h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK - for a Europe wide compromise stance:
Measurement System: Metric
Drive on: The right
Priority: to the main road (i.e. not "a droit")
Electricity : 240v, 50Hz
Language: English
Currency: Euro
TV Encoding: PAL

The electric already is 240V 50Hz (well it's 230V but the tollerance allows 240V in the UK and 220V where they had it before to remain )

That nice then.

Re Ireland - For a long long time we were enjoying very high growth, very low inflation AND very low interest rates, and in doing so, defying all economists expectations.

Now we have high inflation, but if you look closely it is caused more by high oil prices and the weak euro than with interest rates.

I think that any government managing an economy on interest rates alone is being very simplistic. Ireland does not have control over interest rates anymore, but it is able to use other mechanisms to keep some control on the economy, ie taxation, national wage bargaining etc.

We are already part of the Eurozone, and the debate here about joining the Euro is long dead. Most Irish people believe that in the main it is a good thing. The Euro will happen regardless, and when it does come in (ie when we have the coins in our hands), the UK is going to look a bit silly, because it will be one of the only economies in Europe where international companies will need to accept a great deal of risk when doing business. I think there will be really strong pressure on the UK to join at that stage, and that a lot of that pressure will come from the USA.

CR

That's pretty much what I was expecting the Irish perspective to be. I tend to agree, certainly with the over-simplicity of a nation's economic control being based on interest rates. It seems to me that the British anti-Euro camp have been over-stressing this point somewhat. The notion that it benefits anyone for Britain to try and distance itself from Europe doesn't make much sense. Although from the outside looking in its getting hard not to wince as the Euro steadily drops in value (another point for the anti-Euro camp to labour). Is it still stabilising or is something else going on here?

At the moment The Bank Of England Bank who sets our intrest ratesIF we join the single currency it will be set by The European Central Bank Who set a single intrest rate for every euro country regardless of their economic condition they have to accept that interst rate, their is no opt out
Its rather like going to buy a pair of shoes only to be told we only sell one size.
Any one with any sense would walk out
it is a one size fits all intrest rate which may be alright for some countries but not i beleve for The UK , who should be free it set its own intrest rates
When supports of the single currency say we would not lose our soverignity i don't beleve them
This loss would not come at once, but almost un noticed over a period of time

Already many european burocrats are looking forward to the time when The EU as even more control over member countries
If we join the single currency this would be the first step to a time when each countries goverment would be no more than a rubber stamp for the EU
in my opinion to join the single currency would be the bigest mistake this counry could ever make.

I see the point that not having an interest rate policy is a handicap for the government. A good macroeconomic policy depends on both interest rate policy AND fiscal policy (being taxes and government spending). It wouldn't be such a point if the European market were truly integrated, this is definitely not so where the labor market is concerned. I can't imagine myself moving to a different language zone because they pay slightly better.
Ofcourse there are also big gains from a single currency: more market integration meaning bigger scale advantages and competition between firms.
But I don't understand this feeling that the UK should somehow be different from the rest of Europe.
"it is a one size fits all intrest rate which may be alright for some countries but not i beleve for The UK , who should be free it set its own intrest rates"

Also, the EU's tools and responsibilities are bound by a thing called subsidiarity. This means that if something can be done sufficiantly by a country, or by a voluntary cooperation of countries, the EU will not intervene.

"Perhaps I'm being a bit thick here - but why is everyone in such a two and eight about the single currency?
What has this got to do with sovereignty anyway - three countries in west Africa share a currency (the CFA) and they are all independent....and does anyone but Mr. Hague think joining NAFTA instead is a good idea?"

Problems with the single currency - first it's ugly, second it ties several diverse economies together and if one fails they're all damaged, third soverignty is lost and that is something you have to consider.

Joining NAFTA would be disasterous. In the EU we can stand up to France or Germany if they persue an agenda in their own interests against us. In NAFTA the US would simply be able to push it's agendas on us for it's own purposes and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Hague, like many tories, would not sell British soveringty to Brussels but would gladly sell it to Washington. At the end of the day, the simple reasons for this is that Americans are english-speaking white-men. If they weren't he wouldn't trust them.

"NAFTA is not much more than a businessmens' club."

The EU is exactly the same, although both liberal and conservative elements in the UK are joined in a single effort to persuade us otherwise. What makes it different from NAFTA is that, as I said, we can stand our own ground in the EU.