Recently there is much talk for UK to get out of European Union and there is going to be a referendum on that in the UK. The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, is advocating such departure. The feelings are mixed in the UK depending on which group one listens to. Originally back in 70’s seven countries got together and created European Economic Community (EEC) to coordinate economic activities which bring these members closer together and avoid wars as the past two World Wars started in Europe.
This cooperation became so successful and beneficial that it gradually expanded and other countries of Europe joined in to the point that cooperation went beyond economic and included social, political as well as economic cooperation and the name changed to European Union. Presently there are twenty seven member country and some other countries such as Turkey has applied and very much wants to be a member too.
There is an European Parliament, European Court and a common European Currency named Euro which all but two members have adopted Euro as their official currency. The two members are Switzerland and United Kingdom which still use their own currency, but also recognize and trade in Euro as well.
Given the success of EU, one wonders why UK is trying to defect from EU? The financial market are not happy with the departure, as this will have a major impact on their financial activities and their ties to the rest of Europe. It would be an enormous tasks for the financial market/industries to separate and go back to pre-EU era, not to mention the cost of such separation which could be billions of British Pounds.
What needs to be recognized these migrants are also entrepreneurs and some highly educated that can contribute substantially to the economy of the UK by bringing capital and opening up business and creating jobs, paying taxes.
The working force are concerned that many investments from UK will be re-shifted to the other EU members and may cause unemployment to rise. However, the counter argument by the pro defection is that isolating UK from EU will prevent or at least slows down the migration of workers from other EU countries to the UK seeking employment and that should help the local workers to secure employment.
Some have raised concerns for migration of masses from other countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan as well as some African countries to UK and this influx of people is creating a constraint on UK’s limited resources and also taking jobs from the British citizens. What needs to be recognized these migrants are also entrepreneurs and some highly educated that can contribute substantially to the economy of the UK by bringing capital and opening up business and creating jobs, paying taxes.
It seems odd that in age of globalization and cooperation among the countries, UK has decided to defect from European Union.
The UK government needs to re-think its position regarding the defection from EU, as the past few decades since creation of EEC and then EU has proven successful for all member countries and UK should not be so afraid of the downturn to the point of jumping the ship.
