week 1 discussion thread.

[Admin]

I'm pretty sure that we didn't get the chance to decide on a topic to discuss for this week. If we did ignore this post and start discussing it. If we didn't then I want to hear your thoughts about Brexit and the EU. It's 6 months since Britain decided to leave, the markets have fluctuated the pound weakened but not a lot else has happened. What do you think about it? Can you understand why Britain decided to leave? What are your thoughts on the EU system and how do you think it will change without Britain? What about Britain? Do you think they will become marginalised? Will they build better agreements with other countries? What will change? None of us know the answers, I just want to hear what you think.

[Guillaume Scrofani]

Hi.

I think EU is a an opportunity for France. Thanks to the EU citizens of all the countries member of the EU are able to travel freely from one country to another for the purposes of visiting a country, working and studying through the Erasmus program for instance. But EU not only allow people to move freely, it is applicable to goods as well. Wich contributes to the economical drive every country need to increase their living standarts. Of course the EU, as all system, is not perfect, there are pros and cons.

Because of the imbalance between the western and eastern european economies an internal competition raised between the EU members. It results of this situation, tensisons and euroscepticism. Some countries also apply social or fiscal dumping. Luxembourg and Ireland, for exemple, don't play fair on this topic.

However, we can think that playing on the playground the globalized economy is alone is not a good strategy. Is it why, in my opinion, I think the pros outweight the cons when it comes to think about the EU.

So why the  Brexit ? For being complety honest I havn't followed this topic intensly. But from what i know Cameron promessed a referendum for the Brexit when he was underpressure for some politicals election reasons. This decision was followed by a compaign during wich the both sides, pro and anti EU, express their arguments. This campaign was rich in bias and exaggerations. From politicians and a part of the press. I don't know all the reasons that pushed to the Brexit but i can say that it's due to a rise of nationalism and a percepetion of an economic failure from the EU.

But still, i don't think UK will be marginalized. Because, even though UK leave the EU it could still remains on the EU market with the same advantage as when it was member of the EU. But for that UK has to respect some rules such as the free movments of the people and the goods. And London will still be an important financial place.

Guillaume.

[Charlotte Vergnaud]

Hello!  

Britain leaved because they think It will help them to develop their economic system. Also, they wanted to free trade with the world, reestablish national sovereignty and control immigration.

According to me, there are not really changements to us, because Britain has never take part of monetary union. However, because of London is an important financial place, many people are afraid of an economic crisis in the long term. In the long term because economic changements take time to start.

I don’t think they will become marginalised because Britain will stay a strong economic leader, as it’s the case since industrial revolution.

In population mind, nothing really change. It’s just a political changement. This does not really affect them.

Britain is an attractive country for tourism and I don’t think tourist frequentation will decrease because It still have special habits, coutums, tradition than you don’t find someplace else.
In fact, what’s better than fish and ships, double-decker, walk from London-eyes to Buckingham palace, shopping at Coven Garden and a good cup of tea ?

[Admin]

Hello!  


According to me, there are not really changements to us, because Britain has never take part of monetary union.

Hi

You are aware that the UK was one of only 2 countries (the other Germany) that actually paid into the EU aren't you? Even France were net withdrawers. Without the UK's input France will be able to take less out and have to put more in.

[aida zalagou]

hi

if countries fought to create the EU and many others to enter; it because gains are greater than disadvantages. being member of the EU offer more weight at international scale, trade benefits through free trade et many others.

the depart of britain wich is a major economic power certainly has impact on world's markets but it will be difficult to foresee to what extent.
Britain leaved the EU because it want more sovereignty and thinks all EU rules and laws are constraints to his development. i think with the brexit, britain mostly renounces to many advantages that will have to be renegociate (with contries around the world) and with no garentee the new agreements will be as much (or more) advantageous as the ones with EU.
i think that the migrants problématic also have an psychologic impact on certain votes pro brexit.

both, the EU and britain will have to adapt to this new situation and it will probably take a lot of time. this will depend very much on Britain's choices (eg agreements with non-EU countries).

I don't think britain will be marginalized because the EU has interest on things going well for both parties and maybe finding new win-win agreements . Also Britain always had a single foot inside EU and will keep all his influence.

the risk would be that other countries after, follow Britain's example. this will depend on how britain manage after brexit.

