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Non-EU Norway and Switzerland are at the top of nearly every measure in Europe: standard of living, equality, economy, green issues, credit rating, social pro

Non-EU Norway and Switzerland are at the top of nearly every measure in Europe: standard of living, equality, economy, green issues, credit rating, social progress, democracy, lack of poverty, lack of corruption. Non-EU Iceland and EU Greece both had severe economic problems. Iceland jailed the bankers, and has overcame it's difficulties. Greece has been jailed BY the bankers - and will now be in debt bondage for decades, and has seen a resurgence of Fascism. Children are digging through rubbish for something to eat. This is in the EU.

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smcl 10y ago
Non-EU Moldova and Belarus are bottom of nearly every measure in Europe: Standard of living, equality, green issues, credit rating, social progress, democracy, lack of poverty, lack of corruption. etc :) I do think the EU handled Greek crisis pretty poorly, however but I think you're way overblowing the rest of the stuff you said.
gns24 10y ago
Norway and Switzerland have both signed up to free movement of people in order to access the single market. If the UK votes to leave I think that, given the nature of the campaign, that has to be considered a vote against free movement of people, which almost certainly will leave it outside the single market, which is a very different place.
98Windows 10y ago
Firstly Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are in the EEA so they do have many things associated with EU membership. Greece has the Euro hence its troubles. I totally agree the eurozone is a terrible mess and should be dismantled. So the UK leaving the EU (and the EEA) will cause damage. Your descriptions of the EU are misleading.
js8 10y ago
> Non-EU Norway and Switzerland are at the top of nearly every measure in Europe But what is the causality here? Maybe they didn't want to become a member because they were at the top to begin with. That doesn't say anything about benefits of membership for other countries. It's even possible that membership would be beneficial for Norway and Switzerland, people just don't want to take unnecessary risk.
muse5000 10y ago
Yes and no. You can't compare Britain with Greece. Britain is gaining from the EU while Greece is not. Greece became part of Euro, and Euro being an expensive currency for Greece and its needs lead Greece into chaos. Britain is not a part of Euro and will never exchange £ for it. As for Norway and Switzerland, well Switzerland's economy was always good, too much money being laundered there. Norway and the other Scandi countries do have a better way of living, in EU or not. So I do get your point, and its fair to an extend but you can't compare oranges and apples. I personally believe (have the right to vote in the UK) that Britain is gaining much more from being a member of the EU than losing. Same goes for countries like Germany. Now could you even imagine Germany getting out of the EU... Germany profited by the EU (same as the UK since London became the hub of finance between EU and the world).
richmarr 10y ago
Norway and Switzerland both have European free trade treaties that mandate compliance with trade regulations, free movement of people, etc. If Brexit actually wants to stop EU free movement, which seems to be a majot motivation, it will need to withdraw from the free trade area (or negotiate a unicorn deal that no other nation has managed). At that point Norway and Switzerland will no longer be meaningful comparisons.
glutamate 10y ago
Norway is also near the top of the key measure of oil revenue in Europe. Switzerland has had higher GDP than major EU economies since before the EU [1]. These are poor comparisons to the UK. [1] https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:CHE:AUT:DEU&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHE:DEU:FRA:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9....
tobessebot 10y ago
Norway and Switzerland are in the EEA and Schengen, so it doesn't really matter whether they are in the EU or out of it, they benefit. They have to pay into the EU without any representation though. Not the best deal in my eyes. Note that both have agreed to Schengen, which has dramatically eased Iceland and Greece have had economic trouble, but because of vastly different reasons (insert any link to Paul Krugman analyses of the European debt crisis here). The Troika is also not a product of the EU, it is a product of the Euro and the lack of a fiscal oversight complementing the monetary oversight (ECB). Stay in. There is no chance of this kind of stuff happening in the UK because you aren't in the Euro.
eyko 10y ago
Norway is still a member of the EEA so the Free Movement of Persons policy applies to them[1]. The "leave" campaigners in the UK have made that policy a central point of their campaign - oversimplifying it: immigration is bad, let's take control of our borders. The only way the could do that is by also not being part of the EEA, which could deal a massive blow to the British economy. The same applies to Iceland - it's a member of the EEA [1]. We can all agree that Switzerland is not comparable to the UK, but even if you ignore cultural, political, and economic differences, Switzerland is also a member of the single market, therefore every EU citizen enjoy full freedom of movement, i.e.: free to travel, to live and to work in Switzerland[2] and vice-versa in the UK [3]. Greece's did not have their own currency, Iceland does. Britain also has its own currency and its place in the EU is quite different from that of Greece. Comparing apples to oranges. 1. http://www.efta.int/eea/policy-areas/persons/persons http://www.efta.int/eea/policy-areas/persons/persons 2. https://www.ch.ch/en/working-switzerland-eu-efta/ https://www.ch.ch/en/working-switzerland-eu-efta/ 3. https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea
Vaebn 10y ago
Non-EU Norway is a 5 million nation sitting on a ton of oil. Which in turn takes that oil profits and puts them in a social fund, which reduces the main stressor of all socialistic systems (pensions). If you think that you will convince BP to do the same, good luck. Especially considering that there is nothing stopping you from doing the same already. Switzerland, 8 million, is also landlocked in between some of the best EU nations, all of which trade with it in an EU-like agreement, including free movement, and its manufacturing economy abides pretty much to Every EU regulation. What this means, is that again nothing prevents the UK to have been Switzerland, other than, super politely put, the population's innate inability to be as productive, or imaginative in thinking useful products like the Swiss do. Greece, which ironically is my original home country so I know Very well, is a corrupt mafiocrasy. (rather Russian like in fact) It would have failed IN or OUT of the EU anyway. This however is not the EU's fault, as evident by the fact that plenty of EU countries started worse than Greece, and are now better (better as in gdp/capita), including Estonia, Lithuania & Slovakia. If anything, this disparity is able proof that EU nations actually have more than enough sovereignty to fuck or unfuck themselves as much as they want. Its just that every time something good happens politicians say "we did it" but every time something bad happens they say "totes the EU fault, holding us down!" To sum up. You want to be Norway. Make a referendum to throw BP's profits in a fund. (Not that you have the oil reserve anyway) You want to be Switzerland, think of more useful chemicals rather than watching x-factor (I am not even kidding. Chemicals are one of the best Swiss exports apparently). You don't want to be Greece, don't just take EU development money and use it just for politician's villas, bouzouki and civil servants appointment for votes. Simples.
- threeseed 10y ago
  Speaking about Greece specifically. The level of tax avoidance is completely unacceptable: 24.3% of GDP versus 13.5% in Germany in 2012. If the government had twice the revenue it would've been in a far better position.
  - abricot 10y ago
    This has been explained time and again. To get to the bottom of tax avoidance, people have to see and feel the benefit of paying tax. In Greece they simply don't, and it hasn't gotten any better in recent years. The average German can easily list the benefits they receive from their government.
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smcl 10y ago

