What if Britain could use a Remain to make the EU a more worthy union?

Sir, Martin Wolf writes “EU is a peace project that works by embedding mutual relations in a framework of equally-applicable and legally-binding rules. The mutual trust necessary to make the EU work depends on this.” “Misunderstanding the European project” October 5.

How beautiful, but does the reality stand up to this? I don’t think so. As example EU authorities, for the risk weighted capital requirements for banks decreed a 0% risk weight for Greece and, as a direct consequence Greece was offered too much credit and, unable to resist, took on too much debt. But then EU blamed Greece for it all, and left it alone to pay for it all.

Also, the number one EU challenge is to help many of its members meet the challenges the euro poses, challenges that were known from the very start. Have they done this? No, in the euro’s soon twenty years, EU techno/bureaucrats have spend more time on a lot of other minor issues that sometimes makes one think more of a Banana Union. 

How can/should a Remainder Britain respond to EU? Definitely not with a “sorry, we made a mistake” but much more by requiring EU to do whatever is needed to make it what Martin Wolf wants it to be.

Britain might need a EU but EU might need Britain just as much. So what a great historic opportunity it would be if Britain used a Remain to leverage EU into something much better?

If nothing comes from it that might be because the European Union dream might have been taken over by European Union profiteers and, if so, Brexit shines much better.

PS: Wolf writes “the parallel Jeremy Hunt drew between the EU and Soviet Union was so stupid and offensive. The Soviets sent tanks into East Berlin in 1953, Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968.” I am not that sure, the Basel Committee, with the enthusiastic approval of EU sent in 0% risk weights for sovereigns and 100% for citizens. These will prove to be more dangerous to the Western World than all Russian tanks multiplied by thousands.

PS. What would Martin Wolf suggest Britain says to the European Union if it backs down from Brexit? “Sorry EU we did not really mean it?

@PerKurowski

In the case of Greece EU violated a fundamental principle of a Union... solidarity.

Sir, Jem Eskenazi in his letter writes about EU’s “fundamental principle of integrating a fractured continent into a peaceful whole”“EU is right to protect its fundamental principles” September 21.

I agree but EU authorities have egregiously violated that principle in the case of Greece. 

Given Greece’s historical trajectory as a debtor country, for purposes of the capital requirements for banks, it could perhaps have been assigned a 200% risk weight. Instead some of EU’s head-honchos, I have no names, there usually are no names behind these decisions, decided to risk weigh Greece 0%. 

That, in very simple terms, meant that European banks did not need to hold one single euro in capital when lending to the sovereign of Greece. So of course European banks could not resist the temptations of lending massively to Greece, and of course the Greek government did not have the strength to resist such offers, and so of course it all ended up in a tragic over-indebtedness.

But did EU recognize its role creating this mess and has really paid up for its mistake? No! So now all newborn Greeks will have to grow up in a land burden by a monstrous mortgage, more than € 30.000 for each one of them,unless they decide to emigrate. That is no way to treat a member of a union.

Neither have EU authorities, like the European Commission, dedicated itself sufficiently to solve the immense challenges the euro poses, busying themselves instead with so many other minutia and issues that are none of their business.

There will soon be 20 years since the euro was adopted, and at that time I wrote an Op-ed titled “Burning the bridges in Europe” that should give me some rights to opine. 

I do not believe EU authorities, like the European Commission, has dedicated itself sufficiently to solve the challenges posed by the euro and which, if left unresolved, could lead to a tragic break up of EU, with immense consequences to the world. I have seen it though engaging in minutia, like negotiating entry fees for tourists to Romanian monasteries, and which has only lead me to think about a Banana Union. 

Sir, I would not have voted for Brexit but now I am not really sure. Lately, some of the discussions remind me of passengers in a lifeboat trying to negotiate their future with the captain of the Titanic.

PS. I forgot to mention the fact that the euro is not a real domestic currency for any eurozone nation, which makes the 0% risk weight even harder to explain.

PS. Again, even with a hard Brexit, if the euro challenges are kept unresolved, Britain might end up having left EU in the nick of time

@PerKurowski