This piece from Dr Alf and produced by the Independent really isn’t news but in the form of this survey tries to masquerade as such. We know from 41 years of being in the EU that the French have always seen EU rules as elastic or a “pick and mix ” arrangement whereas UK civil servants deliberately gold plate EU regulations so that they can carry out unpopular policies demanded by Government Ministers in such a way as to make people think that the fault was all the EU’s.
What have we learnt from the Independent that wasn’t already obvious to a two-year old?
We have discovered that France and Germany would prefer that we ‘Remain in the EU’ and are expected to consider why. Obviously with the UK as the 3rd biggest financial contributor the prospect of having to get Germans and the French to make up the difference given the impoverishment of Southern and Eastern Europe is not something that would appeal to either France or Germany.
Germans, we learn from Dr Alf’s recent visit to a concert with his friends, would be happier if the UK stuck to the rules and that further concessions were not made to suit the British. Germany has historically been a country which made up rules and got other countries to follow them. Their essential nature is the same and now that they have achieved their traditional economic pre-eminence in the EU they seek, this time through Angela Merkel to call the shots. Germans will always be German and will expect Europe to operate and be more German as per their blueprint. To expect that to change given nearly 2000 of years of history dating back as far as the ambush of the Roman legions in the German forests which prevented Rome from conquering Germania and the Teutonic tribes, is in my view wishful thinking.
Dr Alf's Blog 