[yuyang]

Hello, everyone. From my point of view, Brexit is like a couple who broke up because of discord. Britain is like a man with a male chavinism and doesn't trust his wife( EU ).
Britain doesn't use the euro, nor does it belongs to the Schengen country, he also sets border restrictions to reserve his independence. But in recent years , his wife has stepped up her control over Britain and she also think Britain is a "disloyal Partner". And there is a unequal economic relation between this couple. Britain paid a lot to his wife but got a little in return. They have many disagreements especially on immigration. I think this break-up has a negative impact on both, but it also présents opportunities . Free trade between the EU and Britain will be limited which will bring a drag on britain's economic growth. And this poor man will lose his voice in EU's behavior.
Of cause, brexit could reduce the negative impact of EU regulation on the UK, but the benefits could be far less than loses. On the otherside, the EU's position and influence in global economic and political affairs will be compromised after Brexit. It will also increase instability in the EU's internal structure.
I think Brexit has a limited impact on China, but the progress of china's negotiations on free trade and Investment agreement with EU will be influenced in the future.
yu yang

[Charlotte Vergnaud]

Hello!  


According to me, there are not really changements to us, because Britain has never take part of monetary union.

Hi

You are aware that the UK was one of only 2 countries (the other Germany) that actually paid into the EU aren't you? Even France were net withdrawers. Without the UK's input France will be able to take less out and have to put more in.

Yes, it’s true but i wanted to say that today there is no effect on the economy of the France because many people think that the economic variables take time before reacting. Indeed, according to economists, It takes several years to a crisis to burst.

However, it’s sure that France will be weakened because the UK was one of only 2 countries (the other Germany) that actually paid into the EU.
Indeed, Germany wants to dominate the EU, but it loses political allier after Brexit. Then, the weight of Germany in the EU is going to increase.

[Vian Pierre-marie L3]

Hello everyone
According to me the Brexit is not a good thing for both the Europa and the Great Britain. It is in fact a bad example of solidarity. The other country could also want to leave suddenly like UK which could be a disaster for the European economy (In this case investors and people in general will lost their confidence in the euro).
To conclude the Brexit could lead to another economical crisis because of UK being one of the most powerful financial power of the world.

[Audrey Suire]

I think, in the actual economic situation, every country will try to save it's own economy before anything else. After all, people can do what they want!
Why blame the British for being out of the EU? First of all, they did so to save their economy and try to remain competitive with other countries. If they are penalized by being part of the EU; why not encourage them to prosper ? And tell them to found their own Union (with other countries) ? We might hope that they would help us later if we ever find ourselves with a very unstable political and monetary system.

[jinyi zhao]

Hello
In my opinion，brexit represents the setback of European integration and the temporal victory of anti-globalization.
Since 1970, the globalization became more and more popular that contribute to high economic development in the whole world. Global commerce and investment are expanded. What’s more，labor and capital flow more quickly between different countries,
However， we have to acknowledge that there are also a great of side effects who follow with the globalization such as larger gap between richness and poverty， losses of manufacturing posts in developed countries. Therefore， in developed countries，we found that the riches became richer， the middle classes has a smaller room to develop and jobs for blue collar flow to developing countries.
As a result, the unwashed social stratum treats themselves as a loser of globalization and collide over the globalization. They referred this to globalization and immigrators.
The target of people who support Brexit is to reject immigration of European union and regain the control power of british frontier. The employed labor does not care about the high price pay to Brexit but only focus on the job opportunities taken away by the immigrators.
After Brexit， in the short term， heavy financial volatility will take place in England, but
there are limited effects in the future. The England will establish new relationship with European union like what Swiss and Norway did in order to lessen the bad effects of Brexit.

[Mike RAMSSAMY]

Hello, So I would said that the old british generation and from the countryside decide to leave the European Union cause they think that the E.U is the reason of the unemployment in the U.K.But that's an obstacle for the foreign student.

[YAN Wenyi]

Hello,
Just as a proverb said, « Union is strength ». And that is exactly the reason why the European has the capacity to contend against the first grand economic entity - the United States.
In the last several years, the UE has been suffering from many crisis: the financial crisis in 2008 and the debt crisis of Greece, which leads to the economic depression of its member countries. And the migrant crisis brought by its decision of accepting those refugees from the Middle East, that threaten the safety of the society. Then in such a difficult and complicated situation, Brexit happened.
From my personal angle, Brexit reflect Britain’s ‘selfish’. I do understand why Britain made up its mind to walk out of the EU in this severe situation, but as a member in a group, it isn’t a positive attitude to solve a problem. What is the most important is to face it together and figure out the solution. Besides, Brexit is a thing negative for the unity of EU because it shows an example to those countries who also intend to quit the EU, that is to say the threat of UE’s collapse increased due to the action of Britain.
Anyway, the past is the past. What the EU has to do now is to find out an effective solution against the economic and social problems. The successful elected of the president Emmanuel Macron is like a shot in the arm of the stabilization for EU, I believe in the promising future of EU. As to Britain, I’m not sure if its decision is well for itself, we will see in the future.
YAN Wenyi

[Jeremy ROGEON]

Hello,
The British voted 51.9% in favor of a Brexit (Britain exit), a historic exit from their country of the European Union, on Thursday 23 June 2016.
This choice should have economic repercussions,

The United Kingdom should benefit less from trade and foreign investment. But the magnitude of these consequences remains difficult to estimate. They will only materialize slowly. It will be complicated to convince the public that this is the result of Brexit.

