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Additional Euro implementation costs for everyone for no benefit.
Britain will lose it's independence.
The Germans and French will control our United Kingdom.
Taxes and interest rates will be controlled from outside the UK
"Euro" interest rates will probably not be applicable in the UK.
The UK economy and culture are different to continental Europe.
The Euro is an unstable currency - note the continued devaluation of the Euro to the state where it has devalued by 25% against the dollar and sterling since January 1999. The Euro was worth $0.90 in May 2000 and has further depreciated to under $0.85 in September 2000. It is now risen to around $1.10.
The implementation of the European Army by the EU will damage NATO and the UK's special relationship with the USA.

Why Business does not want the EU and Euro

Higher employment taxes will be implemented.
Higher corporation taxes will be applied.
Higher social taxes and costs will be forced on business.
Expensive computer systems upgrades would be needed.
Unnecessary dual-pricing would be needed.
High interest rates will be unnecessarily applied in the UK to control inflation in the Euro-zone or alternatively inflation creating low interest rates will be forced upon the UK .
The UK will have to pay for the under-funding of particularly German pensions.

Why Consumers do not want the EU and Euro

VAT will be applied to children's' clothes.
VAT will be applied to food (the EU is making food far too expensive today with it's Common Agricultural Policy that subsidises the inefficient French).
VAT rates generally will be increased.
Taxation will generally rise to fund the EU Commission and bureaucrats who add cost and no value to the European Union.
Energy prices will rise.
We will have to learn another currency for no benefit
Opportunity for hidden price increases, remember decimalisation?
We will have higher than necessary interest rates.
The EU will want even more control over our fish in our waters.
A further general increase in Stealth Taxes.

Why the UK should not be controlled by Europe and/or EU

EU Directives override Acts of Parliament
Did you know that EU Directives now take precedence over Acts of Parliament as evidenced by the Sunderland market trader Steve Thorburn who was successfully prosecuted for selling a pound of bananas. His crime was that he should have sold the bananas in kg. The judge said it was clear the Parliament had "surrendered it sovereignty to the primacy of European law".

The EU Federal State is coming
Now Mr Jack Straw our Foreign secretary accepts that the EU needs a Constitution and envisages a Council of Ministers to which our UK Parliament would be subservient to.

Eurozone and UK Economy differences
The UK economy is different to the Eurozone countries in some important and significant ways. The labour market is more flexible; most families own rather than rent homes; the working population is rising rather than falling and our tax rates are lower. This creates an environment where UK interest rates will need to be different to those in the Eurozone. Therefore, by definition, the Eurozone rates would be inappropriate to the UK and would result in an inappropriate monetary policy.

Joining the Eurozone would distort the Housing Market
The UK clearing bank base rate is 3.5% (Aug 03) whereas the central bank refi rate is 2.0%. But while our rates are significantly higher than in the Eurozone, we have a very buoyant economy with high demand for credit; nearly full employment and a very strong housing market. The effect of reducing our base rate to the Eurozone repo rate would be to cause an explosion in the UK housing market as has happened in Ireland and cause economic instability. We prevent this by being outside the Eurozone.

Joining the Eurozone would accentuate boom-bust cycles
An artificially low interest rate would stimulate an artificial and inappropriate boom with rapidly rising prices. We have a real example of how Eurozone interest rates humiliated the UK when in the early 1990s high interest rates that were necessary for ERM membership destroyed the UK housing market and industry. The Pound sterling was expelled from the ERM in September 1992 after the government had wasted billions of Pounds supporting it. Unfettered by the ERM. the Pound sterling found its natural exchange rate and the UK has flourished ever since.

Euro is a weak and unstable currency
The Euro is a weak and unstable currency; it has been devalued by 12% against the $ and 9% against the £ since the start of 1999 and now it has increased in value. How would you feel if your savings and assets had lost 12p in the £ over 5 months, and then re-couped the loss? Do you really want to be part of the Eurozone? and lose even more of your assets? The Euro has now fallen to below a $. On 29 Jan 2000 it was worth less than $0.98; in September 2000 it was worth less than $0.85. However, by Aug 2003 it was $1.10. Do you really want your savings to fluctuate in value this much?

German Call for Superstate
On 10 May 2001 Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister called for a Federal Superstate with its own elected President and written constitution. The proposal was for a "European Government with far reaching executive powers". I don't want the UK to be ruled by the French and Germans, do you?

