It has been quite the eye opener to watch France and Germany drive the proceedings. I was quite supportive of the EU and the Euro, but now I'm glad we (the UK) stayed out of the Euro. It would appear that this crisis is being used to move power away from the "weaker" countries.
As you are from the UK, I will warn you. Every news you read from a British source should be cross-checked with another source (just so you have another take on it).
Don't get me wrong, I have no animosity toward the UK or anything like this. I also find BBC's reporting to be of very high quality and I watch it daily. However there is total unfairness regarding the Europe thing at the BBC.
Basically I'd sum their coverage as "See what's going on? We told you so!".
That said, I disagree with you regarding the "stay out of the Euro". I now think that it is sad that the UK didn't get more involved in the Europe. The UK is probably the only country that could have weighed enough to get France and Germany to actually implement another management.
Europe is victim of the "small team" problem. It's a small team so it's ok if the two biggest guys manage it hand in hand because everybody's just ok with that and nobody can really challenge them. Problem arise with tougher times like we experience.
You guys should have really pushed us :) My opinion: we needed you to kick us and tell us it's not ok to just take the lead; it needs to be formalized AND democratic.
I'm afraid our national psyche doesn't allow us to join any union worthy of the name. The only way I can describe it is that the eurozone and what it's becoming makes our skin crawl.
We are so culturally different to the rest of Europe, I'm very very glad we stayed out. Us having any sort of leading voice in Europe would have been ridiculous.
Hopefully we withdraw fully from the EU, and the Euro collapses.
Just watch the Eurovision song contest for an idea of how ridiculously different Europe is from the UK, and how widespread the whole "we like them but not them" thing is.
The membership in the European Union is key, having the Euro doesn't really make the integration much deeper. There are practically no laws that don't apply to the UK just because they are not in the Euro.
You can be happy that you aren't involved in the "saving the euro" mess and you should be. But believing that you are somewhat distanced from the EU or that it would be possible to believe is totally delusional - the european integration is extremely deep even if the euro fails and in my opinion cannot be stopped or reversed.
You know, as an Irish person living in England, I have to respectfully disagree. If the UK was in the euro, there might actually be a chance of meaningful finanical regulation at a global level, as the City being part of the euro would have made a huge difference to the way this crisis has unfolded.
In addition, the cultural differences are not really that large. Europe has a common fascination with arguments and alcohol, especially the Northern parts (which include Uk, Ireland, Scandanavia, Netherlands and Germany). Historically, there have been huge links between the UK (and ireland) and these countries. To claim that there are these huge differences based on the Eurovision is a little absurd.
That being said, while watching the Eurovision i often find myself regarding them with a mix or horror and bemusement, but thats mostly because they're the kind of people who go on the Eurovision, not because they are of different nationalities.
I am not sure I would like UK "culture" to be judged by our eurovision entries and suspect most europeans would feel the same.
The UK does have a problem though, in many ways we are much more like america economically than the rest of europe, but european is trade is big part of our economy.
I know very little about the economy in the UK and I'm curious to understand why you say that your economy is closer to that of the US than that of France or Germany (or any other EU economy for that matter).
Well, we try to enter songs/artists we think will appeal to Europe's tastes. And mainly fail, because we are so different from them.
It's fairly obvious that our countries usual musical output is pretty decent, and if we entered any of that into the contest, we'd win (If it was actually anything to do with the song).
I love the Eurovision song contest though, because it highlights how ridiculous the idea of integrating Europe is. You get countries who always vote for each other even when the song is rubbish, and you get no one voting for us, even when we have a half decent song. The Eurovision song contest is the best advert for a 'euro-skeptic'.
I won't take the eurovision to measure europe's culture. First it is not "European" anymore, neither politically (Swizerland) nor geographically (Algeria and Israel for example are participating). Secondly, France and Germany do not succeed very well and they participation is rather ridiculous.
Bear in mind that countries like Ireland are still strongly in favour of the Euro, even after what has happened; think about the reasons that could be.
