Marine Le Pen: Brexit is a ‘Terrifying Failure’ For the European Union

Breitbart.com ^ | 2/3/2020 | Kurt Zindulka

[Cronos]

The 1951 Treaty of Paris? Well it included one country that doesn’t exist anymore - West Germany.

[Cronos]

“If Italy cut itself away from the poor, agrarian, Mafia dominated south, it would be a very productive, efficient and prosperous industrial nation. That is why one of the parties that is doing strongly, Lega Nord, was traditionally a seperatist party advocating the seperation of Northern Italy from the South.”

If England cut itself away from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.....

And if the south of England cut itself off from the post-industrial north....

Italy is a country formed recently yes, and they do have strong regional sentiments, but I don’t find them much stronger than English regional sentiments (check a Yorkshireman vs an Essex gal)

The south is not just Mafia (which is Sicily), but also Ndrangheta and the Calabrese :-)

So you are correct that the south is a drag since the 1870s, yet it’s still Italy and even the most ardent Legia member no longer seriously wants to cut off the south from the north

[Cronos]

"England is a productive nation" - err... but the UK is England + Scotland + Wales + N.Eire -- and the last two are dependent on inflows of aid from the first.

Though even if you take it UK vs Italy, it's not quite true

GDP comparison: UK $2.8 billion vs It $2.0 B GDP per cap: $42K vs $32K Debt as % GDP: 86% vs 134% HCR ranking: 23 vs 35

Italy has a bad (big) number of unskilled young workers, but hte UK is close behind

In my opinion what drags Italy down is:

1. too strict employment laws - hiring and firing is a chore, so people aren't hired - so the young, productive people go to the UK - and since 2016 to Germany and France

2. A chaotic political scene

3. the euro

4. education of the young

What ails the UK is:

1. too lenient employment laws merged with welfare that end up penalizing a lot of young people

2. high rents etc. that make life for the young difficult

3. paralysis in the UK govt since 2016

4. bad, bad education at the lower levels for the young -- grammar schools and private schools are ok, but just ok - the way they have dumbed down education to boost up passing numbers is shocking.

Italy if it left the EU would be able to support itself -- and so would the UK. But both would have a drastic drop in GDP and in competitiveness. Both of them have a natural hinterland where 56% of their exports go - to their neighbourhood. increasing prices and increasing delays due to borders would be detrimental - probably more so for the UK as it exports services

[Cronos]

The EU made it devilishly difficult for the UK to get out

err.. how did it make it devilishly difficult?

let's see the big bone of contention - the only one was what to do with the Irish border that managed to juggle both the good friday agreement and the "let's take back control of our borders"

There was no real bone of contention over the remaining money to pay for Farage's retirement + projects until end 2020. that was just leverage attempted to be used

Can you, IWTUB, name what was the "devilishly difficult" that you saw?

[Cronos]

Regarding immigration - the Italians are unhappy that the OTHER EU countries aren’t taking the africans from Italy.

Africans boat over to Italy but they want to head north. however the rest of the EU said “Nie”

That’s what Italy was ticked off about.

[Cronos]

However, I don’t think Italy is in a position where they can be financially independent, like Britain.

You mean the UK or just the island of Britain (meaning excluding Northern Ireland)??

Italy can be financially independent - with a lot of pain -- more pain than for the UK after Dec 31, 2020 definitely.

The UK leaving the eu after dec 2020 isn't the end of the world, no matter what the leavers say - not for the UK, nor for the EU. But it is going to cause pain - as Anne Widdecombe said

[Cronos]

But didn't the EU bail Italy out when they went bankrupt a few years ago

err.. Italy hasn't gone bankrupt - I don't think even in the 1800s

they haven't been bailed out either.

And Eu shoveling money to Italy? What are you talking about?

Finally "being a dependent of their eu masters" is like saying Florida is a dependent of it's Washington DC masters - nonsensical. Italy, like the UK had, has a veto over policies (look at the weaker Poland and Hungary use that), plus they have their own eu commissioner and 73 Members of the eu parliament. Italy IS a part of the eu intrinsically as the UK was until last Friday.

[Cronos]

The PIIGS term made sense only in 2014.

Since then
1. Ireland has been growing fast
2. Spain has recovered since 2017 and is growing
3. Portugal has recovered since 2018 and is slowly growing
4. Greece is stable
5. Italy is somewhat stable

Spain was growing twice as fast as the US in 2017, Ireland is similar, Portugal is doing fine. Italy a bit less but not doing terrible either. The only real problem child is Greece

As to “the EU’s collapse” - that will happen one day eventually, but none of those going rah-rah give any alternative for what to do then.