Leave the EU and join NAFTA
Why doesn't the UK leave the EU and instead join NAFTA, the North Atlantic Free Trade Association? The US International Trade Commission is conducting a six month study into the effects of extending NAFTA to include the UK and this would require Britain to leave the EU.

I believe we have much closer links with the US, Canada and Mexico than with Europe. Also, we would be closer to our Commonwealth friends than if we remained in the EU. NAFTA stands for free trade and freedom; not the bureaucratic superstate environment suggested by EU ministers.

European Law
On 10 May 2000 a convicted drug trafficker was awarded £11,500 by the European Court which ruled that his human rights had been infringed by the police who had bugged him to obtain evidence. Do we really want the UK to continue to be bound by these types of law?

Pensions
Perhaps the largest cost to the residents of the UK from adopting the Euro would be the UK bailing out the pension schemes of the Eurozone countries. The UK will be required to bail out these unfunded schemes on the continent. The average liability per person in the the UK to 2070 is £1,000 compared to £26,000 in the rest of the EU. Why is this? it is because in the UK, we make pension contributions which are invested and these investments pay our pensions. In the rest of the EU, their generous pensions are paid out of tax revenues. There is a pension Time Bomb in the EU, which we would have to pay for if we adopted the Euro.

Unfair competition in the EU/Euroland
We can clearly see how the French have banned our beef exports contrary to EU regulations. However, the French and Germans are using all their powers to stop UK companies from taking over their industry. Vodafone's takeover of Mannesmann is meeting string resistance in Germany. Yet, the French can take over our water companies and the Germans can take over our motor industry. There is no equity within the EU. The UK abides by the rules and France and Germany flout them and suffer no penalty.

Another example is that in January 2001, the UK will impose an EU recycling levy on flower pots, whereas the Netherlands imposes no such levy.

Taxes and the EU Federal State knows best
Eurozone country employees hand over half of their income to the state in taxes. British citizens hand over 40% and the Americans hand over 30%. Did you know that in Eurozone countries, workers cost their employers twice as much as they earn in wages?

Jobs and the EU Federal State knows best
Over the last 3 decades, Europe has created 7 million public sector jobs and lost 3.5 million private sector jobs. Over the same period, America has created over 30 million jobs with most being in the private sector. It is the taxes paid by the private sector industry profits that have to pay for the public sector jobs. Does this seem a healthy economy? Does the UK really want to be part of it?

Invasion of the EU job seekers
During 1998, the Office of National Statistics reported that a record of more than 400,000 job seekers came to the UK to take advantage of our low employment rate and over-generous social security policy. With the ever increasing size of the EU, do we really want the UK to be destination for economic migrants. We only need to see what is happening at Dover. Migration into the UK can only get worse.

The Eurozone Fudge
Countries joining the Eurozone at the start of 1999 were supposed to have similar economic health defined within precise measures. However, Italy is struggling to control it's budget deficit. How can the Eurozone joining criteria have been fudged to allow a weak country in. Remember, a chain is as strong as it's weakest link. Are you therefore surprised by the fall in the value of the Euro?

OECD Report on the EU
The 1999 OECD report to the European Governments highlighted that the fixed exchange rates implemented within the Eurozone had deprived the Eurozone members of their financial buffer, and so increasing the need for urgent financial reform. Do we want to be placed in a similar situation?

UK's Fishing grounds
The UK's territorial waters have been opened up to Spanish and other EU fishing fleets while ours are diminishing while we have had a 46% quota cut in 1999. Is this right? Should the Spanish take our fish? The UK Government attempted to restrict the Spanish from registering their boats in the UK and taking the UK's fish quota, but this has been deemed illegal in the European Court and the UK now has to pay the Spanish fishermen £120 million. Isn't this absurd? The Spanish take the UK's fish quota and get £120 million as well - all sanctioned by the European Court!

Resignation of the European Commission Members
Following a damning report on the operation of the European Commission featuring malpractice, all members were forced to resign. Yet, they continue to draw their salaries and retain their over-generous pension rights. Also, most expect to be reappointed for another swill from the gravy trough Even When Mrs Cresson retires, she will receive an EU pension of £28,125 a year even though she will have contributed to it for just five years.
If the European Commission had been a private company the Commissioners may have been fired with a total loss of pension rights. Is it appropriate for the European Commission to be leading Europe?

