There has been something of a theme within postings of the last few days that the EU has some kind of status - the status quo no less.
Nothing could be further from reality; it has been around for only a few years in truth.

The Status Quo.
That 3 chord band from the year dot!
Breaking news: the nation state is the status quo and it has been throughout most of recorded history. 190 odd as members of the UN and over 200 as members of FIFA, apparently and according to their own voting of yesterday.
In contrast, the EU is a politically inspired construction of your lords and masters of the universe, aided and abetted by the super-power of the current world order which can conveniently ring just a couple of numbers in order to hand down the latest directive rather than handle a diverse range of nations with scarcely a single factor in common.

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Dave

Status quo. The existing state of affairs.

Nope. I've got it.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Several:

G20:
G20: what is it and how does it work? - Telegraph
Note how the privately owned central banks get to sit at the table + the EU is in there.
In effect the EU (note a rotating representative) is not speaking for the 4 largest economies currently in the EU who have their own seats – little wonder at the Norwegian comment about the G20 organisation which is ad hoc in nature.


World trade Vs the EU: the specific figures appear later in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv5O_Gq30ow




UK share of world trade;
Transparency International - Exporting Corruption 2015

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Dave

So not official figures then. Seemingly not even correct interpretation of the figures.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

I guess this depends on whose version of officialdom we depend upon.
As for "correct" interpretation of the figures we are getting an amount of reporting within the UK now about how our own government intends to control their own ministers who don't wish to follow the party line.

Here is some more "official" data:

Export performance has been deteriorating | OECD READ edition


Which is drawn from the extensive library of the OECD:-
Export performance has been deteriorating - Assessment and recommendations - OECD Economic Surveys: United Kingdom 2015 - OECD iLibrary

The Transparency International figure that I cited earlier has used OECD data for their own "interpretations".
Has http://www.transparency.org.uk/ corrupted their own use of published data for their own nefarious purposes??
From their own website:-
"Transparency International UK is a registered charity. We are the UK chapter of the global Transparency International movement. We are financially independent and raise our own income in order to undertake our work. We receive donations and earn income from a number of different sources including statutory bodies, charitable trusts and foundations, the private sector and individuals.
Our views and policy recommendations are based purely on our research, and we will not accept any source of funding where a funder seeks to influence these. We undertake due diligence to ensure that accepting a source of funds will not compromise our independence or that of the wider Transparency International movement."



Ultimately, we all have to make our own interpretations or fall into line with Blair's point of view (the earlier post number 361)

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Dave

Oh yes, there are arguments for regional "governments" of the nature identified in the last couple of posts.
These would fall into line (more or less) with the current regions used by the EU for their own purposes which are identified in the earlier link:-

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Dave

For just 50 years or so which makes the EU a Johnny-come-lately to my mind.

Either way, Our PM needs to get his referendum of the way before the Euro crashes and burns for the 19 countries involved in that (with 3 of them also in the G20 setup it will give the EU more to think about than the £ zone).
Will Pending Eurozone Bank Crisis Take Down the Euro (EUR)? | Currency News UK

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Dave

The status quo is the current state of affairs. Strange that you feel that the status quo is the state of affairs 50 years ago.

Each to his own, I guess.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Not 50 years ago, but over many centuries of "development", the latter in all areas of activity undertaken by mankind - that is the real status quo.

For instance, I am somewhat surprised that there has not been more discussion in here about our system of law compared with mainland Europe, but that may arise when the undue influence of France is mentioned, again.

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Dave

The EU was founded on the Coal and Steel community as a means of stopping French occupation of the Ruhr and Saar region at the end of WW2 (peeved because they really wanted massive reparations à la WW1) and the French coal piracy from those areas and getting some fair and efficient economic cooperation between 2 nations who needed each other to resuscitate a base industry.
Monnet (rather out of guilt), Schumann and Adenauer.
Strasbourg is where the French 'demanded' (French verb – demander) the ECB to be situated. Remember EU Parliament caravans each month between Brussels and Strasbourg and, you'll love this, the parliament secretariat is in Luxembourg.


The EU was forged out of the Coal and Steel Community which the French were forced to accept when their post-war plans to annex the Saar and control bits of the Ruhr were scotched by the Brits and Americans.
It started as the second best option for France's interests, but led to France creating a union in its own image.

Just a bit of 50-60-70 year old history.
"Countries have no friends, only interests".

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Dave

The talk of official data, statistics, interpretation and the like reminded me of this piece of EU harmonisation from 2014:-

Drugs and prostitution add £10bn a year to UK economy - Telegraph
It's hard to keep a straight face at times, especially when driving past all the hookers hanging out on the main highways of Strasbourg, or Rouen for that matter.

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Dave