4 ms·

Four member states by my count: Canada and UK too! If you count "full" members I think just the UK counts.

by johnwalkr 4y ago

Y_Y 4y ago
If you think the UK is still in the EU then I have some bad news for you
- Alupis 4y ago
  Bad news? From an outsider looking in, all the hullabaloo and doomsday talk seems to have not become reality. What was actually bad about leaving, other than the optics of it at the time?
  - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
    Serious economic impact. > a 4% shrinkage in long-run productivity relative to remaining in the EU, expects the Office for Budget Responsibility, inflation is higher than in the EU, trade has fallen by almost a fifth, while the government itself says the much-trumpeted Australian deal will raise GDP by less than 0.1% a year by 2035. Brexit has raised food prices by 6% says the LSE, while draining the workforce. Eurostar also deliberately leaves a third of seats empty due to crippling EU/UK border delays. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/three-years-on-brexit-uk-voters-rejoining-eu-labour-europe https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/three-... > According to figures from the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis – which tracks trends in global trade – UK goods export volumes remained 3.3% below their 2018 average in October, in contrast to an average 4.4% increase seen across all advanced economies. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/31/why-the-uk-economy-is-shrinking-fast https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/31/why-the-uk-...
    - Alupis 4y ago
      How much of this can be attributed to the pandemic and shutdowns, and not directly to simply not being an EU country anymore? After all, there are plenty of non-EU countries in the general region - is the UK doing worse, average, or better than those nations?
      - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        The comparison is against peer countries in the EU, like France. The government failed at every level of due dilligence, like it exited EURATOM without agreeing any replacement. It has nothing to do with EU /single market, but they quit it anyway. 99.99% of brexiters didn't know Euratom even exists. UK exited customs union (despite this not being asked at referendun) but to this date has no customs checks because it has not hired officers or built facilities to carry out checks. It has failed to provide France with custom checking facilities at dover, and there were queues for hundreds of miles this summer with truck drivers defecating out in the open. Like some of this is so mad its hard to believe. My cost of sending parcels to EU has tripled overnight.
  - phatfish 4y ago
    Be glad you are an outsider looking in. The UK governments own analysis says there will be a 15% drop in trade with the EU over 5 years (this was in 2022) [1]. New trade deals already "done" with countries outside the EU are either a copy and paste of the existing EU deal (Japan) or very limited and rushed (Australia) so they will have almost no impact in offsetting the 15% drop. Actual replacement trade deals (with the US for example) will take many years of negotiation and may not ever happen. Small/medium size businesses have to deal with EU customs as a 3rd country now. So the cost of selling into the the largest free-trade single market in the world, right on your doorstep, is too high for direct sales to be in any way competitive. Any company serious about selling goods into the EU has to pay for warehousing in the EU somewhere, and sell from an EU subsidiary to avoid the massive admin overhead and delayed shipments. Larger businesses can soak up the costs of warehousing (or they had them already), so the main affect of Brexit is to cripple small UK businesses that are now expected to sell to south-east Asia, or something. This is many billions of lost tax revenue due to the reduced economic growth. The social cost is what most "remainers" are annoyed about. Having EU citizenship stolen away from you and your children, now only the rich can easily work, study or retire abroad again, just like it should be i guess... And the matter is not even settled, support for remaining in the EU has risen significantly, that's what a 48/52 result in a fudged referendum does, divide a country. [1] https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexit-analysis/#future https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexi...
