European Politics Thread.

[denoir 0]

Sweden voted "No, not now" to the Euro, not "No, never". On the contrary, if you check the opinion polls, some 80% think that Sweden will have the Euro within 10 years.

And a majority is for a European monetary union with a single currency. The question there is when and under what forms, and not if. Nearly 60% of Swedes are for a common defence and security policy. 70% for a common immigration policy, 50% for a single common EU seat in the UN secuirty council, and 44% for a single EU foreign minister. And the trends are clearly positive. Sure, Sweden is less enthusiastic than the average member state, but is still clearly very supportive of further EU integration.

As for Norway (http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1042&a=97579), they're for an entry now.

Quote[/b] ]Den opinionsmätning som Gallup gjort för TV 2 visar att den norska nationen kommit fram till ett vägskäl i denna under decennier sĺ infekterade frĺga. 58,3 procent av de tillfrĺgade sade att de tänkte rösta ja till EU-medlemskap om en folkomröstning skulle ske i dag, 28,5 procent skulle rösta nej medan 11 procent svarade "vet ej".

Hellfish:

Quote[/b] ]Really? I'm actually quite suprised - I'm sure I've heard Schroeder or Chirac reference God at least once.

Schröder is a socialist, so while possible, unlikely. As for Chirac, they would have guillotined him for that - the French are extremely serious about the separation of church and state.

[marcusjm 0]

Sweden voted "No, not now" to the Euro, not "No, never". On the contrary, if you check the opinion polls, some 80% think that Sweden will have the Euro within 10 years.

And a majority is for a European monetary union with a single currency. The question there is when and under what forms, and not if. Nearly 60% of Swedes are for a common defence and security policy. 70% for a common immigration policy, 50% for a single common EU seat in the UN secuirty council, and 44% for a single EU foreign minister. And the trends are clearly positive. Sure, Sweden is less enthusiastic than the average member state, but is still clearly very supportive of further EU integration.

As for Norway (http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1042&a=97579), they're for an entry now.

Quote[/b] ]Den opinionsmätning som Gallup gjort för TV 2 visar att den norska nationen kommit fram till ett vägskäl i denna under decennier sĺ infekterade frĺga. 58,3 procent av de tillfrĺgade sade att de tänkte rösta ja till EU-medlemskap om en folkomröstning skulle ske i dag, 28,5 procent skulle rösta nej medan 11 procent svarade "vet ej".

Hellfish:

Quote[/b] ]Really? I'm actually quite suprised - I'm sure I've heard Schroeder or Chirac reference God at least once.

Schröder is a socialist, so while possible, unlikely. As for Chirac, they would have guillotined him for that - the French are extremely serious about the separation of church and state.

The real question should be. Will Euro exist in 10 years .

I mean the way it's going now. Noone seems to care about following the rules.

As for those polls. I wouldn't put too much value into them. Once the question was put on the table the situation would be different. Didn't everyone think France would say yes to the constitution?

Same with Norway. The current government has already stated that no vote on the matter will come up within this period. So that means at least 4 more years before they can even vote about it.

As for Schröder. Being socialist doesn't mean much in that case(I'm sure he's religious). Swedish prime minister is openly religious but still socialist. Same with Tony Blair.

marcus

[denoir 0]

Persson religious? What makes you think that?

[Daddl 10]

Quote[/b] ]http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet....arkbait

Quote[/b] ]The RSPCA is shocked and appalled at the use of live dogs and cats as bait in shark fishing, reported recently on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.But take this issue out and it should still be banned anyway, don't care if they are English or French tbh.

To my knowledge the use of live mammals as bait actually is already forbidden. The problem is that it's a 'cultural thingy' on these remote islands and that's why few such incidents are actually reported to the police (and thus persecuted).

Don't blame the french but the stupid locals (who have french nationality but are in no way representative of France as such). Or do you think people from Pitcairn are representative of your average Londoner? If so shame on you pedophile rapers...

Hope you got the point!

[marcusjm 0]

Persson religious?   What makes you think that?

One hint could be that he said he wanted to be a priest .

Another that he visits the parliament chapel each day.

There's of course politicans who are muslims and socialists. So there's no real connection there. There's even Marxists who are religious.

