;^)

The EU had one, but no longer ... the nation heads-of-state have been running the EU through Barlaymont (in Brussels) and could not give a damn what the EU Parliament says in Strasbourg. So, now it is in a real pickle.

What Britain does have is a group of laws and regulations that have been agreed upon within the EU. And that is quite a bundle of laws to be repealed with considerable complexity and even more consequence in the future ...
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From the above linked Guardian article:

It may be, in November, that President Donald Trump becomes the leader of the free world – in which case a strong EU would become more necessary than ever.

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Heaven forbid!

None the less, yes, Europe must get ready that a dork like Trump just might be elected. The consequences of US relations with the EU will plunge to new depths to become a prime consideration as regards Foreign Policy (that he will make-as-he-goes with a swagger).

It would be nice to be a fly on the wall when he tells Putin to go to hell ...
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PeteEU said:

Lets see at the end of the day...and over the next few weeks. The longer the political chaos in the UK continues, the more insecurity there will be in the markets.

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The EU markets finished way up today. So did the DOW. The pound was up and gold was down.

As I suspected, the panic was short lived (apparently).

This was way overblown by world leaders to try and scare people away from voting 'Leave'. Why? Because world leaders ALWAYS HATE referendums to de-centralize power.
A) because it means less power for them in the long run; and B) many fear it might encourage groups in their own sphere's to vote to leave.

Chagos said:

If you believe that the expected waning of an equally expected market hysteria is a sign of market stability now returning, you are to be commended upon your positive thinking but not upon your naiveté.

Things on the markets are far from normal and just as far from returning to that state and as long as there isn't a clear picture signalling certainty that everyone can bank upon, the condition will prevail.

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There are far more problems in the world economy then Brexit.

Sure, market instability will return, but the primary cause will not primarily be Brexit...guaranteed. It might be EU breakup fears...but other then a bump or a jolt here or there...it will not be primarily about Britain leaving in so far as Britain is concerned, IMO.

The world economies are a mess..and the central banks/world governments have apparently no clue as to how to fix it.

Japan is a disaster zone, America and the EU economies have been stagnant for years, China is not as healthy as it appears, negative interest rates are being discussed (which would be disaster in the long run and point to failure on the part of central banks).

Lol...Britain leaving the EU is among the least of the world's problems.

Though it could spell trouble for the EU itself.

DA60 said:

There are far more problems in the world economy then Brexit.

Sure, market instability will return, but the primary cause will not primarily be Brexit...guaranteed.

The world economies are a mess..and the central banks/world governments have apparently no clue as to how to fix it.

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I was speaking primarily of Britain. If I'd been wanting to discuss the problems of the world market in general, no doubt very worthy of address, I wouldn't be doing it in the Europe forum.

Chagos said:

I was speaking primarily of Britain. If I'd been wanting to discuss the problems of the world market in general, no doubt very worthy of address, I wouldn't be doing it in the Europe forum.

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I think the EU will suffer - long term - much more from Brexit then the UK will. Not economically but in terms of political instability.

Sure, it could cause Scotland and/or Northern Ireland to leave. But those are inevitable anyway, IMO. Best to get them over with sooner rather then later.

DA60 said:

I think the EU will suffer - long term - much more from Brexit then the UK will. Not economically but in terms of political instability.

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You realize the contradiction made here?

Sure, it could cause Scotland and/or Northern Ireland to leave. But those are inevitable anyway, IMO. Best to get them over with sooner rather then later.

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and you think that isn't a contradiction either?

Well, we won't be talking about any UK anymore, that's for sure. On account of the original one having suffered less instability than the EU.

This does not offend your sense of logic?

Chagos said:

You realize the contradiction made here?

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No it isn't.

Brexit signals the beginning of the end of the EU as we now know it, IMO.

