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Good overview article on the UK / Eu drama of last week:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bageh...itain-and-eu-1
Lots of detail but the Economist blessedly lays it out in simple terms:
"... [B]ut being a bear of limited brain, I found myself still wondering what—taking a step back—really happened last night, in the simplest political terms.
In the nick of time, a well-placed source (a senior official who is broadly neutral towards the British government in this fight) has given me his reading of what happened, and where it all turned sour for Mr Cameron. It rings true to me.
Mr Cameron had two problems, as my source sees it. The first was the nature of his demand, and how it was made. In essence, the British did not ask for an "emergency brake" clause or opt-out for financial regulation.
What they asked for was a protocol imposing decision-making by unanimity on a number of areas of regulation currently decided by majority voting. (If you want to be really technical, the choice is voting by unanimity or the special Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used in the EU, which is a sort of super-majority system taking into account a certain number of countries and also their populations).
As my source puts it, this amounted to a big winding-back of the clock for many EU leaders, setting a "horrendous precedent" that could unravel the single market. As they see it, common rules for the common market have been adopted (with few exceptions, such as tax) by QMV ever since the Single European Act approved by Margaret Thatcher in 1986."
Regardless of what one thinks of the Euro / EU and its massive flaws, it sounds to me as if Cameron was confused about what was at stake in these proposals.
The article also cites a general sentiment among Euro leaders that the crisis proves that the Anglo-Saxon banking model has been a disaster for Europe. I'd love to see that argument laid out in more detail.
The obvious thing that comes to mind is the selling of exposure to CDOs etc. to European banks, pension funds etc., but I've never really seen any assessment of how damaging that was. It's always struck me that, when one looks at the situation and squints a little bit, it appears that the French and German Banks had to go abroad to get into trouble, suggesting that they were more constrained by regulation at home (the absence of property bubbles in France or Germany suggests to my eye that these nations had bankers in a box where they belong, forced to provide a utility-like function. Of course I'm sure that rankled while their American and British counterparts were out setting the world on fire, first figuratively, then literally, but again, I'd love to see it spelled out the Anglo-Saxon model led these banks astray. Might, as a by-product, suggest in more detail what we should be trying to return to.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bageh...itain-and-eu-1
Lots of detail but the Economist blessedly lays it out in simple terms:
"... [B]ut being a bear of limited brain, I found myself still wondering what—taking a step back—really happened last night, in the simplest political terms.
In the nick of time, a well-placed source (a senior official who is broadly neutral towards the British government in this fight) has given me his reading of what happened, and where it all turned sour for Mr Cameron. It rings true to me.
Mr Cameron had two problems, as my source sees it. The first was the nature of his demand, and how it was made. In essence, the British did not ask for an "emergency brake" clause or opt-out for financial regulation.
What they asked for was a protocol imposing decision-making by unanimity on a number of areas of regulation currently decided by majority voting. (If you want to be really technical, the choice is voting by unanimity or the special Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used in the EU, which is a sort of super-majority system taking into account a certain number of countries and also their populations).
As my source puts it, this amounted to a big winding-back of the clock for many EU leaders, setting a "horrendous precedent" that could unravel the single market. As they see it, common rules for the common market have been adopted (with few exceptions, such as tax) by QMV ever since the Single European Act approved by Margaret Thatcher in 1986."
Regardless of what one thinks of the Euro / EU and its massive flaws, it sounds to me as if Cameron was confused about what was at stake in these proposals.
The article also cites a general sentiment among Euro leaders that the crisis proves that the Anglo-Saxon banking model has been a disaster for Europe. I'd love to see that argument laid out in more detail.
The obvious thing that comes to mind is the selling of exposure to CDOs etc. to European banks, pension funds etc., but I've never really seen any assessment of how damaging that was. It's always struck me that, when one looks at the situation and squints a little bit, it appears that the French and German Banks had to go abroad to get into trouble, suggesting that they were more constrained by regulation at home (the absence of property bubbles in France or Germany suggests to my eye that these nations had bankers in a box where they belong, forced to provide a utility-like function. Of course I'm sure that rankled while their American and British counterparts were out setting the world on fire, first figuratively, then literally, but again, I'd love to see it spelled out the Anglo-Saxon model led these banks astray. Might, as a by-product, suggest in more detail what we should be trying to return to.
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