In fact I do not know about one Swedish prime minister who was openly atheist(pity). Not even Palme.

marcus

[brgnorway 0]

About a norwegian membership in EU I can say it won't happen anytime soon. The polls sway back and forth and the margins are small but when the question is actuallised it ends up on the "No" every time! It's just not likely as long as EU needs us or our resources more than we need them. The idea of being independend is very strong in Norway after being part of a union with Denmark for some hundred years and a forced member of Sweden for a short while. Besides, as long as there is a scarcity of fish and oil Norway can afford to stay outside. Funny thing is that when the fish farming industry is hit repeatedly by importrestrictions it still manages to get around it. A recent trend is to buy up scottish and chilean salmon farms. Even stranger is that when you buy "Scottish Smoked Salmon" you are more or less buying a norwegian farmed salmon smoked in Scotland.

Personaly I couldn't care less as I'm both for and against membership. As long as we can afford to stay out of it I'm happy.

[Supah 0]

Like turkey's prime minister said "We have an agreement inshallah" if allah wills it .... Yeah seems like a great candidate to join politically secular europe.

You've never heard a politician reference God? In America we get that all the time "God Bless America," "God willing," etc. In Europe you never, ever hear anything like that from your politicians?

So just because this dude is Muslim you're holding him up against a double standard? You think Israel is gonna be non-religious too?

No in europe non secular behaviour like that from politicians is not done. We have some parties who are deeply grounded in religions but those are fringe parties who have a uphill battle every election to make the minimum needed amount of votes. To me all the "god bless america" this and that from american politicians and their open bias for their own doesnt exactly make them look good. That kinda of politics can gladly stay the feck out of .eu for all I care. Religion is a private affair and has no place in the public, and especially not political, sphere.

[Bordoy 0]

Quote[/b] ]http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet....arkbait

Quote[/b] ]The RSPCA is shocked and appalled at the use of live dogs and cats as bait in shark fishing, reported recently on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.But take this issue out and it should still be banned anyway, don't care if they are English or French tbh.

To my knowledge the use of live mammals as bait actually is already forbidden. The problem is that it's a 'cultural thingy' on these remote islands and that's why few such incidents are actually reported to the police (and thus persecuted).

Don't blame the french but the stupid locals (who have french nationality but are in no way representative of France as such). Or do you think people from Pitcairn are representative of your average Londoner? If so shame on you pedophile rapers...

Hope you got the point!  

I'm not blaming the French people am I. Or do you want me to, just so you can call us what you want?

Oh yer, and I like I said. I coudn't give a toss if this islanders are French, British, German, Australian, Russian etc etc. Nothing to do with the nationality.

[Bordoy 0]

Do most people, especially in the UK, like the French govement or its people? NO

Have people stopped buying any french goods? YES

-The contrary is also (very) true.

-We don't care.

If you don't care, don't post. Especially if you have nothing contructive to say.

[Supah 0]

Do most people, especially in the UK, like the French govement or its people? NO

Have people stopped buying any french goods? YES

-The contrary is also (very) true.

-We don't care.

If you don't care, don't post. Especially if you have nothing contructive to say.

Seeing how you aren't a moderator you don't get to tell people what they shouldn't or should post. It's not like your hate mongering against the french is all that constructive either.

[InteractiveBohemian 0]

Do most people, especially in the UK, like the French govement or its people? NO

Have people stopped buying any french goods? YES

-The contrary is also (very) true.

-We don't care.

If you don't care, don't post. Especially if you have nothing contructive to say.

I just want to make sure that you are fully aware of the reciprocity of those feelings you described. The world is not a one-way street.

Moreover, your previous post about the live bait was stupid.

Did france lost international respect in the last years, mmmh probably but not much (and do we care about the 'respect' YOU could have for our country...guess the answer). On the contrary, the US and British government did lost their share of respect for reasons that i won't go into.

Also, the use of live bait is already banned but guess what : some locals on Reunion islands don't care because they consider animals as objects and not as pet.

Moreover French associations for the defense of the animals didn't wait for their english counterparts to raise this problem, ask stronger laws to the government and start petitions : They are the associations who denounced this shocking practice which most French people were not aware of/ or believed it belong to the past.

[harley 3 1185 0]

I'm an avid Francophile and can speak French pretty well, as well as a patriotic Briton, and it annoys me to see so much discord between our two countries.

@Bordoy, I'd be surprised if there were that many French people who like their all-ruling government - remember, the only reason Chirac won his Presidential election was because all the Socialists were scared silly of Jean Marie le Pen becoming President. And I'm sure a damn sight less than 15% of British voters voted for the BNP compared to that number who voted for le Pen in '02.

