EU Wants To Strip UK Of Regulatory Powers?

The idea of maximum harmonisation was originally to prevent protectionism.

If a British firm invented an innovative yeast extract spread, for example, and wanted to export it, pan-European food safety regs would be set to a specific maximum to stop anyone protecting their their local slow-moving yeast extract companies on spurious grounds.

No. It looks like they want control of the regulation of the City.

It's probably a French initiative.

So could part of that be, or the next step, be the sole powers to regulate interest rates? A small step from monetary union. I 'feel' that a last ditch effort to ensure the future of the Eurozone might be to recruit as many countries into it as possible - the more countries that have something to lose if it collapses, the more power and control the ECB and EU will have.

Well it *could* be, but controlling UK interest rates wouldn't have much effect on day to day activities in the City.

There's a constituency of politicians and lobby groups on the continent that dislikes what goes on in London.

They don't like "locust" asset strippers, low capital ratios, casino banking and leverage. They think it's out of control, and that the UK isn't doing enough to regulate it.

So they may want control over it.

I agree with this.

If they are actually going to regulate the banks then I would support it. It's about time the EU did something useful for a change.

In message , Mark writes

It's too late to regulate the banks, they are too big and powerful, as has been proved by the continuing payments of huge salaries/bonuses. CEOs received average salary increases of 30% over the last 12 months.

The banks were freed up in the '80s, and building societies allowed to de-mutualise. Any attempt to regulate them by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor would have been received with howls of protest from the financiers and the Opposition, and dark threats to operate from elsewhere.

I don't accept that it is too late to regulate and I think it is essential that we do. However the political will to do so seems to have dissappeared rather quickly.

There's no real evidence that they would leave and if some did then good riddance.

In message , Mark writes

Exactly, and I would very much like to see something done, I am not holding my breath though.

Once again, I agree, but are the current govmint likely to call their bluff when 23 of the 29 Cabinet are multi-millionaires? IDTS.

Me neither. The current government seem to have conveniently forgotten about this issue.

I guess it depends whether the bankers are also financiers of the tory party.

I would much rather that the country were run by millionaires than by paupers.

Why?

Because he's a millionaire too?

Because millionaires are not tempted - well, quite so much, anyway! - to use their office principally as a way of increasing their personal wealth, to take our beloved last Prime Minister but one as an outstanding recent example. Because a pauper who has learned to expect everything to be provided on welfare is likely to be more profligate with other people's (that is to say, our) money. Because millionaires know how to handle and budget large sums of money with confidence, while paupers don't. Because millionaires can put doing good for the country ahead of doing good for themselves.

Perhaps every incoming PM should simply be given £5-10m at the start of their tenure, and told their future is now secure so they can take decisions without the temptation towards personal cupidity.

I'm actually not sure if you're being serious.

Good!

Run away from Italy because of Berlusconi, can tell you I won't trust a millionaire.

Aha, but Berlusconi is a billionaire, and the billionaire is an entirely different and far dirtier sort of animal. Billionaires cannot *ever* be trusted, because their overwhelming hunger to acquire far more money than they (or their descendants) can possibly need is clearly indicative of a serious psychological and sociopathic condition; in support of this contention I would cite every Russian oligarch.

The average millionaire is inherently far more trustworthy than a billionaire. Of course, this differentiation does not hold true for a millionaire who is showing distinct signs of trampling over everybody on his way towards billionaire-dom! A millionaire who is content with his modest fortune is, for me, a safe pair of hands to entrust with government.

"Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights: Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."

And add the british royal family to that list.

LOL! I wouldn't describe a millionaire having a "modest" fortune.

Yebbut, a billionaire wouldn't waste spit on it. Everything is relative. For example, a million seconds is less than 12 days while a billion seconds is nearly 32 years.