4 ms·

Well, maybe. The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom. i.e. Despite the sho

by emn13 7y ago

Well, maybe. The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom. i.e. Despite the shock of brexit causing EU support to rise pretty much everywhere (IIRC including in the UK, but I'm not sure on that one), most italians are still decidedly negative (which is relevant because post-brexit Italy would be the #3 EU economy). If Brexit were to be followed by an It-exit or even merely systematic subversion, that could seriously undermine the EU. Note also that some of the former soviet-block countries have governments currently that are much more euro-hostile that their populace, and they might well try a to undermine the EU as much as possible as long as they can do so without being voted out. And furthermore, if some other countries were doubting their options, I'm not sure they'd compare themselves too much to the UK. There's simply been so much incompetence on the UK government's part that it's hard to believe any other country would need to follow their example. A little more strategically played exit might have been a lot less painful. Well- assuming Brexit happens at all anyhow, which is pretty much anyone's guess at this point.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Silhouette 7y ago
The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom. There is certainly more potential downside than a lot of people seem to realise. The EU27 member states are not going to be affected in some uniform way by Brexit, particularly if we get the no-deal version without any sort of overall orderly transition. Those states that are particularly exposed to Brexit overall -- such as Ireland and the Netherlands -- stand to take a large economic hit, perhaps even worse than the UK itself in the Irish case. Other states may do fine in many respects, but specific industries or other collaborative efforts may be seriously affected. This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, which means unless they genuinely believe that the UK will fold and call the whole thing off, their strategy is almost certain to cause the maximum damage of any plausible outcome to their own country. It's also worth saying, because it is relevant but rarely reported, that the economic models for different scenarios and how much effect they would have on various European countries' economies relative to a baseline no Brexit case do tend to assume that in the baseline the EU economy continues as-is or grows significantly. I have yet to see any serious economic model that compares outcomes for different types of Brexit against a no-Brexit scenario where the underlying problems with EU economics do then cause another serious problem or there is some sort of black swan event that affects the EU or Eurozone.
- Majromax 7y ago
  > This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. If they accept a hard border, then they suffer some of the worst no-deal effects anyway. If they accept customs checks between the Republic of Ireland and the continent (effectively putting them alone in a customs union with the UK), then the effects might be worse. Really, getting the remainder of the EU to agree to this is an important victory for them. Under different circumstances, the continent could have thrown Ireland under the proverbial bus for the sake of a deal.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. Given that the rest of the EU has been giving RoI a de facto veto on any UK withdrawal agreement, and given that the backstop appears to be the only complete deal-breaker here, they could have compromised in various ways that would be strictly better for them than driving everyone into a no-deal outcome. For example, accepting a time-limited version of the backstop while May was still in charge would probably have got the WA through the UK Parliament. Brexit would have happened, defusing a lot of the political tension in the UK and liberating the EU27 from having a half-in, half-out member and all the attendant uncertainty. Everyone would have benefitted from a more orderly transition, including keeping the Irish border open without needing checks due to either WTO MFN rules or the EU's need to protect its overall border. There would have been perhaps another 5-10 years to clarify the future relationship and resolve any issues still arising at the Irish border, which would have been a far more plausible than magicking something up overnight in the event of a no-deal outcome. And the EU would have been dealing with a basically pro-EU government in the UK while that was going on, at least for the next few years. That possibility appears to have been lost with the arrival of Boris Johnson as PM. If the Irish do want a 23:59 reprieve, it's going to cost them a lot of political capital to get it at this point. But realistically, I don't see that happening. I think they've blown it, and either a no-deal Brexit or a UK general election that certainly could result in a majority hard-Brexit government now seem like the most likely outcomes. Critics often say, with considerable justification, that this is a mess of the UK's making. Certainly the UK's negotiators haven't done very well in all of this. Still, if we're playing the blame game, I think there is plenty to go around. The EU's rigid approach and negotiating strategy also caused problems right from the start, and the Irish hardline stance on the backstop in recent times has essentially sealed their own fate. It's all very sad, because it won't matter whose fault it was if a decade from now, as the Irish government's own commissioned analysis suggests, their economy is still significantly smaller and real terms wages are still significantly lower. I still don't understand why both sides went into this with such an adversarial and rigid approach to the negotiations. There was so much common ground that could have been established early on, and if we were going to have Brexit, we could have had an amicable separation where we remained good friends even if by mutual agreement our relationship was not going to be as close as before and we'd each gain a bit more flexibility in other respects. The whole thing just seems like not only a huge missed opportunity, but an opportunity missed by following a process where glaring mistakes were made by both sides and both sides refused to then fix them even when they were widely criticised. It's just... sad.