    - Alupis 4y ago
      One has to think, the drop is trade must be temporary and out of spite (from the EU side), since if the UK had goods other EU nations wanted to import just a few years ago, then they surely still want to import them today. > now only the rich can work or retire abroad again This is the same for almost all countries though, isn't it? As a US citizen, I cannot freely just travel across the EU either (without visas and what-not). Perhaps time will tell if this ultimately was good or not. I can understand both sides of the issue - remaining an independent nation and suffering the costs an independent nation must endure, or join a federated government and effectively become a State (in US speak) within the EU.
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    Are you serious? I'm also an outsider and everything seems even worse than predicted to me.
- Nitrolo 4y ago
  I was pretty confused when they said Canada but I checked and it turns out, Canada is part of ESA! As a "non-full member", sure, but I'm still surprised. Fancy that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency?wprov=sf...
  - skissane 4y ago
    Australia was a member of one of ESA’s predecessor organisations, ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation). When, in the mid-1970s, ELDO merged with ESRO to form ESA, Australia was offered associate membership in ESA; Australia declined under pressure from the US. Some try to paint that as yet another example of American malfeasance, but I think the Americans actually had a good point-given Australia’s notorious stinginess in space funding, the only way we’d have been able to pay for the kind of deep cooperation with ESA that associate membership would entail, would be by downgrading the relationship with NASA. If Australia had committed to a significant increase in space funding, I don’t think the US would have felt threatened by Australia joining ESA-but, of course, we wouldn’t do that.
    - johnwalkr 4y ago
      To add, Australia is a big contributor to the space industry, and now works with ESA and NASA. It contributes to the ESA and NASA ground station network (antennas to talk to spacecraft), has a radio telescope array and JAXA (Japan) has landed two asteroid sample-returns in the outback! And as of a few years ago, Australia has its own space agency, too.
      - skissane 4y ago
        > To add, Australia is a big contributor to the space industry I'm sorry but I just can't agree with you there. The fact is that Australia still punches well beneath its weight in the space field. In 2019, Australia came equal second-last (tied with Turkey and ahead of Mexico) in the G20 in terms of government space budgets as a percent of GDP. [0] The top five countries (in order) were the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, and Japan. On a percentage of GDP basis, Australia's national space budget is a fifth of Canada's and an eighth of the UK's; Argentina's is three times Australia's, Brazil's is double, Indonesia and South Arica are ahead of Australia too. But yeah, we've always been more than happy to host NASA and ESA facilities–provided we don't have to spend much money to do so. To quote Donald Horne's 1964 book The Lucky Country (whose title so many people have misinterpreted to mean something rather opposite from its author): > Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise As an Australian, it makes me kind of sad to say that Horne's words are as true today as when he wrote them almost 60 years ago. [0] https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/space-forum/measuring-economic-impact-space-sector.pdf https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/space-forum/measuring-economic... page 4
- skissane 4y ago
  The article is about the ESA though, not the EU. UK is still a member of ESA. Not everyone in the ESA is in the EU (Norway, Switzerland and the UK are non-EU but full members of ESA, Canada is an associate member) and some EU countries aren’t in ESA (Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia are full members of the EU but only associate members of the ESA; Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta are full members of the EU but not even associate members of ESA)
- johnwalkr 4y ago
  The UK is still in the continent of Europe and ESA, despite exiting from the EU.

