Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

Do you mean environmental costs or financial?

It's technically the safest technology for powering the planet if managed effectively. It should be utilised while we have the problem of the planet to deal with and the waste can be stored for now and disposal/long-term management worked out at a future date when we have hopefully invented or sourced better and greener fuel supplies.

In the meantime it would solve the current environmental crisis by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

I'm not sure if things have changed but when I last looked into this the alternatives such as windfarms/solar etc have their own finite timescale and can only supply about 25% of our energy needs. Solar used to require a specific metal only found in certain parts of the world.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

I completely agree.

After all, France has relied heavily on nuclear power for many years now. It is so efficient that they make a lot of money selling their surplus electricity to us.

A pity that we have such inept and backward looking politicians supported, of course, by our 'green' friends.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

The EU sliding into oblivion!!! Oh Dear

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

The European Union is moving from one crisis to the other. But the foundation for Europe, the common market, works well.

Those who studied economics at the end of the eighties, early nineties, were told: Japan was the future. Sony would wipe out Philips and Toyota and Nissan would replace the dull European car industry.

Fast forward to 2019. If Japan is in the news now, it is usually about the huge national debt, about the worrying aging of the population or about the economy that has been struggling for several decades. Or it is about the corruption scandal surrounding the French CEO of Renault-Nissan. Pay attention to the order in names: Renault is in front of Nissan, because the French car factory has taken over and saved the Japanese one.

Europe is in a much better position than the doom thinkers are trying to tell us. The fall of the Avondland has been predicted many times; Oswald Spengler published the first part of his classic with that title in 1918 and Europe is a century later richer and safer than ever before. The European Union is the second largest economy in the world. After the United States and the euro, after the dollar, the most used currency.

In spite of the crises, the euro as a currency has held up well, although there are flaws in the system: the southern member states are economically weaker than the northern ones, and that continues to cause tensions. In the past, the Greeks and Italians were able to devalue their currency in a recession and export themselves from the crisis, but that is no longer possible with the euro. In the United States, rich states financially support weaker states in difficult times. But the euro zone is not a political union, so that is much more sensitive in Europe: northern taxpayers do not want to pay for deficits in the south.

It is unpredictable how the North-South discussion will end, but given the events of recent years it will probably amount to a lot of tug of war, many night-time negotiations and many complicated compromises. But the great kladderadatsch, which pessimists have been eagerly predicting for years, seems unlikely.

With all the attention for populists and nationalists, it is good to remember that the vast majority of Europeans are very much in favor of Europe, as was clearly demonstrated in the last elections for the European Parliament. The pro-European parties received 518 seats!

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

In leaving the EU security and justice systems, britain is losing real-time access to critical databases and the European Arrest Warrant.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

In terms of those databases, I think you will find it is the other way round.

The European arrest warrant is also an epic failure.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

The single market is the cause of the mass immigration thats resulted in the crime and violence so rife in EU countries now.

The Euro is being bailed out every day by QE - its a disaster, slowly imploding and taking out the Eurozone, its only a matter of time before it destroys the countries that have the Euro. Already there are junk bonds in Germany and negative interest rates. Next will be pensions imploding, savers losing money by the negative interest rates, and people investing elsewhere.

In the news just now, Airbus still haven't learned their lesson, so now Trump is putting more tarrifs on the EU ... the state funding of Airbus is breaching WTO competition laws so quite rightly, you're being held to account. Next will be cars and when that happens, the Eurozone will be over. Try re-calculating the size of the economy of the EU after we have left, that should give you an idea of the reality. I've seen predictions that the EU wont even be in the G7 in the next 5 years or so

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

I think they'll miss the support of GCHQ more than anything else. They have nothing like it.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

Oh for sure ... we provide most of the intelligence to the EU on terrorist suspects etc in the first place.

Re: Even Juncker Admits It's Over

Is that the institution the americans for decades refused to share information with because secrets were just as quick in moscow as in london? No we have nothing like that.