Lectures on the United Kingdom and the European Union

The European Union and the United Kingdom share a special relationship. Sometimes isolationist, sometimes interventionist, the Brits have a very ambiguous stance on the European Union. Recently, the brexit and bremain views opposed each other in the referendum on the EU. Find out more about the relationship in these two lectures.

Referendums: a good idea?

Referendums, like the one in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016 about EU membership. Some see it as a miracle solution to connect (or reconnect) citizens with politics. By having more to say, they'll be motivated again for the political game. Or so goes the argument.

For the European Union, this may be a strong argument to hold referendums. The EU is sometimes seen as very distant from its citizens. So here's your miracle cure for saving democracy. Or not. In referendums, you get the wrong answers to the wrong questions.

Take the Dutch referendum on the association treaty with Ukraine. As some opinion leaders claimed, most of the Dutch didn't even know where Ukraine is on a world map. Let alone they read the over 300 pages of the document. Why ask the Dutch in a referendum about a trade treaty with a country thousands of miles away?

Referenda: a good idea? ©

A quick look on the comments on a website explaining the treaty shows that many persons didn't bother to inform further. One person commented to vote against as long as the government couldn't explain the treaty. Actually, he/she could have found a clear explanation on the government's website.

So instead of judging the treaty on its merits or its shortcomings, the 61% who voted against didn't vote against the treaty. They voted against the establishment, the EU, the government, or maybe just because they had a bad mood. They also voted against the incapacity of politicians to judge whether there should be a referendum or not.

However, that does not apply to the UK referendum: there's a clear question and clear answers. Still, people might just vote against, just because they don't like the UK's government. Or because they don't like politicians.

Switzerland took another approach: in addition to voting for the Federal Assembly (that's the parliament), about 4 times a year, referenda are held. In these referenda, they receive an explanation of the law, a choice (yes or no) and an advice of the government. This way, citizens inform themselves before voting. There's even a possibility to block new laws by collecting 50 000 signatures, and holding a referendum on the new law. Isn't that a better way?

The EU countries' economic health barometers

How do you know if a country of the European Union is doing well economically or not? While economists can debate this issue for hours and hours, there's a quite simple way to find out. Via the so-called 'long-term interest rates' of the European Central Bank.

That's quite a mouthful. The European Central Bank is a bank, in the hands of the government. It mangages the Euro, in just a few words. For example, it can allow Belgium to print some Euro's. The ECB's first goal is to make sure that prices for EU goods like spinach, cell phones and tables don't go up too quickly. And not down, otherwise no one would buy them anymore, expecting the prices to go even more down. Actually, the goal is close to 2 percent increase of the general prices per year. Read more about the ECB here.

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As part of their duties, the ECB collects data. It does so for the long-term interest rates of government bonds. Lots of difficult words there. Government bonds are loans the government takes. Some of the bonds anyone can buy. Mostly it's big organisations like pension funds who want to buy these bonds. So they know or at least think their money is safe. In return, they receive the money they loaned plus some interest. And an interest rate, is the rate at which the money was loaned.

Let's illustrate it: Belgium wants to spend 100 Euro for buying some fighter planes. So, they check: who wants to give them a loan? I say: me, of course! I feel like Belgium always pays their debts. I conclude the deal, Belgium gets a 1-year loan and will pay me back 102 Euro in a year. So the bond is from Belgium, the interest rate is 2% and the interest is 2 Euro.

Well, that's a little simple, but it's basically it. Now, long-term interest rates are those for bonds of around 10 years. So those who loan money will wait for about 10 years to see their money back. Of course, they will only give their money to states that don't go bankrupt. And the more they think the country will go bankrupt, the higher the interest rate.

Let's take the fighter planes again: I (and many others) think Belgium won't be able to repay the 100 Euro, for a period of 10 years. If I think that Belgium will go bankrupt in 5 years, I can give them a loan with 25% interest rate. So after 5 years, I get 125 Euro back. That's 25 Euro interest every year, times 5, is 125.

Conclusion: the higher the interest rate, the worse the governments' ability to repay their debts. The ECB collects monthly interest rates. There, you can easily see in the figures in the table who can get cheaply loans, and who doesn't. So it's a way to tell if an EU country is doing well or not. Germany usually has the lowest rates.

European Union Defense policy: state of play and future

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How did the European Union's defence policy evolve in the past 10 years? And how is it going to evolve? A difficult question the EU is facing nowadays, in times of turmoil in the Middle East and increasing tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

EU Defence expert Daniel Keohane answers these questions in this lecture.

European Union countries - list

Which countries are part of the European Union? Good question. If a country decides to become part of the European Union, it needs to have the agreement of the EU nowadays. Than, it becomes what they call a 'member state', which is the EU's difficult language for 'EU country'. So here's a map to see the expansion throughout time:

This map is made by Kolja21 with this license.

Actually, European integration began before 1957. In 1951, the six 'founding members' started the European Coal and Steel Community. Basically, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg and Germany decided 'let's work together on coal and steel!'. The plan was to prevent Germany from arming itself again by creating a common market for coal and steel, which are necessary for producing weapons.

Fun fact: Algeria was part of the European club once, since it wasn't independent yet. You can see it's still part of France in 1957.

The first expansion occurred in 1973, when the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland joined. By then, the name had changed into European Communities. Greenland was still part of Denmark at that time, you can see it on the map. In 1981, Greece joined the club, but blocked the accession of Spain and Portugal until 1986.

In 1990 Germany became one, and the Eastern part of Germany got membership as an extra. Two years later, the name changed again in European Union, which Austria, Sweden and Finland joined in 1995. 9 years later, a very large number of new Member States at the East of the EU were welcomed: the Baltic states Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia; Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. 2 islands were joined at the same time: Cyprus and Malta.

In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined as well as Croatia in 2013. Which adds up to 28 Member States.

You may wonder: who's next? There's a few official candidates: Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Bosnia-Herzegovina has applied, but is not an official candidate, meaning the procedure was started to become part of the EU. Norway, Iceland and Switzerland are countries that do not want to be part of the EU. Read more about the candidates here.