The effects on the British economy will also be negative. We begin to feel them. It is especially demand that will suffer. Inflation is expected to increase to 2.9% by the end of the year due to the depreciation of the pound's exchange rate after the Brexit vote in the summer of 2016.

For me, the Brexit seemed to be a negative, but not surprising one, the United Kingdom has always been a little on the margins of the EU, they have always wanted to derive advantages from economic and commercial treaties while maintaining a certain independence; they kept their currency and they never signed the Schengen agreements. The EU is like a team and the UK has always decided to go it alone. It is not surprising that he decides to leave the ship when a part of the population (especially the rural people who have allowed this bread) are in disagreement on such things as health, education or immigration.

Jérémy Rogeon

[Nantian YAN]

HELLO everybody!
Brexit is an abbreviation of "British exit", which refers to the June 23, 2016 referendum by British voters to exit the European Union.The referendum roiled British markets, including currencies, causing the British pound to fall to its lowest level in decades. EX Prime Minister David Cameron, who supported the UK remaining in the EU announced he would step down in October.

For Chinese government, UK left the European Union will affects Chinese economics. And as the only one EU member states who appealed to give China market economic status,the Brexit must will affects the relationships between China and Europe in a long term. For now, the European Union is the biggest trade partner of China. What’s more, China and the European Union is having talks toward free trade, investment agreement and so on. And within the union,UK always supported and pushed the process of the liberation of Sino-EU trade with positive attitudes. For all those reasons, UK left the European Union will causes the influence that old decisions toward the union will be greatly reduced, and the process of talks between China and European Union mentioned before will going slow in a short term.

Institutions and inventions like issue of Euro and Schengen Agreement are the symbol of European integration, but now they’ve been shocked and challenged by the Eurozone Crisis and refugee wave. Now it is hard to quantize how many other European Union members will follow UK’s step to leave the union. But except leave EU, whom be encouraged are Scotland who wants to leave the British Commonwealth and Catalonia who wants to leave Spain.

Brexit is not a thing only related to a specific country, it has massive effects to the worlds. But that’s just the world, it always be changing. What not change at all is change itself.

[Bobby Redureau]

Hello,

I think Brexit is not a good thing for everyone. Firstly for companies, they fear to be affected on the whole of their activity, financial, human resources, jurisdiction etc. Several barriers could arise, the return of customs duty, waiting times at the borders that will slow down the activity of the company. Even companies that have no connection with the UK are also affected, as many are financed in London.

In my view, the British will also be affected, as trade negotiations with other countries will have a significant cost to businesses, which will have a negative impact on workers' wages. Moreover, many investors are likely to withdraw, which will result in increased unemployment.

I hope that no other country will make the same decision as the United Kingdom because this could cause a very significant economic crisis affecting all the countries of the European Union.

Bobby Redureau

[Zhexun WANG]

Hi, everyone

For me, I think the voting is a disaster. I am a Chinese, I don’t like what’s happening in my country, there is only one ruling party, voting means nothing to me. I like democratic, but through the ‘’brexit’’, I have found the drawbacks of the democratic system, the drawbacks of ‘’one person one vote’’.

People who vote for brexit, some of them do not know what they are doing, let’s look at the result of the Google search after the voting, the top 5 questions are :
What does it mean to leave the EU?
What is EU?
Which countries are in the EU?
What will happen now we’ve left the EU?
How many countries are in the EU?

They know nothing about the EU and they vote…

Some people, think leave=free=glory to the country, some people think leave= control of immigration, (these people don’t care about the economy), even someone vote for Brexit just because they do not like EU. Mr cameron held the vote, maybe he thinks most of people prefer to stay, but he’s wrong, once we open the pandora’s box, we can’t close it any more.

If it’s not like one person, one vote, only the people who knows a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of leaving EU to vote, the result would be changed? I think so.

Although Donald Trump won the election and the Uk left EU, I still believe that the globalisation is an irreversible trend. In history, the British people have held some similar voting, and I think one day they will hold another voting to join in EU again.

[Antonin Rohard]

Hello,
Firstly, I don't think that Great Britain will be marginalized because England and more precisely London have a huge influence in Europa. They also have a favored relationship with the United States. Furthermore, London is a kind of front-door for Europa so the influence of Great Britain will remain important.
On the other hand, the fact that London is a front-door for Europe is a problem. Indeed, Brexit isn't although real today and that is a problem for the European economy because the negotiations between Great Britain and Europa concerning Brexit are at the origin of an uncertainty feeling for some companies that are established in other European countries.

[euniceL3]

Hello

i think that Britain thought that it will have much to gain than to lose by leaving the EU; so the time will tell us if they have made a good decision or not.