The countries of the EU bar Germany and France and to some extent Italy, are too small to really stick around well by themselves - they would be bullied by bigger players.

[Cronos]

“I actually think the countries along the Southern periphery would be better off outside the EU. They long had a habit of overspending and rolling over to various trade unions, government workers, etc.”

What you describe is Italy.

Greece problem is heavy corruption and non-tax paying.

Portugal is just poor and small

Spain isn’t like how you describe.

[Cronos]

You do realize that the good people of Poland overwhelmingly don’t want to leave, right? Even those opposed to the UE don’t - they want a reform. Poland gets a large amount of the UE’s budget and infrastructure building PLUS the common market has halped boost the Polish economy.

Poland doesn’t want the EU parliament or much of the oversight.

The person making the noise of Poland leaving was / is Donald Tusk, of the PO party (which ruled until 2015 and then lost badly) - that he thinks Poland will self-leave due to it setting up so parliament appoints judges.

Poland doesn’t want Muslim refugees - we’ve got over 2 million Ukrainian and Belarussian guest-workers - and quite frankly all of the Muslim refugees who were bussed here left as soon as they can because the welfare money is pitiful (barely able to survive)

[Cronos]

“Yeah no they’re populist but they’re not right wing at all.”

Correctomundo - would call them nationalist, but they are big-government and big welfare.

Similarly Poland’s and Hungary’s governments are nationalistic but big-government and big-welfare and they are called “right wing” - that’s newspeak for ya

[Cronos]

you do realize that Italy and Greece and others police their non-EU borders (and that’s where the problem comes from) - and the EU strictly enforces borders with non-EU countries.

What exactly are you referring to?

[Cronos]

There are two parts Bayard - the first you correctly pointed out is that the UK gets a lot of money from the EU

But in addition there are massive economic benefits

1. We have common eu laws so signing a contract with a portuguese customer is simpler - common rules
2. Banking, finance, mobile phones, calls etc. is as simple as between Delaware and Arizona.
3. Big opportunities as the car manufacturing supply chain is shifting from UK-Benelux-France-Germany to Germany-Czechia-Poland-Slovakia-Romania.

Finally there is the defence options — if Poland ever managed to convince the rest of the idiots in CE that the Miedzymorze plan would be sensible, then we’d leave the eu pronto

[Cronos]

You and FLT-bird are saying two different things

FLT-bird is saying they can work on their own and they are kept on a leash by some amorphous EU (forgetting that they themselves ARE the eu)

You are saying that they are spoilt and control the eu

[Cronos]

1. “once proud nations” - you mean the same way you have the nations of Scotland, England, Wales in the union of the crowns?

oh and what about the once proud nations of Bavaria etc. who considered themselves distinct?

2. besides, what “homogenize cultures” are you talking about? The EU does a lot of stupid things and is a bloated bureaucracy but nowhere does it “homogenize cultures” - it does the opposite where you have 27 different languages for all documents.

[Cronos]

1. it ain’t a quagmire, no more than the UK, Swiss confederation or the united states are a quagmire.

2. There are zero indications of any other country leaving in the next 10 years. Not that it can’t happen, but all of the 27 countries show no one has anywhere near the majority of voters who want to leave (as opposed to dissatisfied)

[Cronos]

Actually the idea of the EU dates from the 1815 Congress of Vienna and possibly earlier from Potocki’s plan for a Europe-wide union with different spheres (for latin, germanic, slavic etc. areas)

[Cronos]

Yollo - your post is historically so completely, mindboggling WRONG it's incredible Keep in mind that those countries, the entirety of Latin America, the Philippines have their cultural roots in the Spanish Empire of the conquistadores. A deeper investigation will conclude that Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy were all dominated for centuries by Islam, their cultural ethics and value system are basically Muslim

Let's go through this

1. 1. "their have their roots in the Spanish empire of the conquistadors - err.. no, Greece and much of Italy wasn't part of the conquistadors
2. "were all dominated for centuries by Islam" -- err.. Portugal kicked out the Muslims in the 1200s, spain in the 1400s and Italy bar 100 years in Sicily (ending in the 9th century) and a few years in southern italy wasn't controlled by Muslims
3. Cultural ethics and value systems are basically Muslim? -- that is so completely nutzo it's not even worth refuting

[Cronos]

his is why they are chronically corrupt and underperforming.

Sigh... let's see you also have Belize and Jamaica - British cultural legacies that are chronically corrupt and underperforming

Then Italy and Spain were economic powerhouses from the fall of the western empire until the 1700s and Italy was an economic powerhouse 1950 to 1970 and Spain was and now is an economic powerhouse.

Perhaps a little reading is in order, yollo?

[9YearLurker]

So you, FR’s biggest EU shill, are from and in Poland?