@InteractiveBohemia, No offense, but France lost alot of her prestige many years ago what with Algeria, Nuclear testing, the good old days of Mitterand and strikes galore; but that doesn't really matter as France is a law unto itself.

Don't worry about Britain's prestige; our star went down with yours-Iraq merely muddied the water at the bottom of the puddle.

[Bordoy 0]

Do most people, especially in the UK, like the French govement or its people? NO

Have people stopped buying any french goods? YES

-The contrary is also (very) true.

-We don't care.

If you don't care, don't post. Especially if you have nothing contructive to say.

Seeing how you aren't a moderator you don't get to tell people what they shouldn't or should post. It's not like your hate mongering against the french is all that constructive either.

'Hate mongering' against the French?

I think the French is one of 'my least hated' nationalities, but i don't have a little league table of countries.

[xawery 0]

The fact that you even mention degrees of hatred against other countries speaks for itself, methinks...

[walker 0]

Hi all

The Euro is rising against the Dollar again and there are signs of countries such as Russia and China favouring their reserves to the Euro rather than the dollar.

Forbes from Associated Press

Quote[/b] ]

Update 1: Euro Up Sharply Against Dollar

10.06.2005, 04:39 AM

The euro rose sharply against the U.S. dollar Thursday as markets looked ahead to U.S. data that were expected to show big job losses following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The European currency climbed to $1.2064 in early European trading from $1.1954 in New York late Wednesday. The British pound advanced to $1.7722 from $1.7630.

The dollar dipped against the Japanese yen, edging down to 113.72 from 113.93 yen.

The drop was largely due to pessimism about U.S. jobs data to be released Friday and cautious trading ahead of a three-day weekend both in the United States and Japan.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls data are forecast to show a loss of 175,000 jobs in September after the economy added 169,000 jobs in August, according to economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

The euro rose ahead of the European Central Bank's monthly decision on euro-zone interest rates. While the bank was expected to keep rates on hold at 2 percent, markets were looking for hints of future raises.

The dollar has recently got a boost from speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates, but traders say it may be increasingly difficult to maintain that momentum.

"Expectations for higher interest rates may be losing the power to prop up the dollar," said Tohru Sasaki, chief foreign-exchange strategist at JP Morgan Chase Bank in Tokyo.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2005/10/06/ap2263687.html

Up untill now the US has attempted forstall moves to the Euro by keeping US interest rates artificialy low making the dollar more atractive for those looking for cheap loans. but expectations of a failing US economy, higher than expected unemployment and fears of rising inflation have put paid to that.

While Euro interest rates are expected to remain stable at around 2% the need to raise US interest rates to 4% to counter inflation has caused many speculators who were investing artificialy low interest US Loans in raising gas prices. Now they have decided to pull the plug and least the overinflated price of gas should now start to lower.

In turn this has triggered a decline in share prices for the last two days.

Quote[/b] ]U.S. Stocks Have Broadest Drop in 15 Months on Slowing Growth

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell, erasing the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's gain for 2005, after a report showed service companies' expansion slowed more than forecast last month.

Shares of network-equipment maker ADC Telecommunications Inc. and software maker Mercury Interactive Corp. helped lead the decline on disappointing forecasts. Comments from two Federal Reserve governors yesterday that the central bank may keep raising interest rates also weighed on benchmark indexes.

The Fed ``has a history of staying too long in a tightening mode,'' said Thomas Steffanci who helps manage $325 million at Glencrest Investment Advisors Inc. in Claremont, California. ``Right now we're sort of in the sour spot.''

The S&P 500 lost 4.29, or 0.4 percent, to 1210.18 at 10:46 a.m. in New York as all 10 industry groups declined. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.97, or 0.2 percent, to 10,416.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 12.60, or 0.6 percent, to 2126.76.

Philadelphia Fed President Anthony Santomero said that the central bank must continue ``shifting'' rates higher to keep inflation in check. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said inflation is near the upper limit of a tolerable range.

Policy makers on Nov. 1 will raise rates for the 12th straight time to 4 percent, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey...

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps....er=home

Regards Walker

[EiZei 0]

Gah, we just had one of the worst examples of national politicians trying to blame EU for their own bullshit.

The new copyright law (which is pretty strict, it even forbids talking about cracking copy protections) was supposedly done because EUCD (or whatever it was called) said so. When the parliament members were confronted about this new crappy law they just said that complaints should have been filed at the EU and that if we would not obey the directive there would be hell to pay and that there was no other choice.

