Why would we want windmills, half of our power generation went to England before we got our first windmill, they are here to power England and to cut it's CO2 emissions, we shouldn't have to apply for grants to pay for stuff for other countries.
Poll: EU Referendum Voting Intentions
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Why would we want windmills, half of our power generation went to England before we got our first windmill, they are here to power England and to cut it's CO2 emissions, we shouldn't have to apply for grants to pay for stuff for other countries.
Yes it makes me look daft. We said the same thing, from different sources.
You the have to factor in maintenance costs, this is even before we get to the motorways.
Don't then go into trying to justify the wastage, blaming it in the economy. Anyone with half a brain could tell you these European countries didn't need multiple, brand spanking new airports, nor the new motorways. That makes you look daft.
But like I said originally, that's not a reason to come out the EU. It just highlights the mismanagement and ideology. Some of these countries don't want to be dragged out the stone ages, and will not be. No matter how much money you throw at them or how many airports you build.
In a purely financial sense the EU is a bigger scale of opening a joint bank account with everyone down your road. Except you have one of the nicer houses... And you actually go to work. You've also just moved there.. So most are still complete strangers.
Edit. Not sure how the auditors come to 28% of €666m. One airport in Spain cost almost that, hasn't been used since it was built in 2011..
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No, you linked to a propaganda article, I linked to a factual one.
Maintenance costs are not funded by the EU.
There have been overly ambitious project all over Europe (and the rest of the world for that matter), some funded by the EU, some by national states and some private. You should not be pointing the finger at the EU, the crisis explains most of them and overly optimistic or corrupt governments can be blamed for the rest.
Spain or Poland, which is where most of the failed airports were built, are not in the stone age.
No, there are rigorous steps which must be taken in order to have access to EU funds. Furthermore, if evidence of mismanagement is later found, the states are actually forced to return the money and suffer the losses.
http://www.novinite.com/articles/16...ria's+Deadline+to+Explain+Funds+Mismanagement
I agree building a totally unused airport would be bad value(!), but I can only find one in these articles that fits that description (Castellon-Costa in Spain). The rest seem to be renovations and new facilities. Not "brand spanking new airports" as you say balky12.
In most cases these are projects that have been put on hold since the recession. There are loads of projects, public and private, in southern and eastern Europe that have been put on hold for the same reason. If you're going to criticise the EU for wasting money then you have to do the same for all the private developers of hotels etc. that also got caught out by the crash.
Providing funding for large infrastructure projects is a really useful function of governments. They tend not to get picked up by private investors, but are generally low risk and great for the country short term (initial fiscal stimulus, jobs etc.) and long term (encourage growth in local area, increased trade, etc.). So I agree we should be minimising wasted money, but also we should expect some mistakes to be made because there's always some risk.
Edit: Zethor is much faster..
In most cases these are projects that have been put on hold since the recession. There are loads of projects, public and private, in southern and eastern Europe that have been put on hold for the same reason. If you're going to criticise the EU for wasting money then you have to do the same for all the private developers of hotels etc. that also got caught out by the crash.
Providing funding for large infrastructure projects is a really useful function of governments. They tend not to get picked up by private investors, but are generally low risk and great for the country short term (initial fiscal stimulus, jobs etc.) and long term (encourage growth in local area, increased trade, etc.). So I agree we should be minimising wasted money, but also we should expect some mistakes to be made because there's always some risk.
Edit: Zethor is much faster..
Soldato
No but then you would have money that you didn't spend on windmills to spend on what the Welsh actually wanted which is your bone of contention and the EU world have paid for something you didn't want to pay for.
I'm sure the Scots are pretty much in the same situation but they were smart enough to make it work for them.
Further more I never once said the Welsh were overfunded, I said you had higher spending per head.
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Factual one. Well it was pretty softening. I found one airport that costs about the same as the audits wastage. Castellón airport. ~€140m to build. That's almost the '28% of the €666m' you quoted.
Spain is on its way back to the stone ages then. As an economy it is crippled.
Yes those 'rigorous steps' that let the likes of Greece in. Who the EU continues to throw good money after bad. A country where no one apparently earns more than €5,000 and everyone can retire at 55. Then they wonder why they have no money.
Anyways, I don't get why we are arguing. We both agree there is a huge amount if wastage. You're just trying to justify it.
Caporegime
I said 'No' as i'm more inclined to vote that way at the moment.
Saying that, when it comes closer i'll be doing a hell of a lot more research so I can at least make a better educated call.
Saying that, when it comes closer i'll be doing a hell of a lot more research so I can at least make a better educated call.
*** Personal insults are not tolerated here *** - Will Gill
The whole point is we dont have a voice, well we do but it's not heard, that's why we are having this referendum . And why can't we pick and choose what we want to integrate and not we are supposed to be living in a democratic nation so that makes sense does it not?
And this left wing crap about denigrating all foreigners is getting old. Nobody right minded will do that, it's a simple question about border control and numbers nothing else anyone who says otherwise are pillocks like you, uninformed and misguided.