Non-EU Moldova and Belarus are bottom of nearly every measure in Europe: Standard of living, equality, green issues, credit rating, social progress, democracy, lack of poverty, lack of corruption. etc :) I do think the EU handled Greek crisis pretty poorly, however but I think you're way overblowing the rest of the stuff you said.

gns24 10y ago

Norway and Switzerland have both signed up to free movement of people in order to access the single market. If the UK votes to leave I think that, given the nature of the campaign, that has to be considered a vote against free movement of people, which almost certainly will leave it outside the single market, which is a very different place.

98Windows 10y ago

Firstly Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are in the EEA so they do have many things associated with EU membership. Greece has the Euro hence its troubles. I totally agree the eurozone is a terrible mess and should be dismantled. So the UK leaving the EU (and the EEA) will cause damage. Your descriptions of the EU are misleading.

js8 10y ago

> Non-EU Norway and Switzerland are at the top of nearly every measure in Europe But what is the causality here? Maybe they didn't want to become a member because they were at the top to begin with. That doesn't say anything about benefits of membership for other countries. It's even possible that membership would be beneficial for Norway and Switzerland, people just don't want to take unnecessary risk.

muse5000 10y ago

Yes and no. You can't compare Britain with Greece. Britain is gaining from the EU while Greece is not. Greece became part of Euro, and Euro being an expensive currency for Greece and its needs lead Greece into chaos. Britain is not a part of Euro and will never exchange £ for it. As for Norway and Switzerland, well Switzerland's economy was always good, too much money being laundered there. Norway and the other Scandi countries do have a better way of living, in EU or not. So I do get your point, and its fair to an extend but you can't compare oranges and apples. I personally believe (have the right to vote in the UK) that Britain is gaining much more from being a member of the EU than losing. Same goes for countries like Germany. Now could you even imagine Germany getting out of the EU... Germany profited by the EU (same as the UK since London became the hub of finance between EU and the world).