by emn13 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Silhouette 7y ago

The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom. There is certainly more potential downside than a lot of people seem to realise. The EU27 member states are not going to be affected in some uniform way by Brexit, particularly if we get the no-deal version without any sort of overall orderly transition. Those states that are particularly exposed to Brexit overall -- such as Ireland and the Netherlands -- stand to take a large economic hit, perhaps even worse than the UK itself in the Irish case. Other states may do fine in many respects, but specific industries or other collaborative efforts may be seriously affected. This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, which means unless they genuinely believe that the UK will fold and call the whole thing off, their strategy is almost certain to cause the maximum damage of any plausible outcome to their own country. It's also worth saying, because it is relevant but rarely reported, that the economic models for different scenarios and how much effect they would have on various European countries' economies relative to a baseline no Brexit case do tend to assume that in the baseline the EU economy continues as-is or grows significantly. I have yet to see any serious economic model that compares outcomes for different types of Brexit against a no-Brexit scenario where the underlying problems with EU economics do then cause another serious problem or there is some sort of black swan event that affects the EU or Eurozone.

Majromax 7y ago
> This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. If they accept a hard border, then they suffer some of the worst no-deal effects anyway. If they accept customs checks between the Republic of Ireland and the continent (effectively putting them alone in a customs union with the UK), then the effects might be worse. Really, getting the remainder of the EU to agree to this is an important victory for them. Under different circumstances, the continent could have thrown Ireland under the proverbial bus for the sake of a deal.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. Given that the rest of the EU has been giving RoI a de facto veto on any UK withdrawal agreement, and given that the backstop appears to be the only complete deal-breaker here, they could have compromised in various ways that would be strictly better for them than driving everyone into a no-deal outcome. For example, accepting a time-limited version of the backstop while May was still in charge would probably have got the WA through the UK Parliament. Brexit would have happened, defusing a lot of the political tension in the UK and liberating the EU27 from having a half-in, half-out member and all the attendant uncertainty. Everyone would have benefitted from a more orderly transition, including keeping the Irish border open without needing checks due to either WTO MFN rules or the EU's need to protect its overall border. There would have been perhaps another 5-10 years to clarify the future relationship and resolve any issues still arising at the Irish border, which would have been a far more plausible than magicking something up overnight in the event of a no-deal outcome. And the EU would have been dealing with a basically pro-EU government in the UK while that was going on, at least for the next few years. That possibility appears to have been lost with the arrival of Boris Johnson as PM. If the Irish do want a 23:59 reprieve, it's going to cost them a lot of political capital to get it at this point. But realistically, I don't see that happening. I think they've blown it, and either a no-deal Brexit or a UK general election that certainly could result in a majority hard-Brexit government now seem like the most likely outcomes. Critics often say, with considerable justification, that this is a mess of the UK's making. Certainly the UK's negotiators haven't done very well in all of this. Still, if we're playing the blame game, I think there is plenty to go around. The EU's rigid approach and negotiating strategy also caused problems right from the start, and the Irish hardline stance on the backstop in recent times has essentially sealed their own fate. It's all very sad, because it won't matter whose fault it was if a decade from now, as the Irish government's own commissioned analysis suggests, their economy is still significantly smaller and real terms wages are still significantly lower. I still don't understand why both sides went into this with such an adversarial and rigid approach to the negotiations. There was so much common ground that could have been established early on, and if we were going to have Brexit, we could have had an amicable separation where we remained good friends even if by mutual agreement our relationship was not going to be as close as before and we'd each gain a bit more flexibility in other respects. The whole thing just seems like not only a huge missed opportunity, but an opportunity missed by following a process where glaring mistakes were made by both sides and both sides refused to then fix them even when they were widely criticised. It's just... sad.