ferryann

I just wondered what people thought. I think it would be brilliant for travel and trade purposes. Can anyone tell me what they think the disadvantages would be for the UK? I have heard people feel prices are higher after they have got the Euro but surely it must be in proportion as wages would also be paid in the new currency?

Cholmondley_Warner

There's very little support for the Euro in Britain - and I can't see that changing anytime soon (we don't much like johnny foreigner you see, let alone trust the shifty cove).

It would be political suicide for whoever proposed it.

Christina

Price aren't higher just because it is a different currency, nor are costs. Some people said that because stores raised their prices during the switch to the euro, not because a euro makes it cost more. So wages being paid in euro doesn't make any difference in terms of the phenomenon (if it is true, I don't know -- I have heard some people complain places raised prices due to that, but I don't know).

stfc

Not in my lifetime. I remember the UK falling out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in the early 90s. What's the difference between that system and the euro?

And don't underestimate the symbolism of the 20 miles of water that separates us from the continent.

OK, it's convenient for tourists.

tom_h

The disadvantage is that a sovereign nation gives up control of its monetary policy, to a bunch of unelected and unaccountable EU career beauracrats in Brussels.

hetismij

At the moment there are real bargains to be had in the UK for us Eurozoners, so I am happy for them to stay with sterling for a while.

It would make life easier for me when visiting family and mean that we don't have to pay to transfer money there but I can't see it happening for a long time, if at all.

keefatniffy

NO,
and while we're on the euro subject lets get out of the EC totally.

flanneruk

"The disadvantage is that a sovereign nation gives up control of its monetary policy, to a bunch of unelected and unaccountable EU career beauracrats in Brussels."

Would that that were true. The REAL disadvantage is that we give up control to an automatic machine that's constitutionally bound to make all decisions as if inflation were the only thing to worry about.

To coin a cliche: if joining the euro's the answer, you're asking the wrong question.

And if ever there were a really, really rotten time for us to join (or for them to have us come in) it's right now.

hetismij

Oops hit the wrong button!
Prices did rise here with the Euro changeover, partly due to the guilder being undervalued at the time of changeover, and partly because it was easier for those concerned to either change the Fl for € one on one or take 2FL=€1 instead of 2.2Fl.
Prices in the UK at the moment are cheap compared to here - certainly for the things I am interested in such as camera lenses - some are over 100pounds more expensive here than in the UK!

logos999

Compared to the purchasing power of the €, the pound is ridiculously overvalued. (I'm not referring to electronics here).

However this will end soon, after the first collapse, the pound should be about 50 eurocent. You'll notice when it happens.

PalenQ

Mute point

UK don't meet, no doubt now, the standards required to join Euro Land - Poland may but not U.K.

So even if they wanted to they could not i would think. And Italy, Germany and France would not qualify today either - in fact probably only Switzerland would qualify and they don't want in either

Britain has always been insular and begrudingly part of Europe - Euro skepticism is IMO just a part of this knee-jerk British idea of we are British - not European. So to spite themselves they refuse to join, if they would be allowed in.

stfc

PQ, my 'moot' point is this: we would not have joined the EU as it is now known if we did not meet the requirements. We are already in and subject to what Brussels/Strasbourg tells us to do. It is the common currency that we have not taken up.

The vision of the EU was sold after WW2 as a way of avoiding another European war, by breaking down trade barriers - and was known as the 'Common Market', then the EEC, European Economic Community. What has become obvious is that there was a hidden agenda and the EU has been turned into a behemoth that dominates Europe, issuing laws about all sorts of things from sausages to working hours that we embrace like puppies, and other countries, notably France, ignore when not convenient. There is a continuous babbling about a European Defence Force.

That is what the British find offensive and why most steer away from an open-armed welcome to everything EU. As I stated in an earlier post, we have the English Channel between us and them, and we have not been invaded for a thousand years. We are all cross-breeds but that doesn't mitigate against a British way of life, or an American way of life, come to that.

Why doesn't the US take up the euro for everyone's convenience? Quite.

Padraig

One important factor in the British reluctance to consider adopting the Euro is that Rupert Murdoch doesn't want it to happen.

xyz123

At the rate sterling is falling, it won't be long before a euro and a poound will be worth the same.

Today the euro is worth more than 86p...perhaps English bookmakers are taking wagers as to when the euro and pound will be at par (and can parity with teh USD be far behind?)

Cowboy1968

I think it will happen the same day they decide to drive on the right side of the road.

xyz123

What do you mean it will happen...parity with the euro or parity with the USD? (I know parity with the USD seems far fetched, and I would normally agree but wasn't the UK£ worth as much as $2.10 US just last summer...that's a drop of 29%...so what's another 29% among friends....

Josser

Mute *sic" point

Promises, promises ;-)

ferryann

The oposition to joining the Euro seems to come across as not wholly an economic one but is also based on fears of being taken over and losing sovreignty etc. Is that really the case though or are we being a little paranoid? How come so many other countries have joined and didn't seem to allow those fears to stop them? Even Eire joined and seem to be just getting along with it. I am totally in the middle on this one. I like the idea of it in one sense but of course am worried that I am not seeing all sides.

PalenQ

It is the common currency that we have not taken up.>

sorry i thought being in the EU was one thing and being in Euro Zone was another - that to be Euro eligible you had to meet certain fiscal requirements - i did not know being in the EU automatically let you into the Euro upon request. Sorry.

Christina

It doesn't, the EU and Eurozone are two different things, I think maybe there is a miscommunication or maybe you all mean the same thing. Just being in the EU does not entitle one to use the euro. That is why it is not used in Poland and Czech Republic yet, for example, even though I think they both joined the EU in 2004. \They haven't rejected it like the UK, Denmark and Sweden. that's a different thing. Inflation rates are part of the criteria to use it, I don't know all factors.