I think this is great news for Britain, and the quicker we pull out of the bloated, corrupt, expensive gravy train the better.

Countries will still trade with us if we have the right products and services to offer.

I see your point (although it's not like Sarko hasn't had his fair share of hissy fits at other heads of state, or indeed his own voters), but he has now got the same result he would have got if he'd given those concessions- now he just doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of referenda.

I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are.

Now go away and get some education.

Agreed. Felt this for some time.

Today's Daily Chart in the Economist shows the budget deficits of the main Eurozone economies in 2007 (before the crash), 2009 (in the middle of the recession) and 2011https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/20111217_WOC248.gif" >

The 3% mark is the agreed limit under the Growth and Stability Pact agreed at Maastricht (but never properly enforced). As you can see Greece was well over it before the crash in 2007, so Greece has got in the situation that it is in due to excessive borrowing over a long period of time. As a comparison, the UK was 2.4% at this time (so a bit less than France). However Ireland and Spain were actually running budget surpluses going into the crash, their economies collapsed because they were based on unsustainable property bubbles and when the financial services sector collapsed their economies went into deep recession and in the case of Ireland the costs of bailing out their banking sector saddled the taxpayer with huge bills. Their economies were ruined by bad practices in the financial services sector, inappropriate lending and speculation on property.

So you have two types of problem - excess government borrowing (Greece) and the failure of regulation on the financial services sector (Spain/Ireland). The solution being driven by Germany is to constrain governments from running up budget deficits and to impose regulation on the financial services sector.

In the UK however the rhetoric from Cameron and Osborne recognises the first problem but not the second. They are trying to turn everything into a problem of government borrowing, Osborne keeps going on about Greece, saying "we don't want to end up like Greece"....but the UK had more in common with the Ireland and Spain story than Greece as we did not have a large budget deficit before the crash. They have gone on about high government borrowing figures after the crash, across Europe, but that is always going to happen when you have recessions, it doesn't mean borrowing caused the crisis in the first place.

What Cameron wanted was to have a solution involving constraints on government borrowing but not involving regulation of the financial services sector. However he can't really stop it, because if the Eurozone countries want to put tight rules on banks trading in Euro denominated assets they may make it impractical for banks based outside the Eurozone to trade in Eurozone assets and so force the relocation of banks from London to Frankfurt.

It's a reality. Get over it.

I'm sure though during these times of economic crisis, losing the UK economic ties would be a miny disaster for the german economy

Germans export levels with the UK are 6.6 percent of $1.337 trillion their import levels at $1.12 trillion

I'm sure doing the maths it's a hit they wouldn't want to take.

Quite.

Exactly.
We are big enough that we are someone the EU will WANT to trade with even if we were on the outside.

They wouldn't give a tuppeny if we left them alone.

Germany doesn't need the UK, neither does Europe.

They'd be better off without us. It wouldn't be long before the City of London was sidelined by Frankfurt.

Be very, very careful what you wish for.

Had to gasp when Michael Portillo gave Brown credit for that on BBC24 today.

Just a thought for you experts, if the Tories got their way and we eventually pulled out of Europe, does this mean we extradite all the Eastern Europeans that are settled here

Quote: billypop "I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are. Now go away and get some education.'" cars.european-traveler.com/germa ... tomobiles/ Silly little boy aren't you?

Quote: billypop "I am sure you can quote your sources, and I am even more sure that the German economy relies on the UK's economy. Wait a minute, no it doesn't. What a div you are. Now go away and get some education.'" cars.european-traveler.com/germa ... tomobiles/ Silly little boy aren't you?

No. We have a debt crisis caused by conventional banking write downs on loans (mainly to greedy householders) and a sovereign debt crisis due to excessive governmental spending across Europe and the USA. Casino (or investment banking) is not at all the issue. It's just popularist guff so that people don't need to accept any personal responsibility and politicians can have scape-goats (in rhetorial terms only).