Four member states by my count: Canada and UK too! If you count "full" members I think just the UK counts.

Y_Y 4y ago

If you think the UK is still in the EU then I have some bad news for you

Alupis 4y ago
Bad news? From an outsider looking in, all the hullabaloo and doomsday talk seems to have not become reality. What was actually bad about leaving, other than the optics of it at the time?
- bjelkeman-again 4y ago
  Serious economic impact. > a 4% shrinkage in long-run productivity relative to remaining in the EU, expects the Office for Budget Responsibility, inflation is higher than in the EU, trade has fallen by almost a fifth, while the government itself says the much-trumpeted Australian deal will raise GDP by less than 0.1% a year by 2035. Brexit has raised food prices by 6% says the LSE, while draining the workforce. Eurostar also deliberately leaves a third of seats empty due to crippling EU/UK border delays. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/three-years-on-brexit-uk-voters-rejoining-eu-labour-europe https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/three-... > According to figures from the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis – which tracks trends in global trade – UK goods export volumes remained 3.3% below their 2018 average in October, in contrast to an average 4.4% increase seen across all advanced economies. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/31/why-the-uk-economy-is-shrinking-fast https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/31/why-the-uk-...
  - Alupis 4y ago
    How much of this can be attributed to the pandemic and shutdowns, and not directly to simply not being an EU country anymore? After all, there are plenty of non-EU countries in the general region - is the UK doing worse, average, or better than those nations?
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      The comparison is against peer countries in the EU, like France. The government failed at every level of due dilligence, like it exited EURATOM without agreeing any replacement. It has nothing to do with EU /single market, but they quit it anyway. 99.99% of brexiters didn't know Euratom even exists. UK exited customs union (despite this not being asked at referendun) but to this date has no customs checks because it has not hired officers or built facilities to carry out checks. It has failed to provide France with custom checking facilities at dover, and there were queues for hundreds of miles this summer with truck drivers defecating out in the open. Like some of this is so mad its hard to believe. My cost of sending parcels to EU has tripled overnight.
- phatfish 4y ago
  Be glad you are an outsider looking in. The UK governments own analysis says there will be a 15% drop in trade with the EU over 5 years (this was in 2022) [1]. New trade deals already "done" with countries outside the EU are either a copy and paste of the existing EU deal (Japan) or very limited and rushed (Australia) so they will have almost no impact in offsetting the 15% drop. Actual replacement trade deals (with the US for example) will take many years of negotiation and may not ever happen. Small/medium size businesses have to deal with EU customs as a 3rd country now. So the cost of selling into the the largest free-trade single market in the world, right on your doorstep, is too high for direct sales to be in any way competitive. Any company serious about selling goods into the EU has to pay for warehousing in the EU somewhere, and sell from an EU subsidiary to avoid the massive admin overhead and delayed shipments. Larger businesses can soak up the costs of warehousing (or they had them already), so the main affect of Brexit is to cripple small UK businesses that are now expected to sell to south-east Asia, or something. This is many billions of lost tax revenue due to the reduced economic growth. The social cost is what most "remainers" are annoyed about. Having EU citizenship stolen away from you and your children, now only the rich can easily work, study or retire abroad again, just like it should be i guess... And the matter is not even settled, support for remaining in the EU has risen significantly, that's what a 48/52 result in a fudged referendum does, divide a country. [1] https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexit-analysis/#future https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexi...
  - Alupis 4y ago
    One has to think, the drop is trade must be temporary and out of spite (from the EU side), since if the UK had goods other EU nations wanted to import just a few years ago, then they surely still want to import them today. > now only the rich can work or retire abroad again This is the same for almost all countries though, isn't it? As a US citizen, I cannot freely just travel across the EU either (without visas and what-not). Perhaps time will tell if this ultimately was good or not. I can understand both sides of the issue - remaining an independent nation and suffering the costs an independent nation must endure, or join a federated government and effectively become a State (in US speak) within the EU.
- johnwalkr 4y ago
  Are you serious? I'm also an outsider and everything seems even worse than predicted to me.
Nitrolo 4y ago
I was pretty confused when they said Canada but I checked and it turns out, Canada is part of ESA! As a "non-full member", sure, but I'm still surprised. Fancy that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency?wprov=sf...
- skissane 4y ago
  Australia was a member of one of ESA’s predecessor organisations, ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation). When, in the mid-1970s, ELDO merged with ESRO to form ESA, Australia was offered associate membership in ESA; Australia declined under pressure from the US. Some try to paint that as yet another example of American malfeasance, but I think the Americans actually had a good point-given Australia’s notorious stinginess in space funding, the only way we’d have been able to pay for the kind of deep cooperation with ESA that associate membership would entail, would be by downgrading the relationship with NASA. If Australia had committed to a significant increase in space funding, I don’t think the US would have felt threatened by Australia joining ESA-but, of course, we wouldn’t do that.
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    To add, Australia is a big contributor to the space industry, and now works with ESA and NASA. It contributes to the ESA and NASA ground station network (antennas to talk to spacecraft), has a radio telescope array and JAXA (Japan) has landed two asteroid sample-returns in the outback! And as of a few years ago, Australia has its own space agency, too.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > To add, Australia is a big contributor to the space industry I'm sorry but I just can't agree with you there. The fact is that Australia still punches well beneath its weight in the space field. In 2019, Australia came equal second-last (tied with Turkey and ahead of Mexico) in the G20 in terms of government space budgets as a percent of GDP. [0] The top five countries (in order) were the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, and Japan. On a percentage of GDP basis, Australia's national space budget is a fifth of Canada's and an eighth of the UK's; Argentina's is three times Australia's, Brazil's is double, Indonesia and South Arica are ahead of Australia too. But yeah, we've always been more than happy to host NASA and ESA facilities–provided we don't have to spend much money to do so. To quote Donald Horne's 1964 book The Lucky Country (whose title so many people have misinterpreted to mean something rather opposite from its author): > Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise As an Australian, it makes me kind of sad to say that Horne's words are as true today as when he wrote them almost 60 years ago. [0] https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/space-forum/measuring-economic-impact-space-sector.pdf https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/space-forum/measuring-economic... page 4
skissane 4y ago
The article is about the ESA though, not the EU. UK is still a member of ESA. Not everyone in the ESA is in the EU (Norway, Switzerland and the UK are non-EU but full members of ESA, Canada is an associate member) and some EU countries aren’t in ESA (Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia are full members of the EU but only associate members of the ESA; Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta are full members of the EU but not even associate members of ESA)
johnwalkr 4y ago
The UK is still in the continent of Europe and ESA, despite exiting from the EU.