OMFG! Does Cameron have the remotest idea what he's doing?

Its not actually clear to me that this point that Camerons move will actually make a euro default more likely. It might, but I think its also possible that those within the single-currency block of the EU could actually thank him in the end, it depends what happens next really. I say this because one of the problems with the EU decision making is the need to fudge stuff to serve a range of very different interests, and by forcing the issue to the fore and having it properly dealt with by having a 2-tier EU, they won't keep running into the same old brick wall every time they need to act in future.

Did you hear the pride in his voice as he spoke? It's not a rational, logical decision - a decision based on pride and ego. What an idiot.

The idea that the others can't/won't react as well is nonsense. A series of states-capital dependent on trade with this country will not let this get in their way. Certainly they won't react like the OP.

It's an utterly logical a) reaction and b) face to put on things once down.

He obviously took great pride and it fed his ego to do this. Thats why i said it wasn't logical or rational - I just heard his voice beam with pride having spiked the efforts of 26 other countries. Enjoying the power he has to fuck up the deal. I'm not making any judgement on the treaty, but entirely on how his voice sounded. (because thats all I managed to catch on radio 4 just now!)

As it now appears possible that every other EU country will back the deal, I'll have to re-evaluate my use of the term '2-tier EU'. Out on our own we are likely to see just how well the UK can stand on its own feet in this day and age, thats if further events don't make all this a temporary and irrelevant situation anyway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/09/david-cameron-blocks-eu-treaty

this is a very stupid question i know (and shows how little attention i've been paying to this, what with starting a new job, etc) but on the news last night they were talking about it being the last chance to save the euro. Who decided that it was the deadline/the last chance and how did they know? seems to me there've been loads of such summits recently and none of them have really achieved very much, so who decided that this one was "different" if you see what i mean?

Will Someone explain what the hell is going on to someone who doesn't read the news?

exactly i dont have a bloody clue about this - someone fill me in please

I'll try, though in order to keep it brief enough to bother reading I shall no doubt miss some aspects out.

The rules that bind countries sharing a common currency, the euro, were rather lax in places, which seemed to work well enough for capitalists and the EU during the good times. But now we aren't in good times anymore, and some countries have rather interesting debts and markets have little confidence that the sort of ugly reforms necessary to get their books back in good shape (by squeezing the masses hideously) would be carried out by these countries. And these fears and lack of market confidence spread to other countries with rather large economies such as France and Germany because of the common currency. So the politicians of the EU think they have to restore confidence and appease the markets by coming up with tough new rules that will make the single currency work in future. They also want to make it so that, unlike what happened in Greece, the investors won't lose out when some countries need bailing out.

Germany has a lot of muscle, and they didn't want to do bailouts without doing the above at the same time. They wanted to achieve this by changing EU treaties. Cameron didn't want to go along with this for a few reasons, including not wanting the UK financial sector to be subject to certain regulations, so he used our veto to scupper the possibility of getting this treaty change through. So most of the other EU powers have decided to achieve much the same thing by a different method, and as a result the UK is likely to lose quite some influence within the EU, even over some stuff which will still affect us directly. France, another rather important EU player, may have favoured this alternative approach anyway, so they seem rather happy. But there is plenty of non-UK specific stuff that can still go very wrong in the coming weeks and months, so its not entirely clear how much any of this will matter int he long run. Its possible that things could escalate to the point that the reasons for the UK remaining in the EU evaporate, and we leave completely. Or the Euro or the EU could self-destruct for a few different reasons, only time will tell.

naked national self-interest...

"Arguing he had to protect the City of London, Cameron demanded that any transfer of power from national regulators to an EU regulator on financial services be subject to a veto; the UK be free to place higher capital requirements on banks; that the European Banking Authority remain in London; and the European Central Bank be rebuffed in its attempts to rule that euro-denominated transactions take place within the eurozone.He also argued that non-EU institutions operating in the City but not in the eurozone, such as American banks, should be exempt from EU regulation."

... which in his terms amounts to protecting city wideboys above & beyond all other considerations

europe's totally isolated now

Well one of the main forces that make things like money, markets etc work is confidence. On a very low level this means things like people having confidence that the paper money in their pocket is actually worth something, that it will be accepted by others as a legitimate token that can be exchanged for goods, services etc. Or that if they do some work they will get something in return. On another level its about having the confidence that if you lend money to a person, business or country, you'll get it back.

