Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Maybe we are talking about a different thing. I thought you were referring to the pre Brexit vote concessions.

I'm not sure if they were looking for "concessions" for the UK or a quid pro quo? I didn't think so.

This is vague (it's a long time ago now and haven't looked detail up online which I probably should do before commenting). My memory is they did not want the Eurozone bailouts (setting up of the new stability mechanism etc) to happen at all, and so UK just blocked it from being done through existing EU structures as the Eurozone members wanted.

Eurozone members had to go outside that and do it for themselves (maybe under the "Enhanced cooperation" mechanisms but might be wrong?). Then UK (Cameron) also got somewhat critical/annoyed about being excluded from these Eurozone meetings and decisions related to it after that!

Hi Peter

"The ukraine has no unresolved issues with russia . russia has unresolved issues with ukraine, i think that is a big difference. and of course its a difficult situation .but i would say the way you put it, sounds a bit like you blame the wife that gets beaten up at home ,for getting beaten up at home rather than blaming the abusive husband . so i guess because of the russia issues negotiations should not have slowed down the process, it anything it should have speed up the process as the eu would seem to agree with right now ."

Russia has launched an aggressive war against Ukraine and you think Ukraine has no issue with that? Of course Ukraine has unresolved issues with Russia. To say that is not to imply that Ukraine is at fault — not at all. It's simply to recognise a fairly important reality.

And, while attitudes may be changing rapidly now, it's certainly true that up now the EU would have been very wary of taking on a new member state in Ukraine's position. You may like that or you may dislike it, but it offers a reason for the slow progress of Ukrainian accession negotiations that has nothing to do with Brexit.

I should have posted this first, utterly compromised, no wonder the rest of Europe are consolidating their response without Britain. It's shocking, but the reality of cheap money pouring into the Tory party, and boy, were they easily bought. The below is only the tip of the iceberg.

The EU granted membership to Cyprus in the mistaken belief that the Annan plan would be accepted by both communities on the island. They didn't think for a moment that the Greek Cypriot community would reject it in the manner that they did. This now leads us to a situation where a member state is in a terroritorial dispute with little chance of resolution.

The EU will not be repeating that mistake in a hurry.

The Cyprus/Turkey border issue held up Cypriot entry for years. And, even then, entry only happened along with a negotiated reunion scheme which, in the event, was rejected in a referendum just a week before Cypriot entry.

As for Russia going into Ukraine after EU talks were formalised, I'm not sure what you mean by "formalised". Ukraine first adopted EU membership as a policy objective in 1993, but the EU was wary, for several reasons, of which tensions with Russia were probably the least. In fact at this time it was probably Ukraine, more than the EU, who saw its relationship with Russia as an obstacle to progressing towards EU membership; Russia was by far its major trade partner, and EU membership would in the short and medium term have been very disruptive; membership was, for Ukraine, a long-term objective. It wasn't until 2004 that Ukraine even sought an association agreement with the EU. The Orange revolution of 2004 suggested that the Ukraine was far from politically stable, and political stability is a prerequisite for membership, so progress in the direction of membership was slow. An association agreement was agreed by 2012 but a further bout of political instability, leading to a revolution in 2014, followed by the Russian invasion underlined continuing political instability.

You say that Ukraine wanted to move westwards to disrupt Russia's attempts to control it and that might be true, particularly after 1914. But from an EU point of view that wouldn't be a compelling reason for wanting to join, or for the EU wanting them in. The object of the EU is to prevent conflict among its members; not so much to strengthen its members' hands in conflicts they may have with third countries. That's what NATO is for.

the way i read it is that the eu parliament and the council would not agree with your view ,the commission would more agree with your point of view

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/enlargement/briefings/1a3_en.htm

view of the eu parliament

These negotiations should under no circumstances be dependent upon the state of relations with Turkey and should be concluded as quickly as possible.

The Council Presidency confirmed in July 1997 that accession negotiations with Cyprus would begin at the start of 1998 and stressed that there was no link between the negotiations and a peaceful settlement of the Cyprus question.

Commission position

Agreement on a political settlement would permit a faster conclusion to the negotiations. If progress towards a settlement is not made before the negotiations are due to begin, they should be opened with the government of the Republic of Cyprus, as the only authority recognised by international law".

Our own border wasn't in great shape when we joined.

It isn't really that hard to understand. Brexiteers really felt that they could simply leave the EU and keep all the good bits and nothing would really change.

They thought that at the time, and they still think it now. It is why any 'Deal' will never be good enough because it will never be what they had before without all of the stuff they didn't like.

Can't have delays if you don't have trade 😀

Problem begins when the public through empty or expensive supermarket shelves find out there wasn't loads of other countries to trade.

EU - suit yourself.

(since it won’t solve a tenth of the delays in Dover, because trade gravity and British ports capacity)

To zero geopolitical effect outside of the UK, so who cares, beside their ever-shrinking audience?

If I were one such ‘Brexit Ultra’, I’d be going real quiet real quick right now, and maybe thinking about an extended vacation in a faraway place…because the Ukrainian crisis is gradually and irremediably taking a LED-powered industrial light to the dark cesspit of Russian influence and funding for anti-EU political movements and actors across the EU.