Travel Expenses
MEPs have voted not to produce receipts for their over generous travel expenses. If you are employed, do you have to produce receipts? Of course you do, and your spending limits will be less than a quarter of the MEP allowances. Do you want to continue to fund the EU gravy train?

Loss of the British Veto
The Amsterdam Treaty has resulted in a further diminution in the right of the UK to veto directives that are plainly inappropriate to the UK. Is our authority being reduced by stealth?

Tax harmonisation
The expression really means tax increases for the UK. Already we have seen the proposals for a withholding tax on bonds to be applied in the UK which will result it the Switzerland taking London's Euro-bond market. This means less money being made in the UK and which will have to be made up with more taxes and of course there will be the job losses.

European Army
The European army is next This has already been proposed by the new Commission President Romano Prodi. Do we really want to loose the British Army, Navy and Air Force and be under the command of the French or Germans?

European Police Force
While Europol is currently a European organisation that facilitates the sharing of intelligence by the EU police forces, the intention is that it would become an operational force. Europol would be accountable to the EU and subject to EU regulations with suspected criminals being tried in an EU court. However, the French legal system is not the same as the UK's. Is it right that UK citizens should be tried in an EU Court under the French Inquisatorial system? I say no! British citizens should be subject to UK not EU laws, and tried in UK not EU courts.

Duty Frees
We have always been accustomed to our "duty frees" which help provide jobs and a little benefit to travellers. You should blame EU membership for the scrapping of our historical Duty Free rights.

Working Time Directive and Social Chapter
It is our avoidance of these directives from the EU that has partly led to the booming UK economy while the German and French economies are under strain through excessive and unnecessary social programmes. However, the Labour Government has signed up to these job destroying directives. Do we want to continue in this way? More jobs lost meaning those in work will have to pay even higher taxes? The French have just implemented a 35 hour week - sounds good doesn't it, but can the UK afford this? Even the Department of Trade has admitted in 1999 that the extra compliance costs exceed £2 billion.

EU Rebate
Margaret Thatcher negotiated the return of our legitimate rebate from the EU budget. However, the EU are trying to take our funds back again. Rather than focusing on saving money and reducing costs, the EU prefer to increase taxes and levies. Do we want to live in a highly taxed EU or in a low tax country outside the EU. In Oct 99, Roman Prodi, the President of the European Commission stated that Britain would have to soon give up it's (justified) £2 billion rebate.

Trade Wars
Now the EU acts as the main arbiter in trade disputes that used to be settled by negotiations between countries. A dispute between the EU and America over bananas is seriously affecting our cashemere industry. Yet, the EU seems impotent in forcing France and Germany to remove their bans on British Beef imports.

Farming
Our farms are far more efficient than continental Europe which is why a substantial portion of the UK's EU contribution goes into supporting inefficient European farmers. Does it make sense that the efficient should subsidise the inefficient producers? Also, does it make sense the France and Germany can ban our beef on the grounds that is poses a health risk, yet the French feed their livestock on excrement. Do you realise that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) costs the UK £6.7 billion per annum, so adding over £15 per week to the average family's food bill? Also, note how the French Police escort the French farmers to disrupt and destroy our farm exports.

Unwanted Flax
The EU now pays a subsidy for farmers to grow flax, and even Brussels has admitted that this has distorted farming. The EU are now growing more than 5 times as much flax as a few years ago, and the main beneficiaries are the Spanish. Most of the flax is only grown for the subsidy, and it is then burnt as there is no requirement for it. Do you think the EU and it's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) makes sense? We have had Butter Mountains, Wine Lakes and now we have Flax Fires.

The Gravy Train
Finally, remember who is really promoting Europe - it is the politicians who are keen to join the EU Gravy Train as soon as they leave UK public office. Judge this statement on history

Why the UK should be in Europe but not controlled by Europe

Much of the UK's trade and business is with Europe and we need Europe as much as Europe needs us. However, this does not mean we should be part of either the European Union; or a Federal Europe. Instead, the UK should be part of a free trade area which would include the EU, the Americas and our friends in the Commonwealth.

We do not want to be in the EU, we do not need to be in the EU and we should get out of the EU. Business has incurred much extra cost preparing for Y2K - just wait till businesses have to spend up to twenty times as much modifying financial systems to cater for the Euro.

You may also wish to view a French Anti-EU/Euro site below.

http://www.souverainisme.org

Please also view the sites on the Web Ring below

Page created on March 02, 1997, last revised: November 29, 2006.

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