If any spelling mistakes, grammar issues SwiftKey is ****
I'm neither uninformed nor misguided, nor am I even left-wing. David Cameron is so keen on a renegotiation which I had thought would be sidelined and ignored by significant EU actors, yet he's not having difficulties initiating that discussion. It's clear we do have a voice in the EU, and have already secured for ourselves several benefits not afforded to new members (such as having to adopt at some stage the Euro, the only other country in the EU in this position is Denmark). But that is precisely what a negotiation is... we want x, they want y and ultimately compromises have to be made. We could not stay in the EU and have only the benefits with none of the burdens, nor could we leave the EU and just latch onto the good aspects.
We are living in a democratic society, but so are the residents of all other EU members, who are equally entitled to contribute to the discussion of what the EU ought to be.
It shouldn't just be a question of numbers when it comes to immigration - migrants contribute far more to society than they take out and as I've already said, are needed in large numbers if we are to alleviate the issues which arise from an ageing population. I'm getting sick of watching things like Question Time and seeing audience and panel members vilify immigrants as though they are all benefit or health "tourists" - which itself is another non-issue, people could just as easily travel to any other EU nation with healthcare provided free at the point of service. In fact, I know more Brits who have gone abroad for cosmetic dental surgery than I do foreigners who have used the NHS for anything more than a checkup or minor issue.
You've been duped by UKIP into thinking the EU is a monolithic institution in which we are sidelined and is actively seeking to constrain everything the Commons tries to do.
Caporegime
Soldato
I haven't looked it up but what percentage of that was EU citizens?
Or is that only counting EU citizens + Brits leave.
We do get our fair share of former colony migrants turning up in the UK from India, Pakistan, Australia.
In fact if it weren't for India or Pakistan how would our NHS cope?
Also suppose we leave the EU and want to join EFTA and the EFTA members say ok UK you can join so long as you sign up to the free movement of people. ?
Soldato
Bravo!
Caporegime
Yes, precisely!
The EU is not a perfect democratic institution (although given our mess of an electoral system, it's not like the UK can talk on that front!) but the main reason that it lacks direct democratic accountability is because the national governments don't want it to have it and instead want to be able to influence it themselves. The democratic accountability of the EU is largely maintained through the democratic accountability of the national governments.
Even so, the EU actually gives UK voters greater democratic control because, without it, we'd only have influence through national government rather than through the directly elected European Parliament as well. What's more, by partaking in international organisations such as the EU we're able to have far more influence over the global factors that have a huge influence on the UK. But, of course, we're only a small part of the EU so we cannot expect to get our way in everything. With a competent diplomat in number 10, we'd find it much easier to get favourable outcomes; unfortunately we've got David Cameron and he's spent the last five years showing just how incapable he is of dealing sensibly with the EU.
The EU will continue to have a huge influence over the UK if we leave, we'll just be less able to do anything about it. What's more, we'll find that having removed ourselves from an influential club we're even less able to hold sway with other major governments such as the US, China and India.
2014
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/latest-immigration-statistics
I don't know if migration watch is impartial if I'm honest.
There's not much difference between EU vs non-EU immigration. However the EU immigration is supposed to be a net gain tax wise (if that includes the cost to infrastructure and services I don't know) vs the net loss of non-EU immigration.
So yeah leaving the EU would half the potential number of immigration but it would come at the cost of losing whatever they bring in(assuming the infrastructure and services are paid for) and we'd still have the net loss that is the british and non-EU.
However on the flip side of the net gain of the EU immigrants is caused by the lack of us having to pay for their education and upbringing as soon as a second generation is produced they're probably equal to british in terms of being a gain or loss. Thus second generation is where we start to lose the incentive.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/latest-immigration-statistics
I don't know if migration watch is impartial if I'm honest.
There's not much difference between EU vs non-EU immigration. However the EU immigration is supposed to be a net gain tax wise (if that includes the cost to infrastructure and services I don't know) vs the net loss of non-EU immigration.
So yeah leaving the EU would half the potential number of immigration but it would come at the cost of losing whatever they bring in(assuming the infrastructure and services are paid for) and we'd still have the net loss that is the british and non-EU.
However on the flip side of the net gain of the EU immigrants is caused by the lack of us having to pay for their education and upbringing as soon as a second generation is produced they're probably equal to british in terms of being a gain or loss. Thus second generation is where we start to lose the incentive.
Caporegime
They're very much not. However the straight forward stats like these they're decently reliable.
Incidentally, one rarely mentioned point about these migration stats is that the only reason that the coalition/Tories have been able to claim that the UK has a fast growing economy is because they've missed their migration targets so wildly. Somewhere around 3% of what GDP growth we've seen in the last five years is directly attributable to immigration.
I suspected not when I saw the name but upon checking the official figures it looked right and it was laid out much better to post.
Annoyingly I couldn't find any solid stats on illegal migration but I guess due to being illegal it's hard to quantify.
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Suspended
I vote to stay. We can only have meaningful influence on decisions that affect us if we remain a substantively involved in the democratic process.
I'd also stress how biased Migration Watch is, but assuming their table is made up of official figures the data presented is fine.
What it also shows is that immigrants come to the UK in huge numbers from outwith the EU where there's even more hoops to jump through. Even if we left the EU we'd still not have significantly fewer people coming in. But I think it's a good thing we have lots of people wanting to move to the UK and contribute to our society and economy.
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