Why didn't the anglo-saxons conquer the whole GB?

Adam   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 13:15 GMT
You always like to mention that. Do you get some thrill aboput posting all the time that the Normans once invaded Britain, even though it was in all the way back in 1066 and the French, and no other European country, except Britain, could invade ANY country in this 21st Century world?
Adam   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 13:17 GMT
Can you imagine Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder threatening Tony Blair with the invasion of Britain?

Tony would just laugh and say "Have you been smoking the funny fags?"
Adam   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 13:26 GMT
Arrogant Chirac wants Britain to lose its annual rebate - but thinks France should KEEP its CAP subsidies.



Blair squares up for a fight with old Europe 'weaklings'
June 11, 2005

By Anthony Browne and Rory Watson
The Times
London

GERHARD SCHRÖDER, the German Chancellor, calls it national selfishness. President Chirac of France demands that Britain give it up as an act of European solidarity.



The £3 billion British rebate from the EU, or cheque Britannique, is not just a convenient distraction from the French inspired constitutional crisis. It is a perpetual sore in Britain’s relationship with Europe. Most of the 24 other member states contribute to it. All want to abolish it. Britain retains a veto.


Many EU countries believe that the rebate graduated from being merely unjustified to morally indefensible when several poor Eastern European countries joined the EU last year. Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland have a fraction of Britain’s wealth, but help to finance it every year. Although Britain championed enlargement, the rebate means that Britain is paying only a small share of its costs.



The rebate is absurd, but it is no more so than the EU budget. In the topsy-turvy world of EU finances, it takes an absurdity to rectify the absurdity of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The CAP kills one person in the developing world every 13 seconds

The battle for the rebate began in 1979 after Mrs Thatcher came to power. The Government’s case was simple. The UK was the third-poorest member of the nine-strong European Community, yet its net financial contribution was 40 per cent more than Germany’s.



Mrs Thatcher started demanding “I want my money back” in 1979. At the 1984 Fontainebleau summit she won a refund of two thirds of Britain’s net contribution, the difference between what it pays in and gets back in subsidies. That formula has saved Britain a total of £52 billion.



[b]Today Britain is one of the richest EU member states (after Luxembourg, Ireland and Holland), but the original imbalances in the EU budget remain. [/b]



The CAP, which accounts for nearly half the EU budget, funnels taxpayers’ money from across the continent to French farmers. [b]In 2003 France received more than €10 billion (£6.7 billion) from the scheme, and Spain and Germany €6 billion, while Britain recieved only €4 billion. At €68 per citizen per year, Britain receives less from the CAP than any other EU country. [/b]



Just as poor Eastern European countries are subsidising the British rebate, they also help to finance the subsidies given to French farmers. British officials call that a moral outrage.



The EU’s second biggest item of expenditure is structural funds, or development money for poor regions. Almost the entire budget is mopped up by Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany.[b] Again Britain lags far behind, receiving less even than Greece, which has a sixth the British population. [/b]



[b]Overall Britain gets less money per person from EU policies than any other country.[/b] Without the rebate it would be the biggest single net contributor.Were it not for the British rebate [b]France would pay no money into the EU, despite being one of the richest countries. [/b]



Even after the rebate, Britain still paid two and a half times more between 1995 and 2002 than France or Italy, which have similar population and wealth. [b]Without the rebate Britain would have paid 14 times more than France and 10 times more than Italy. [/b]



CAP reforms mean that it no longer subsidises farmers for producing food, and now pays them just for owning land. The reforms merely entrenched the imbalance in France’s favour. In 2001 M Chirac and Herr Schröder agreed privately to fix CAP subsidies at current levels until 2013, then informed an irate Tony Blair of the decision.



Britain insists that as long as the absurdity of CAP funnelling EU taxpayers’ money to French landowners remains, the rebate remains justified



thetimesonline.co.uk


http://www.fuckfrance.com//images/2/figuring_europe_out.jpg
greg   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 13:59 GMT
Ouf ! J'ai cru un instant qu'il était cassé.
Sander   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 14:01 GMT
http://www.fuckfrance.com// Hmm that looks reliable ..

BTW,You forgot the Dutch naval Invasion...
greg   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 14:06 GMT
Adam : "Do you get some thrill aboput posting all the time that the Normans once invaded Britain, even though it was in all the way back in 1066 and the French, and no other European country, except Britain, could invade ANY country in this 21st Century world?".

Once was enough, apparently.