For a seasoned EU watcher and someone who works in the EU a lot, it has a wearying and monotonous tone.
Simply put some countries want to keep "taking", other countries want to "take more" and everyone is seeking political gain and capital out of the situation.
This is simply a re run of Cameron's attempted negotiations with the EU prior to the referendum. They listened to nobody but their own sound bites which played well at home and they got the result nobody expected. They all fell into the same mould that has been there for the last 40 years. "We'll tell the UK what we want and they will give it to us". Except we didn't and now they are facing a crushing impact unless we can all come to an amicable agreement which gives the UK much of what it wants in terms of relations with the UK.
I can see this going the same sorry route that the referendum went. All you have to do is read the article to see who the losers are going to be and just how fractured the whole mess is. Few in the EU, outside of Sweden and a few others, see the reality that the EU needs to negotiate this for the benefit of the EU alone and the states should not be involved. But that won't happen because the states still think and act like national countries.
So I can see us going right down the wire to the last minute and exiting without a clear agreement. Will it impact us? Certainly. But what about the others. You just have to read the article to see the reality coming out in the news now. Germany €51 billion surplus with the UK. German goods are some of the most expensive in the world, let alone the EU. I'm quite sure US car manufacturers would be quite happy to supply cars to the UK for absolute minimum tariff plus I'm sure the many UK buyers would be happy to take Japanese and Korean cars at a significant discount.
Perhaps our tourists would like to go 6 hours to the US instead of 3 hours to Greece and have a holiday there.
All these countries trying to redirect our banking business have not yet worked out that the very reason the banking business is there does not come from the fact that we speak English or that London is such a wonderful city to work in. It comes form the fact that our currency flow laws and our banking and finance laws are the most relaxed in the EU. Plus our taxation and working practises for staff are also the most relaxed in the EU. If they want to lure our businesses away they are going to have to change their own laws. Something they have absolutely no intention of doing as they are not committed to it.
Some time they will all wake up to the fact that the UK is a massive jewel of the EU crown which has been prised out by intransigence and belligerence of the other 27 states. There is a chance to keep that jewel in the portfolio of the EU and continue to keep making money from it. But, again, that belligerence and intransigence is going to come back into play again during these negotiations. The Jewel may be a bit tarnished in the process and may take a while to polish back up, but it's still a jewel the EU is losing. Why is it losing that jewel? Because of the hugely inflated sense of worth of all those member states due to their position in the EU.
Here's a reality check for those in the EU who "Demand" the UK falls into line.
The EU is worth $16.5 trillion down from $18.5trilliion in 2014.
Global GDP is $73 trillion
If the UK were to create two free trade treaties, one with Japan and one with the US, the UK would have access to a market value of $25 trillion, or put another way more than 1/3 of the world economy and close to twice the GDP value of the EU. Add in China and that figure would be raised to $36 trillion or nearly half the world GDP. With only _THREE_ trade deals.
The UK economy is a significant prize for any economy. Japan, because if it's stagnation and loss of value re: the $ has dropped to $4.4tn and the UK is sitting around $2.8tn. When the whole Article 50 mess is over the £ is going to revalue against the $ as it makes a clean break with the € and the UK is going to rise towards the size of Germany (down to $3.5tn), a gap which can be nearly closed simply by a 30% revaluation of the value of the £ or, put another way, a return to where the £ was back in 2002. Putting the UK in 4th place and chasing close to Japan, a country with 130m people. Or put another way the UK economy would be close to producitng virtually twice the GDP per capita of Japan.
Note also that when the EU loses the UK it's GDP drops from $16,5tn to under $14tn (or about 1/5th of the world economy) and that $2.8tn we take away will be one of the most effective economies.
The EU will be significantly diminished on the world stage. In fact China, in the advent of a UK Brexit, may be able to overtake the EU's second spot in world GDP within a decade, pushing the EU even further down the chart.
Remember the "remain" talk, during the referendum, about how the UK would be less secure out of the EU? I called it for the BS it was. Now the Baltic and Eastern European states want reassurances about continued security in the face of Russian aggression. Why would they want that? Well because the EU has been made significantly less secure with the loss of the UK and the UK has made no change whatsoever in it's security status. In fact the UK is now free to make it's own deal with Russia that does not include any of the EU states.
Perhaps they should have though about that when they "told Cameron how insignificant he was and what he could not have"??? But, of course, they didn't think about that then. They're not DEMANDING free access to our markets now, are they? They're begging for support to keep them out of the influence of Russia. Their bargaining chip? Free access to the EU markets. But they'll have to get past France, Germany and Spain on that one. Should have thought about that when negotiating with Cameron shouldn't they....
So, after a long journey of reality check. I believe, as I stated above, that the EU is going to do the same thing it did to the UK in the Article 50 negotiations as it did with Cameron over the EU treaty negotiations. With the same end result. The UK even more isolated from the EU and the vast majority of the EU paying the price.
As was said by my colleagues about IBM during Y2K, this is totally true to the EU today as it was to them back in the day.
It is not the fact that they are going to shoot themselves in the foot. That is a given. It is the speed with which they reload so that they can do it all over gain.
The way the UK is viewed by the vast majority of the EU is ludicrous and requires a complete renewed level set. That level set is only going to happen through the pain and suffering of the EU countries themselves. It seems they respond to no other stimulus.
So, game on. Time to get on with it and burn the house down. Maybe we can them make a better house.
