[nbevans]

Exactly. The last couple years has really let the mask slip on what the EU stands for and they've made it expressly clear how they intend to treat the UK going forward - despite the UK's best efforts to forge a genuinely strong relationship, this has been rebuffed at every opportunity. We are "fair game" to them now. So it makes complete sense to design future energy projects with sovereignty in mind.

[WastingMyTime89]

> the UK's best efforts to forge a genuinely strong relationship

Last time I checked the UK was still the sole country in the world refusing an official ambassador status to the representative of the EU and the sole country to have threaten to unilaterally withdraw from an international treaty with the EU in clear breach of international law. I think your definition of genuine and mine differ substantially.

[nbevans]

Check again - the ambassador status was granted last year.

The genuine best efforts spanned from 2017-ish (negotiations didn't start in 2016 after the vote) to 2019. It took a while for the UK to realise the EU no longer wanted to be friendly and cordial, and that's when the UK's own stance finally changed.

A bilateral treaty between the UK and EU is not "international law". A bilateral treaty contains exit clauses that can be invoked if necessary. The Geneva Convention is an example of an international law. Though I don't know specifically what you are referring to in your example.

[WastingMyTime89]

> The genuine best efforts spanned from 2017-ish (negotiations didn't start in 2016 after the vote) to 2019. It took a while for the UK to realise the EU no longer wanted to be friendly and cordial, and that's when the UK's own stance finally changed.

The UK wasted everyone time during 3 years asking for things which it was told at the beginning were impossible and kept reneging on their agreements during the whole thing. The UK never made genuine best efforts. You have to be a die-hard brexiter and far removed for reality to start believing that.

I was specifically speaking about the Irish agreement which the UK threatened to withdraw from without respecting the exit clauses.

Anyway, I just wanted to re-establish a modicum of truth regarding the way the negociations went. I propose I now go back to my usual attitude towards the UK - general disinterest.

[nbevans]

"I was specifically speaking about the Irish agreement which the UK threatened to withdraw from without respecting the exit clauses."

A veiled threat is not breaking any clauses. You should look up the number of times the Swiss (and others) have threatened to withdraw from so-and-so agreement with the EU. It isn't new. The EU has dozens of active arguments/negotiations with dozens of countries at any given time. And we already established that this is a bilateral treaty and without any guarantors (unlike the Good Friday Agreement) and hence could be ripped up at a moments notice by either party if they so chose. Just look at the number of times France has made threats in relation to the Trade and [non-]Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The exit clauses are merely there to offer a graceful means of pre-agreed exit strategies.

The EU however *literally drafted emergency powers legal text* to trigger the Article 16 (exit clause) of the N.I. Protocol during a dispute - a petty, tawdry and without any basis in reality dispute at that - regarding Covid-19 vaccines.

It is remarkable how the tone of your posts reveals how "on edge" you are about this. Even laden with typos such is the haste with which you type. It (Brexit - an event which concluded over two years ago) is clearly still a very raw nerve for you.

[blibble]

> Last time I checked the UK was still the sole country in the world refusing an official ambassador status to the representative of the EU

you're not exactly up to date as this was sorted almost a year ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57002735

[VBprogrammer]

You don't think it had anything to do with the whole of the EU being blamed for ever ill to befall the UK for the last 7 years? Or the negotiations in bad faith where international law was treated as "more like guidelines anyway"?

[jodrellblank]

> "We are "fair game" to them now."

As we should be. "We" spent years going "we've got the EU over a barrel, we'll make them bend to our whim, they need us more than we need them". Brexiteers now finding out that "leaving the EU" means we're no longer on their side and negotiating against 27 united countries sucks, well it would be funny if it wasn't hurting so many people.

[KarlKemp]

The EU does not think of the UK in that way.

In fact it tends not to think of the UK at all, these days.

As to being "fair game": that's true, in the sense that the EU will place the interests of member states over those of the UK. That dynamic must be among the least surprising developments of history, considering it is both obvious and formed the core of every serious prediction in the run-up to Brexit.

There was plenty of swagger back in those days with fantasies of renewed UK superpower domineering the EU and extracting every concession it can think of. "Fantasy" because that's just not how it works if the other party makes up 60 % of your foreign trade, but you make up less than 10 % of theirs.

So here we are now, with the UK coming up with these harebrained schemes that feel like some party organized with the specific purpose of not inviting your ex.

[toper-centage]

The UK playing victim is the reason Brexit happened in the first place. No wonder their residents continue being brainwashed in that sense.

[gizajob]

Maybe many of the residents of the UK see the creepy undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU for what it is, and it's single-speed forward into the future federal state of Europe wasn't something they wanted to be a part of. This isn't brainwashing, but people feeling more need for control and action on a local level, not their national parliaments being subsumed and subverted by Brussels, and the diverse peoples of the continent being treated as if they were all one thing.

[dmitriid]

> creepy undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU

> need for control and action on a local level

Ah you mean that local control and democracy when the party with 13% of the votes gets 0.2% seats in the parliament", right? [1]

[1] Great CGP Grey video on the 2015 General Election in the UK: https://youtu.be/r9rGX91rq5I

[gizajob]

I haven't got time for a deep-dive into statistics or methods of representation right now, which clearly need improving. The fact of the matter is that more people in the UK voted to leave the EU than even bothered to vote in the election of EU representatives in the election before. The EU failed to make a case for the importance of its democratic process, and rested content in its level of power existing despite this failure to reach people with its electoral process, and 51% of the electorate of the UK saw fit to remove themselves from the EU when given the opportunity to. My main suprise was caused by the UK doing this probably some 15-20 years before it really became a pressing question, but it was a case of "now or never" and swathes of people in the UK decided they didn't want to be involved (all seemingly for an individual set of personal reasons that are hard to form any consensus toward).

[dmitriid]

> which clearly need improving.

Indeed, they do. So you really have no right to point fingers at "non-democratic EU bureaucracy" when at worst it's the same system as in the UK.

> The EU failed to make a case for the importance of its democratic process

You realise that the UK was in the EU? That it was one of its founding members? That the perceived failure to do anything about this process is shared by the UK as well?

[KarlKemp]

yawn

[gizajob]

This doesn't seem like a harebrained scheme, but a challenging one of moving renewable energy from where it is abundant to where it is required. An example of a harebrained scheme would be Germany's reliance on Russian oil and gas.

[logifail]

> The last couple years has really let the mask slip on what the EU stands for and they've made it expressly clear how they intend to treat the UK going forward

I've just paid a €5 handling fee (just the handling fee, there was zero customs fee or any VAT levied) to receive an item sent by post from the UK to the EU, it was sent by post with a declared value of £3, and labelled as a gift.

Yes, I know all about declaring artificially low customs values - been there, done that - but in this case it was a single item of used childrens clothing, the best part of 40 years old(!) and of absolutely zero value other than to the recipient, it was being gifted from one generation to the next.

Somehow cheap electronics orders from China seem have always sailed through EU customs just fine :/

OTOH I can fly to Stansted for less than €10 all-in. Maybe next time it would be cheaper to fly to the UK and collect in person. Given the challenges of climate change, this option in particular appears to demonstrate how not-joined-up international policymaking currently is :(

[imtringued]

The EU ignores the UK to the extend that the UK wishes to be ignored by the EU.

[pydry]

The tories have been negotiating in bad faith on Brexit since day 1 and never really stopped. Stuff like the Internal Market Bill etc