richmarr 10y ago

Norway and Switzerland both have European free trade treaties that mandate compliance with trade regulations, free movement of people, etc. If Brexit actually wants to stop EU free movement, which seems to be a majot motivation, it will need to withdraw from the free trade area (or negotiate a unicorn deal that no other nation has managed). At that point Norway and Switzerland will no longer be meaningful comparisons.

glutamate 10y ago

Norway is also near the top of the key measure of oil revenue in Europe. Switzerland has had higher GDP than major EU economies since before the EU [1]. These are poor comparisons to the UK. [1] https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:CHE:AUT:DEU&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHE:DEU:FRA:GBR&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9....

tobessebot 10y ago

Norway and Switzerland are in the EEA and Schengen, so it doesn't really matter whether they are in the EU or out of it, they benefit. They have to pay into the EU without any representation though. Not the best deal in my eyes. Note that both have agreed to Schengen, which has dramatically eased Iceland and Greece have had economic trouble, but because of vastly different reasons (insert any link to Paul Krugman analyses of the European debt crisis here). The Troika is also not a product of the EU, it is a product of the Euro and the lack of a fiscal oversight complementing the monetary oversight (ECB). Stay in. There is no chance of this kind of stuff happening in the UK because you aren't in the Euro.

eyko 10y ago

Norway is still a member of the EEA so the Free Movement of Persons policy applies to them[1]. The "leave" campaigners in the UK have made that policy a central point of their campaign - oversimplifying it: immigration is bad, let's take control of our borders. The only way the could do that is by also not being part of the EEA, which could deal a massive blow to the British economy. The same applies to Iceland - it's a member of the EEA [1]. We can all agree that Switzerland is not comparable to the UK, but even if you ignore cultural, political, and economic differences, Switzerland is also a member of the single market, therefore every EU citizen enjoy full freedom of movement, i.e.: free to travel, to live and to work in Switzerland[2] and vice-versa in the UK [3]. Greece's did not have their own currency, Iceland does. Britain also has its own currency and its place in the EU is quite different from that of Greece. Comparing apples to oranges. 1. http://www.efta.int/eea/policy-areas/persons/persons http://www.efta.int/eea/policy-areas/persons/persons 2. https://www.ch.ch/en/working-switzerland-eu-efta/ https://www.ch.ch/en/working-switzerland-eu-efta/ 3. https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea

Vaebn 10y ago

Non-EU Norway is a 5 million nation sitting on a ton of oil. Which in turn takes that oil profits and puts them in a social fund, which reduces the main stressor of all socialistic systems (pensions). If you think that you will convince BP to do the same, good luck. Especially considering that there is nothing stopping you from doing the same already. Switzerland, 8 million, is also landlocked in between some of the best EU nations, all of which trade with it in an EU-like agreement, including free movement, and its manufacturing economy abides pretty much to Every EU regulation. What this means, is that again nothing prevents the UK to have been Switzerland, other than, super politely put, the population's innate inability to be as productive, or imaginative in thinking useful products like the Swiss do. Greece, which ironically is my original home country so I know Very well, is a corrupt mafiocrasy. (rather Russian like in fact) It would have failed IN or OUT of the EU anyway. This however is not the EU's fault, as evident by the fact that plenty of EU countries started worse than Greece, and are now better (better as in gdp/capita), including Estonia, Lithuania & Slovakia. If anything, this disparity is able proof that EU nations actually have more than enough sovereignty to fuck or unfuck themselves as much as they want. Its just that every time something good happens politicians say "we did it" but every time something bad happens they say "totes the EU fault, holding us down!" To sum up. You want to be Norway. Make a referendum to throw BP's profits in a fund. (Not that you have the oil reserve anyway) You want to be Switzerland, think of more useful chemicals rather than watching x-factor (I am not even kidding. Chemicals are one of the best Swiss exports apparently). You don't want to be Greece, don't just take EU development money and use it just for politician's villas, bouzouki and civil servants appointment for votes. Simples.

threeseed 10y ago
Speaking about Greece specifically. The level of tax avoidance is completely unacceptable: 24.3% of GDP versus 13.5% in Germany in 2012. If the government had twice the revenue it would've been in a far better position.
- abricot 10y ago
  This has been explained time and again. To get to the bottom of tax avoidance, people have to see and feel the benefit of paying tax. In Greece they simply don't, and it hasn't gotten any better in recent years. The average German can easily list the benefits they receive from their government.

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