RE: RISE20 Jan 2019 13:24
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'...if you can tell me where we are better off, then i might just change my mind.'
Noggers
Brother, allow me to ask this first: Why is Croatia much much better off in the EU?
Why is Spain much better off? Why is Lithuania much better off? I'm not talking about some struggling members (like Greece, where people enter pension at 55, and then sit in the sun).
Last summer we went sailing around Croatia, and once more I'm fascinated by people and landscape - and their suddenly great infrastructure. Brand new Zagreb airport, brand new highway connections ...with greetings from the EU development fund. As well as croatian national parks, that suddenly are protected from illegal hunting (according to EU laws), and that suddenly employ fulltime national park staff, with brand new SUV cars. Or maritime zones that get proper life savers, and controlled by marine biologists, who try to protect from overfishing. When going out at night you meet hords of master students who say they're doing their master course in Vienna, London, Edingburgh or Stockholm... The meaning of a union, right?
Similar development in Spain: Have you been to the Canaries in the early 1990s? Today thats a huge difference: Great infrastructure projects, with capital greetings from the EU development fund. Yup, you are right: Mostly rich EU members have paid for that. Well, you and me, we are very very rich compared to Lithuania. Why not let them have their crumb!
At the same time the UK nowadays operates many businesses allover the EU. Suddenly everyone owns a Barclaycard as well as a british life insurance. Unthinkable twenty years ago!
Noggers, why does England seem the only country that does not (or does not want) to grabb its fair share?? Why do the Scots want to stay in? And the Irish as well?
Of course the biggest voice in the EU has the biggest economy, you will agree to that. But even this gets balanced, with changing EU presidency by each member country.
At the same time I agree that currently theres too much lobbyist-foulplay in Brussles, and quite undemocratic procedure everywhere you look:
'Brexiteer cabinet minister Liam Fox has accused pro-Remain MPs of trying to "in effect steal Brexit", amid backbench moves to take control of the process.'
bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46936405