As for EU, I think that EU will suffer at the beginning, because Britain was one of the pillars of the EU but over time the remaining countries will try to find solution and be able to get away of the crisis
And i don't think Britain will be marginalized, but think that both sides will set agreements that will convice both sides

[ZHANG SHUN ZHI]

hello,
In my view, as the England thinks that keeping staying in the EU will block its development and it left the EU. Obviously, there are many differences among these countries. For example, the England, the France and the Germany are stronger than Greece, they have lots of advantages in economics. So they have also took more responsibilities for EU （paying more to support EU). As we all know, because of the debt crisis, the Greece has became the burden of EU, but why the Greece can enjoy the same preferential treatment as England without doing more contributions for EU? It felt unfair and if it leave the EU, it will get more money to develop its own economics, why not to do that?

What's more, the immigration policy in EU has brought many troubles and riots in Europe,which makes the England feel very afraid.

But as a result of the area limit for countries in Europe, these members countries just like the different province in China, only these different countries cooperate can increase the total impact of western Europe in the world. Besides, we have learned that in recent years, there is always a law growth rate for most Europe countries. If a country fights alone in the world arena, it will face more problems in the future.

In a word, i don't think it's a good idea for England to leave the EU family in a long-tern vision, but i respect its choice. L'est wait and see!

[Roshni RAMAMONJY]

Hi

Brexit is a good measure for u.k.'s economy because they will not have to finance other country's debts like it happened with Greece. Also British people will face less concurrence with the other Europeans workers that come in London. The United Kingdom will therefore be able to focus on its own development

[Athénaïs Parisy]

Hello,

I think that Brexit is a good thing for the English because all the taxes paid by the citizens will be directly dedicated to them, as subsidies to farmers for example, and thus will not be returned to the EU.
Moreover, the country can decide its own laws and is no longer obliged to follow those dictated by Brussels.

[Valentin Poucineau]

With the Brexit, EU lost a great power, in a diplomatic and economic perspective. But maybe the UK didn't feel really welded with the other countries. So the Brexit may make negociations between the different countries easier. I think the main problem relates to the free movement and to the exchanges of goods.

[Cécile RIMAUDIERE]

Good evening everyone,

I think that Brexit can enable the UK to be more competitive and build their own economic system. By that, I mean that they will not have to worry about the decisions of the European Union. It should also be recognized that the countries of the EU are not all equal in development. If we take the example of France and Romania, the standard of living isn't the same. Each country in the union doesn't have the same level of development.
Of course, with the Brexit, the English will surely have to face consequences. It includes fluctuations in the pound, instabilities in the financial markets, as well as fears of potential investors.
It will also be necessary for the UK to be more competitive on exports with its new trading partners. But in the long term, I think that this may benefit them, since they will have developed new positive strategies that we may not have in the EU.

Sorry, i don't know if i'm clear in my explanations..
To sum up, i think it's risky for the UK ( it's not without consequences ) but we don't know exactly what could happen in the next years. So, I prefer to think in a positive way.

[Charles roger]

Hi everybody,
To me the united kingdom made a mistake when they leaved the european union. Now they have a lot of drawbacks and penalities thats they never expected because the members want to punish the UK. The fact is that if there is no penality for leaving, everybody would leave and the european union would be soon and old story.
They should have think about that before leaving.
On a opposite way,  my personnal manner to think tell me that this is a great thing for them in a long term view. To me, a country should have partnerships with others country but shouldn't be dependant of the others and pay for their mistakes.
As a plus, we musn't forget that the uk kept his currency, that was the first proof of a not real engagment in th EU system. So for both of the parts it is a good thing because the UK do not deserve to be part of the european union because this country never respected the rules. The major mistake was not to leave the union but to go in few years ago without the will to follow the group during the bad times
This is just a personnal point of view which is non based on economics facts but on my morality.

[Admin]

Hi everybody,
The fact is that if there is no penality for leaving, everybody would leave and the european union would be soon and old story.

That sounds quite sinister. Surely European countries have their own soveriegn rights. The EU will only collapse if it is not in the interest of the countries within it. Why should it continue if that is the case?

If you, as France, are willing to give up your identity and become a part of a Federal Europe with German overseers that is your choice. I can understand Romania and Hungary and similar countries wanting to be a part of the EU because they are then in a win-win situation but maybe France and some of the wealthy countries just below France may not be so happy when they are paying other countries to join as opposed to the present circumstances where only Germany and the UK pay in.

I was anti-brexit but I can understand the negative feelings towards a European government that is expensive, inefficient and bureaucratic. The waste and BS is enormous and people like Junker should never be making decisions for independant sovereign nations. I'm not sure that the French want to become a Federal state of Europe - which frighteningly gives rise to groups like the National Front - but that is each country's choice. To try and "punish" a country for leaving seems totally wrong and possibly worse than that.

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