> Germany has always been goods producer. UK has always been a trading nation

Yeah, why has the UK then stopped trading?

Btw., I live in a German Hansestadt, which for centuries has been trading with all the known world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League

The UK can't trade with the US? Haha, what a joke.

Let's face it: the UK has focused on its financial 'industry' and has sold products of questionable quality.

The Hanseatic league stretched from England to Novgorod, and highlights the strong need for small independent sovereign city states, rather than top-heavy bureaucracies like the EU.

The EU is an attempt by the European political classes to copy all the worst parts of the US political system, while ignoring the traditions of political liberty that (used to) make the US actually work.

Having said that, I am hopeful that once the EU finally collapses, Europe will be blessed with a lot of small independent competing nation states, so there will be some hope for liberty if the US continues along the path of becoming a modern Byzantium.

> The Hanseatic league stretched from England to Novgorod

The Hansa Teutonica had its capital in Lübeck.

One possible future of the EU is a union of regions, not nations. The EU will take over much of what the current nations think they are.

> I am hopeful that once the EU finally collapses

Neither you nor I will see the EU collapse. Just the opposite. It might even expand.

Indeed the UK had a couple of Hanseatic ports, in London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelyard and King's Lynn.

I don't understand people who think a trading nation can survive outside a free trade area either.

UK is outside of tree trade agreements with the Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, etc.) because of its free trade agreement (i.e. EU) with collapsing eurozone. That's not good business for them.

Well the CETA (Canada EU trade agreement) with zero tariffs and improved labour mobility is close to being settled by the sound of it. It is not clear if the UK would ever manage to negotiate to join NAFTA.

Wasn't it Hitler who called Brits 'a nation of shop-keepers' ?

What a trading nation would do is make a living of - for example - buying tea from India to sell across Europe. Not some low-level, small scale enterprise. That has never been the engine of the German economy. German trade has always been a by-product of craftsmanship and not its replacement.

Funny that you say that. Just a ten kilometers from where I live is this: http://www.haelssen-lyon.de/index.php?id=22&L=1

Also this: http://www.teaandcoffee.net/1107/tea.htm

> The Port of Hamburg is Europe’s tea capital number and handles more than 70% of all German tea imports, as well as some 50% of the European-wide traded teas.

Germany has been for centuries been heavy into international trade. The city where I live operates a large part of the world container fleet...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship

> The vast majority of the capacity of fully cellular container ships used in the liner trade is owned by German shipowners, with approximately 75% owned by Hamburg brokers

Agreed. Germany may import more into the EU market than anybody else including UK. That's not my point. My point is that from the British perspective it is much better to open borders and trade with India, Canada, Australia, US, then to try doing the same with the EU. They closed themselves in the EU-block distancing from emerging markets in Asia and from the Commonwealth while Indians for that example are literally begging them for business. To no avail as the UK can't have free trade agreements with India as long as it stays within the EU. The same EU by the way which is just in the process of passing laws that will kill the biggest British business and pride - the City.

If you narrow yourself to the trade and banking within the EU, yes I agree, Germany are bigger player than anybody else. Start thinking globally, and you'll soon realize that UK stands much better chances in global economy trading freely with the Commonwealth and Asia than turning their back to these markets and focusing on the local European block.

Think Hong Kong, think Canada, think Australia -- from UK perspective it is just better business to be in an free trade economic block with them then to stay in euro disaster zone. This is what they have been doing for centuries. UK is no.1 in the world in terms of value of items traded per capita. Yes, they are a nation of shop-keepers. EU seems to be one-size-fits-all solution that obviously doesn't work for them anymore and probably never worked. They'll exit, open borders to Asia, ex-colonies, trade with them, do their banking, logistics and all the other stuff they have been doing centuries. While Germany will still export/import in Hamburg, nobody minds, everybody just does what's the best for their country. No surprises there.

Germany is in the EU and trades very successful with China, India, Brasil, Russia, US, ...

http://atlanticsentinel.com/2011/03/bric1-germanys-new-bedfe...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/us-germany-china-i...

If the UK can't do that, it is not due to the EU, but because of local incompetence. Germany has high growth rates in trade with the countries and a huge export surplus (even with China).

Your opinion surprises me. Everyone else in the EU is pretty much convinced that the UK is just trying to eat the cake and have it.

IIRC, the UK has opted out of Schengen and the Euro. That would look OK to me were we not talking of two core EU projects that were supposed to be game changers.

Coming from a country that is currently under an European assistance program, I am not myself very fond of the "Chancellor", but your opinion seems to be purely based on the hatred for a particular country and simple anglophilia. It's clear that the EU must have common laws. And it's clear that if the EU is supposed to ever become a superpower in the economic and geopolitical sense, a free trade zone will not suffice.

Believe me, European laws don't please everyone. e.g. production quotas have seriously harmed economies that were highly reliant on agricultural production.