Of course they failed to mention that their implementation of the previously mentioned directive was hell lot less stricter in other EU countries and that disobeying a directive is hardly anything earth-shattering, our goverment is already getting flak for not obeying several enviroment directives and im not seeing the sky falling.

And of course then there were nationalist seizing the moment and blaming EU for all the bad things that had happened instead of our minister of culture (former Miss Finland, I. Shit. You. Not.) and the corrupt bureaucrats that made this fiasco possible.

[Supah 0]

(former Miss Finland, I. Shit. You. Not.)

After the Pornographic Ski Jumper Singer Politician nothing from you guys amazes me !

[EiZei 0]

(former Miss Finland, I. Shit. You. Not.)

After the Pornographic Ski Jumper Singer Politician nothing from you guys amazes me !

How about a former boxer/professional wrestler/actor (played a minor role in Die Hard 3) MP who got arrested for shooting around in his house while high on meth?

He did vote no on that sorry excuse for a law though..

[red oct 2]

Angela Merkel, First women choosen to be chancellor in Germany.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4325600.stm

[mr burns 131]

^^ Says it all..

[Ares1978 0]

(former Miss Finland, I. Shit. You. Not.)

After the Pornographic Ski Jumper Singer Politician nothing from you guys amazes me !

Just in case you haven't been kept up to date, that pornographic Ski Jumper Singer got out of jail, and within hours he had already beat the shit out of his wife and a day or two later he stabbed a man with a dinner knife in a pizzeria.

That's one guy that should be thrown screaming from a helicopter.

[Bordoy 0]

[sarcasm mode] Just like to say a big thankyou to the EU (or whoever) for making us have to give voting rights to prisoners as it is against their 'human rights'[/sarcasm mode]

They prisoners didn't think about other peoples human rights when commiting crimes. When they have commited a crime, they have put themselves beyond the law of the state. Therefore all privelages should be took away. Once committed, a criminal effectively waives his or her rights to the freedoms the rest of us law-abiding citizens enjoy. just wonder if the Human Rights Act has actually ever been beneficial for ordinary decent folk?

In a few years I wonder if we will have any prisons left as it will be against their rights to be locked up

*tries to push the human rights act away*.........................didn't work

[EiZei 0]

[sarcasm mode] Just like to say a big thankyou to the EU (or whoever) for making us have to give voting rights to prisoners as it is against their 'human rights'[/sarcasm mode]

They prisoners didn't think about other peoples human rights when commiting crimes. When they have commited a crime, they have put themselves beyond the law of the state. Therefore all privelages should be took away. Once committed, a criminal effectively waives his or her rights to the freedoms the rest of us law-abiding citizens enjoy.   just wonder if the Human Rights Act has actually ever been beneficial for ordinary decent folk?

No they do not.

You know, lot of things we used to do are illegal and some things that used to be illegal are being done now. Just because some MP made it a law does'nt mean breaking it should forfeit your basic rights.

Whose human rights did I violate when I leaked that secret goverment paper detailing some gross bureaucratic oversight? Whose human rights did I violate when I injected some substance into my body? Whose human rights did I violate when I modded my game console? Whose human rights did I violate when I refused to allow myself to be searched by a police officer?

The list goes on..

[crashdome 1]

When they have commited a crime, they have put themselves beyond the law of the state. Therefore all privelages should be took away. Once committed, a criminal effectively waives his or her rights to the freedoms the rest of us law-abiding citizens enjoy.  

So they don't have a right to a fair trial, humane treatment (i.e. food and clothing), or right to an attorney, etc..????

Sounds like you want all prisons to be like Guantanamo...

[Ares1978 0]

When they have commited a crime, they have put themselves beyond the law of the state. Therefore all privelages should be took away. Once committed, a criminal effectively waives his or her rights to the freedoms the rest of us law-abiding citizens enjoy.  

So they don't have a right to a fair trial, humane treatment (i.e. food and clothing), or right to an attorney, etc..????

Sounds like you want all prisons to be like Guantanamo...

To a fair trial and an attorney, absolutely. He is after all innocent of any crime until proven guilty.

offtopic

"Humane" is a bullshit word anyway, just another idealized concept that is as much fantasy as the concept of an honest politician. I might think it's more humane to execute violent criminals than to give them a jail sentence and then release them. More humane to the rest of society, that is.

And don't get me started on "human rights".

/offtopic