Monday, June 3, 2013

Europe would be better off without Britain - poll result and report card



Dear debaters and dear readers; finally, Europe would be better off without Britain, or not? Before delivering a final vote to this debate, let’s go over what happened and what has been said during this debate. (Continues below the fold…)

by SH

Arguments of both teams were essentially founded on two important bases, the economic and the political effects of Britain leaving or staying in the EU.

The proposing team are convinced that EU can no longer develop if it doesn’t achieve political integration; and as Britain has always barred the way to this integration, they believe that its departure from the EU would be the key to reach the objective political union to have a unified and powerful block. 

However, the opposing team maintain the idea of Schuman’s Europe: peace and solidarity for all Europe. They found this situation as a crisis to solve together and try to keep the Europe unified. Personally I believe that although Britain ban some political integration of EU, it’s not the only country in this position. Maybe the most important, but not the only one.

The opposing team tried to evoke some other political raisons for which Europe would not be better off without Britain.

One of their arguments was about the military force. They suppose that if Britain leave the EU, Europe would lose its “single most powerful military force”. It’s true that if Britain leaves EU, Europe military force will considerably reduce, but it steel can rely on the military force of some other important countries of the EU. On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that UK even US do not support EU in case of crisis or potential war.

The opposing team also mentioned the one more seat that Britain give to EU in the United Nation Security Council which make its voice stronger. They are afraid of if Britain leaves EU, it will consider to join another power, that cannot be anyone else than US. But the proposing team rebuttal this idea by referencing Cameroun’s visit to Washington to promote the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, where US warned Britain that if the UK leaves Europe it will exclude itself from the US-EU trade and investment partnership.

These was about the political effects of the question. But the debate was also based on some economic arguments.

The proposing team referred on the only 10% of the UK economy involved in trade with the EU and that no EU country trades mainly with Britain, to conclude that EU internal trade will not suffer if Britain leaves EU.

The proposing team insisted that “EU has the potential to be as powerful as the US, the European economy being more important than the American one” and that’s why they think Europe can go very well without Britain. Although the opposing team agree with the idea that EU can be as powerful as US, but they believe this can happen only if Britain stays in. As UK is one of the economic forces of the world, it seems obvious that its presence in the EU re-enforces the position of EU in the international relationship.

Another argument of the proposing debaters, was the possibility of creating jobs in EU. As they said “if Britain cuts itself from a giant European market, international companies and funds could be put off from investing in the United of Kingdom, and companies dealing with the Eurozone, especially banks, will probably move from the city to the EU”. The opposing found this a “childish thought!” and thought that if Britain gets out of EU, the results will just be more attractive economic laws implied to EU and I think they’re right. 

At the end, after reviewing the arguments of two teams, I’ll give my vote to the opposing team. They can persuade more reasonably that Britain’s leaving from EU won’t have any important benefits for Europe, and its staying may have some good effects. Whereas the proposing team, their most powerful argument was the political integration of Europe without Britain, which was not sufficiently developed.

So NAY! Europe won’t be better off without Britain.

 

SH

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