[toyg]

> the French do not like the UK in the EU

Meh, you should ask French companies like EDF, Bombardier and friends... They don't like the UK in, they love it. No trade barriers, mature and profitable market, no real competitors in traditional industrial sectors anymore... It's almost like printing money.

[neximo4]

I should have clarified, French people don't like the EU. More than half don't want the UK in the EU. In addition CDG infamously vetoed the UKs entry in the days of the EEC.

The differences in culture in Europe divides people, trade unites them so I guess these companies love it.

[toyg]

Those are sweeping generalizations. CDG is long dead. French people don't like the British attitude of constantly keeping one foot out, and certain elites don't like them weakening the traditional future of a federated (French dominated) Europe (which actually turned out German-dominated, but i digress).

If Britain fully engaged in good faith, joining the Euro, losing the special clauses and renouncing their constant fight to abolish cornerstone policies like agricultural subsidies, I don't think anyone would want them out.

[neximo4]

Every country wanted something out of the EU other countries may have not agreed to, the French wanted agricultural subsidies. If you have 28 countries in a trade union, you're bound to have disagreements.

The government in the UK was particularly enraged about FTT (Financial Transaction Tax) a couple of years ago & that is what has actually led to this whole referendum thing. Every country is good at its own things and they wouldn't like it if was attacked. Imagine a tax on manufactured exports, Germany would have a fit.

It's not like there are policies in the EU that attempt to reduce trade in financial services such as the tobin tax on financial transactions. Italy enacted the tax and its reduced trade quite considerably.

Every country has it's own fight in the EU, it's not just Britian, France had the subsidies problem, Greece had its bailout problem.. each has had its own. There isn't a reason for Britian to be treated differently.

Sweeping generalisations you say? Have you not asked Frenchmen their opinions of the UK in the EU? There are a couple of firms that have done unbiased polls all over the EU and Frenchmen quite simply do not like the UK in the EU, some things just don't change.

CDG is long dead but he is still relevant as he chimes in with the unchanged opinions.

[toyg]

> the French wanted agricultural subsidies

Agricultural policies were planned in 1957 and mostly finalized in 1964, long before the UK even joined. This is what I mean by cornerstone: agriculture, energy, industry, economic development... these were defined at the very beginning with the Treaty of Rome. By constantly attacking them, one undermines the whole setup, and that is unclout from someone who joined much later.

> The government in the UK was particularly enraged about FTT (Financial Transaction Tax) a couple of years ago & that is what has actually led to this whole referendum thing.

You conveniently ignore more than 20 years of sustained attacks by the British press on European legislation on all sorts of issues. UKIP did not start in response to the FTT. The referendum idea started gaining traction around the time Blair won his second mandate, when Brown's position on the Euro looked a bit weak, but had been around ever since Thatcher joined. The actual referendum timetable has been entirely defined by the need for settling disagreements internal to the Conservative Party once they had secured a majority. There is simply no single policy that is responsible for precipitating it.

> It's not like there are policies in the EU that attempt to reduce trade in financial services such as the tobin tax on financial transactions.

These policies were discussed while the UK government went through an acute bout of isolationism. Looking back only a couple of years, Brown's influence over European response to the 2008 crash was widely recognised as huge, and it's a fair bet to say that with him at the negotiating table things would have looked very different.

If you don't engage, they will ignore your needs, simple as.

[vixen99]

Gosh, I have to get up to speed on the various types of sweeping generalizations.