This thread is about new members entering (e.g. Croatia) and old members leaving (e.g. Britain) the Union, as well as other moves and changes in the European collective collective.

Imagine a Portuguese coming out with that slagging assertion. Portugal IS a Third World country in practice! It had to be in the U to be able to use a begging bowl as it was not able to look after itself!

The situation re north and south of Ireland is an awkward one but Ireland has no right to try and take the moral high ground as it could only get on by being in the EU and getting money it could not unfortunately do itself. There are things shared across the border and fair enough but Ireland is staying in the messy EU and we are NOT. Obviously some sort of Border co-operation would be good but the EU is NOT making it easy or considering the situation on the island of Ireland.  A passing reference to the idea of giving ulster to the South is just a leaf in the wind as it will not happen and would not be voted on either.

If Europe is not prepared to consider the Ulster and Eire situation in a considerate way we will just need to leave the EU and unfortunately it will not help Dublin.  I accept that Ireland is trying to do something but they are in that damn Europe club which they need to be to financially exist and as i intimated we helped them financially as well.

Rankings don't really matter and Britain and France have bypassed each other a good number of times throughout history, but Britain has fallen behind France again.

Britain crashes out of world's top 5 economies

Both are well behind Germany, the only European country likely to remain in the top 8 in the longer run. Like the article said India is set to slide ahead of both, and longer-term Germany and Japan as well, while Italy and Canada are likely to slide behind.

Umm. That's pretty stark. 




(Wagging tongues commented that Brexit is a backhanded way for London to get rid of loss-making Northern Ireland.)

Germany runs the EU and at least this third attempt was not a military war. This country, Gt Britain WILL do well in the world at large for all you wax about and we will not be pumping money into a farce of a system that never ever gets it's books cleared so what about that corner, eh??  Ireland was getting nowhere until it desperately joined the EU and like other small poor countries could not financially run itself hence the begging bowl financial game which you know fine well about. If Europe is not prepared to be more sensible there are places over there who are going to suffer when we get out that farce of a system.

On the other hand they may not go out in a blaze of glory after all.

Not much remains of Theresa May's red lines after the Brexit deal (Guardian)

The first, and biggest, concession is buried in paragraph 49 of the 15-page report published early on Friday morning. Its implications will be anything but quiet in the weeks to come, for it undermines the prime minister's previous insistence that Britain will be leaving the single market.

It states clearly: "In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union." In other words, the UK may not be a member of the single market, or have any direct ability to shape its rules in future, but it could yet have to play by them in perpetuity.

Much will be made of the "in the absence of agreed solutions" caveat, yet what it means in practice is that the UK hopes to flesh out this pledge through a wider free trade agreement with the EU. If the other 27 members were reluctant to allow any wriggle room in the first phase of talks, they are even less likely to budge now that this principle is established as a back-stop.

When the agreement was first drafted on Monday, there was much concern that the promise of maintaining regulatory "alignment" might only apply to Northern Ireland, but the Democratic Unionist party has succeeded in removing any ambiguity and forced Downing Street to spell out that alignment stretches right across the Irish sea.
"The United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom," says the text now - unless, by some miracle, the Northern Ireland assembly were to decide it did, after all, want to be cut off.

In other words until something else is agreed Britain will remain in the internal market. That is good news for British territorial integrity, for business, and for predictability in 2019 and beyond.

Of course, that is also Norway by default (actually a little less, Norway has a marginal say within the EEA), so everything said about Norway applies. 

Oh the Guardian! What a waste of money buying that thing is. It is right behind the Labour lefty crackers and that party IS divided on Brexit and pretends it is not. That Lenin, oops, Corbyn, sat on the damn fence during the Brexit campaign. I wouldn't go with that newspaper even if it kept Edinburgh distant. The only good thing I muse on that paper is that it is struggling on sales etc a bit so hooray! The Prime Minister did achieve something on Thursday and the Guardian's Marxist pal Corbyn came out with rubbish when asked if the decision was a good progress.

I hope the Guardian, the anti Papist, pró-gay  pasquim will die soon.
Some it goes for the NYT.

I get annoyed at the BBC in some current affairs programmes as it makes me wonder if they are employed by the damn guardian. Mind you I doubt if anti-Papist or anti-queer as that's my corner!

Yep. Daily Express is the only true newspaper, the only one that realises that fog in the channel isolates the continent.

May's triumph? Interesting headline...

May's triumph? Interesting headline...

Nobody takes the Express seriously. Most of their front pages are either about some amazing medical breakthrough (when there isn't one), or some news about Princess Diana, even though she's been dead for 20 years.

You forgot to add the "National" a newspaper that is a waste of time and a much declined sales.....

Yawn... 

Look pompous  you are never able to deal with things face on and go into a pompous and snooty attitude instead. I will give you one kind of positive in that you are regular with body-swerving. We are on the way out and your declining lot of Brigadoons are in the slide. That the national and ever so, ever so Guardian are going down you have little to hold on to!

See previous post, though I don't like repeating myself unlike some people. 

Oh you are doing well keeping up your would-be liberal minded nonsense. You don't really deal with a point where you are not agreed with you and are part of the modern so-called wide thinking who don't actually practice that in real life. Your mind set is actually now part of the modern narrow thinking. In the past you would have been part of the attitude that would accuse others of being mind controlled but now your corner is the in thing. 

    

Conceited excuse...conceited excuse.

Ah, diddums!

Well in a free country there is always the situation that the small mind will commandeer snobbishness, limited sense and daft smugness. It is normally the self proclaimed open liberal mindset (so called) and as you are a Guardinista you well show that failing. Feel smarty pants if you wish but the hard fact is that Britain is coming out of that fiasco called the EU and your brain lot squeal about the UK but quite happy to give in to Brussels control. So be as cocky as you want because goodbye is coming and we will again have our own country's control back. You sneer at the large numbers who read say the Daily Mail or Daily Express but the National is a wee thing and the Guardian is a struggle. When one considers the size of the Guardian compared to say the Mail you are ridiculing an awful lot of people who read it. And the National? There is another failing so wax away but watch you don't strain your brain cells.

      

Apparently big companies are selling inferior products in Eastern Europe. Pretty bizarre stuff.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/eastern-europeans-tired-of-inferior-products-a-1182949.html

Apparently big companies are selling inferior products in Eastern Europe. Pretty bizarre stuff.

I have suspected this for decades and I have occasionally got direct hints (when doing business with companies) that this is so. Global companies divide the world into regions as they see fit. The former Warsaw Pact area tends to be its own region, separate from Western Europe. Sometimes they are bundled together with Russia. This applies for many products and services so that it's easily noticeable when you spend time in a different country for a little while.

Edit: But I must say your story is a good find. There is precious little journalism on this topic.

I do make allowances for Luxor to be incapable of in-depth stances and hide behind daft passing comments.Snooty and smart alex styles are not a sign of some deep intelligence and appraisal but an incapability. The simple are entitled to a society place like the intelligent but they cannot get away with trying to dominate it and slag ff large numbers of people by hiding behind the Guardian and National guff. Pity there are fewer public toilets as they could have a job being an attendant........