And regarding Greece... well, Greece has played foul from the beginning. Greek authorities have purposefully reported lower than reality deficit figure as early as 1999. Of course the EU failed there too, and I'm convinced that austerity measures are not the best solution for this mess. But saying that Greece is being "punished" because it has refused to follow a particular model is a clear exaggeration.

> Everyone else in the EU is pretty much convinced that the UK is just trying to eat the cake and have it.

Considering that the UK is the fourth-largest contributor to the EU budget, paying more than we get back, and haven't benefited from the Euro in the way that eg. Germany has, I would say that we're giving you plenty of cake. There's no reason the EU has to be an all-or-nothing affair; there are plenty of other countries that have opted out of the Euro as well, and frankly with the chaos over Greece which has been heavily caused by their uncompetitiveness in a shared currency, I don't think you're in a great position to criticise that decision.

EU is a failing Project that has chosen to ignore democratic procedures and no-votes for decades. It doesn't work, it never did and it never will. It's basic economics that you can't have the same central bank for two countries like Germany and Greece, isn't it? But not when integration unelected fanatics like ex-marxist Barroso come into play. They don't care about nuances like democratic NOs or economic commonse sense. They want to build this - as you called it - superpower - at all costs and against the people. And people are tired of this nonsense.

It may look fine when you sit in Eastern Europe and get all the funds. But think for German taxpayer for a while who now has to pay for your infrastruture, meet your debt obligations in case something goes wrong, and import all the unemployed form your country. How much longer do you think Germans will take it? Of course, it's nice to be on the receiving end. But being in an economic crisis + having your own unemployed + tax hikes for your highways, do you think this makes EU popular among German voters? No, it doesn't. If Germany was given a chance there is a good chance they would opt to exit as well.

Eastern Europe is very pro-EU because it is bribed by all the money stolen from the Western Europe. But nobody, really nobody, in the West wants to stay on the board of the Titanic anymore.

Don't pretend that Germany didn't benefit hugely from the economic integration of weaker countries such as Greece. It takes two to tango, and tango you did.

The single currency tied the economies together, it allowed Greeks to use the cheap credit of the German economy to buy what? German cars. Germany's export businesses grew hugely because of the real value of the euro was weaker than the Deutsche Mark.

This is a problem where no single party is at fault. Yes, the Greeks were irresponsible with the credit but it's not the full story.

Apart from that, I agree with your points about the general economic union. Without a peaceful political and cultural one, it was doomed to fail.

Your speech is starting to sound too stereotypical and plain xenophobic to be taken seriously, but I'll give it a try.

Countries that "import unemployed people" do so for their own good. Or do you know a lot of Brits currently willing to do housecleaning work or have a factory job? Switzerland is a good example of that. ~30% foreign workers, most of them doing the jobs that Swiss people themselves would rather not do. It's very easy to blame people from other countries for you own problems, but they're paying their taxes too, just like anyone else.

Plus, Germany exports a lot to other EU countries. It's not like they're in the EU for the sole noble purpose of European prosperity.

2 or 3 of the countries in the UK are not "Anglo-Saxon" countries, but would be "Celtic" countries. :P

Additionally the UK does elect and choose EU legislators, in the European Parliament & Council of Minsiters, European Commission, etc. etc.

Not to mention there is a distinct possibility that the UK will itself break up in the next few years.

Very much depends on how you define "UK will break up". Remember Ireland seceded from the UK in the 1920s. The break up has already begun.

The same goes for Spain, Belgium, Italy...

beyond funny - EU advocating continental unity causing break-down even such already small countries as Belgium. Even more funny - Von Rumpoy is from Belgium traveling continent advocating for unity, while his own small country is falling apart into pieces.

I think it makes perfect sense. You have a pan-european state that deals with the big stuff (like human rights) and national ethnic groups for the little stuff.

There has been a trend towards large countries breaking up into national/ethnic groupings for almost 200 years in Europe. The phrase "Balkanization" dates, not from the recent Yugoslav wars, but initially from 200 years ago when the Ottoman's were breaking up!

No. This a feudal phenomenon right from the Middle Ages. The Papal Rome (EU) that deals with the big stuff and regionalization. That's why many historians and philosophers claim that times we are living in will be referred to as neo-feudal in the future:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-feudalism

That's backwardation. Similarly, in the Middle Ages there was no concept of nation states. Sounds like EU agenda, doesn't it?

Not to mention other similarities: 1% above the law elites, bankers, etc. and 99% of serfs. Definition of serf: born in debt and dies in debt. Religious wars (think crusades to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan to enforce our Christian-born values), etc, etc. Whatever you touch in terms of social sciences in the modern societies of the West is feudal. Including things like rise of Asia and deterioration of the West.

We're in the process of building of a neo-feudal society.

Not fun. Just trying to fight against it every step it takes.

And yet, christian groups think the EU is a secular force trying to destroy the christian values they believe in with things like allowing women to work, allowing gays to exist, etc.

So who's right? Or are you both extremists?