Over quite a number of decades we built several layers of complex stuff on top of this, on a truly stupendous scale, with plenty of bullshit & reckless assumptions built in. And we surrendered a lot more power to things like financial markets & investor confidence, taking the basics of any working relationship between humans and blowing it up to epic proportions. It all got very silly but people didn't care during the good times, for there was too much confidence around, too much risk-taking that nobody cared about because all was well. When the financial crisis hit this confidence started to evaporate, and once this process starts it can be rather hard to stop it from running wild and demolishing much of what was built & taken for granted. The loss of conference caused all sorts of money markets to seize up, and the way we unseized them was rather artificial. After a while peoples concerns and lack of confidence turned their attention to new and rather obvious targets, certain countries which looked like they would struggle to repay their debts. This stuff is contagious and dramatic action is required to convince the ugly markets that it will all work out ok in the end.

This leads to various people making a judgement on how long various players have to take this dramatic action, before things reach a point that very real collapse of certain systems, economies, currencies and what have you will reach a critical point of no return, no more business as usual. The exact timing is not a science, but some of the ugly market participants really are calling the shots, its their confidence which is deemed to count, so if they are the ones setting the timescale then it tends to become true.

Specifically in this case it is deemed that there is only so much time before the woes of countries like Italy start to mess with countries like Germany, eg how much it costs them to borrow money which is an indication of confidence that investors will get their money back in future. If there is no confidence at all then its like the lubricant in a machine running out, the flow of daily life & economy drops to proportions which endanger our ways of life, and life itself. They can't pump imaginary lubricant into the machine forever, they have to reform the machine so that it can handle the new realities. Or let the machine die and start again. Neither option is without human suffering. So some would prefer to have the whole thing go proper poopy sooner rather than later, in order that the suffering to come may at least be used to struggle for a better future, rather than one where we are ever more tightly squeezed in the direction things have ben going in for decades already.

What does that actually mean?

jesus fuck

Seriously, isolated from what, or on what level (political, economic etc)? the EU & Eurozone have been in a position for many months now where they are the focus of global attention, and likely to get the blame for a global depression that could unfold if they don't take the sort of shitty action deemed necessary to squeeze their populace over decades in order that the financial order can make sufficient profits in an era of extremely limited growth. Camerons actions in the last 24 hours don't change that, nor is it possible to say at this stage whether it has increased or decreased the chances of the EU keeping the Euro in place.

So why should Europe now be considered to be more isolated? As if Britain was some magic bridge that was providing the main connection between the EU and the rest of the world, or that the UK was some essential and extremely positive political force that ensures Europe reforms itself in a timely and credible way/keeps it real? We've never been those things, we've been an important part of the mix but we haven't just disappeared off the scene completely anyway.

That sounds alarming!

Heavy Fog In Channel - Continent Cut Off

Famous headline from The Times, 22nd October 1957

are you always this wet, drippy and serious?

I think it's us that's going to be isolated.

It is.But MEANINGLESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOMG

From what exactly?

Oh it's the UK that's isolated itself from ebola- little englanders once more.Let me sit outside of the cafe with my latte and drip feed my baby wine ffs.

Oi! I take offence at that! I was just reading the rest of the thread, ok?

Not always, but subjects such as this one I usually am, yes. Its temporary though, there will come a chapter in the story of this century where a very non drippy side of me will emerge and dominate, based on a pretty simple stance about humans and how we deserve to be treated. And in the flesh there is humour in my stance and consideration of these topics, but I tend to fail badly to get it across in text, and its bound to be seen as anything but funny to those who aren't a certain sort of geek. Tough titties, this shit is what I bring to the mix and that won't change until we've moved beyond the current bunch of wank that passes for civilisation these days. It needs to fall to bits more before there is room for me to breathe properly.

Hey at least Im not the BBC, who didn't know what chapter they were on a few years back, over-egged it and started going on about people making their own christmas presents for each other rather than buying stuff. They are having another stab at finding the right chapter in recent days, with a drippy version of my 'god of growth is dead' rants, in the form of 'is stagnation for a decade or two really so bad?'

I fucking <3 you elbows

From economic decision-making in Europe clearly.

Like what?