The EU, IMO, will be better off long term economically if it breaks up. But politically, if the EU ceases to exist, then obviously, politically it would be awful for the EU politicians who like their power. Plus, there will be more political turmoil in the short/medium (possibly even long) term if the EU breaks up.

Hence why I said what I said.

and you think that isn't a contradiction either?

Well, we won't be talking about any UK anymore, that's for sure. On account of the original one having suffered less instability than the EU.

This does not offend your sense of logic?

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No and and I have no idea what you are talking about; respectively.

Now we are done here because I sense you are just trying to stir things up/being anal retentive rather then trying to have open dialog...at least you are reasonably polite about it.
And this subject does not mean enough to me to spend my time in that manner.

No offense intended.

Good day.

DA60 said:

No it isn't.

Brexit signals the beginning of the end of the EU as we now know it, IMO.

The EU, IMO, will be better off long term economically if it breaks up. But politically, if the EU ceases to exist, then obviously, politically it would be awful for the EU politicians who like their power. Plus, there will be more political turmoil in the short/medium (possibly even long) term if the EU breaks up.

Hence why I said what I said.



No and and I have no idea what you are talking about; respectively.

Now we are done here because I sense you are just trying to stir things up/being anal retentive rather then trying to have open dialog...at least you are reasonably polite about it.
And this subject does not mean enough to me to spend my time in that manner.

No offense intended.

Good day.

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Well sure, have a good one too.

As I said...Brexit panic was overdone.

The FTSE 100 (Brit equivalent of the DOW) is now higher then it was before Brexit.

These irrational fears that Brexit will hugely damage Britain were just that.

Britain will be just fine without the EU.

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Lafayette said:

Non members of the Euro-group: Bulgaria; Croatia; Czech Republic; Denmark; Hungary; Poland; Romania; Sweden; United Kingdom

Adopting the Euro was never a condition for EU "full membership".

Get your facts right ...

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Or how about you get your facts straight..Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden will join the euro. In fact almost all will be Euro countries by 2020. Only UK and Denmark were given outs.

PeteEU said:

Lets see at the end of the day...and over the next few weeks. The longer the political chaos in the UK continues, the more insecurity there will be in the markets.

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No, this is a fantasy. EU has more chaos in its borders with Deutsche Bank about to fail.

austrianecon said:

No, this is a fantasy. EU has more chaos in its borders with Deutsche Bank about to fail.

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And Barclays? RBS failed long ago and is still a shambles. As for Deutsche Bank, it is too big to fail.

austrianecon said:

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Or how about you get your facts straight..Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden will join the euro. In fact almost all will be Euro countries by 2020. Only UK and Denmark were given outs.

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They will only be Euro members if they meet the criteria. So you need to get your facts straight as well.

austrianecon said:

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Or how about you get your facts straight..Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden will join the euro. In fact almost all will be Euro countries by 2020. Only UK and Denmark were given outs.

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Lucky them! The common Euro currency is a facilitator of trade.

Those EU-wanabees who employ a national currency do so by keeping their currency valued constantly the same at a pre-arranged rate. Otherwise, as happened in Europe, countries manipulate currency values (with their trading partners) to "beggar-thy-neighbor" in order to solve their own Trade Deficits.

We'll see if Britain starts doing the same as soon as a Tory government is reestablished. They are indeed capable of this sort of manipulative "beggar-thy-neighbor" chicanery with their largest trading partner.
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austrianecon said:

No, this is a fantasy. EU has more chaos in its borders with Deutsche Bank about to fail.

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What a load of BS.

The German government will never let that happen. And Angela has oodles of money to spare for just such a happening.
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Lafayette said:

How will Brexit affect Britain's trade with Europe?

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Impossible to say at this point. It depends on how the EU reacts, and that is a political question.
Ironically enough though, it could prove to be the EU's penchant for bypassing regional decision making that makes any new deal with the UK go through with a minimum of fuzz.

But as previously inferred, it all depends on whether the EU takes a hostile or conciliatory stance towards the UK.