[SystemSafety] Off Topic

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

I would like to thank contributors for their consideration, restraint and thoughtfulness in
addressing this topic. A very different atmosphere from the UK public debate.

I was thinking that almost anything which could be said has been said somewhere. But it occurs to me
that the perspective from Europe hasn't really been given except superficially, and it might
interest some people to see one. I think it might be interesting above and beyond the events of today.

I originally replied to Kevin privately.

On 2016-06-23 11:00 , Andreoli, Kevin (UK) wrote:
> If we vote to leave, the only serious weakening of the EU will be in the EU budget.

That is not what anyone else in the EU thinks. Hollande and Merkel have both said (at the same time)
that the UK leaving would seriously damage the EU. I am sure Merkel means it. More particularly, all
are worried that a UK withdrawal will lead to an EU collapse, and that would be a disaster for
hundreds of millions of people.

Half of the front page of our local newspaper today was filled with small portraits of people asked
on the street should Britain be in or out of the EU and why, and their one-sentence answers. (Could
you imagine the Daily Mail doing something like that about, say, Pegida or AfD?) Nobody is saying
"let them go, who cares?" Most of them are saying how we (Europeans) need the UK.

Here are four specific points concerning which Germans want the UK to stay, to maintain the strength
of the EU.

1.

Here in North Germany the British have been present and more than welcome for 70 years. More than
welcome, in particular in comparison with an hour's train ride east of here, where it was Russians.
There are people still alive in Bielefeld who are here through having escaped the Russian advance.
The Russians were brutal to civilians, especially women and girls. Who then refused to talk about
it. They are only now beginning to open up, at the end of their lives and with the encouragement of
historians who are trying to document it. You wouldn't believe the gratitude that is still manifest
for the British security guarantee and the Marshall Plan. You will believe it when you read the
histories that are now being written.

The British troop pull-out has also sunk the economy of various small towns around here. There was a
large manoeuvring area just south of here, in the sandy plain called the Senne, which is a rather
special biotope. People are now scrambling to ensure that the biotope is preserved (military
exercise areas are wonderful for nature).

Britain and France are the current and future guarantors of European security. That's how most
Germans see it.

2.

Kevin said earlier
> The EU keeps adding more and more countries from the eastern bloc which is perceived as only
> adding to our problems as they offer no economic benefit.

The UK was a strong supporter of that expansion. I dispute that they "offer no economic benefit".
They offer significant economic benefit to their own citizens through their membership in the EU, as
they will all tell you. The Poles are beyond the moon as to what it has offered them. Poland has a
long history of being overrun (from all directions except north, where there is a sea) and Poles are
very glad that that has come to a clear end. (Germany has its Polish workers too. The home-care
sector is almost completely dependent on them. They do three months of 24/7 care, then go home for
three months. Like submariners. I have no idea how they discipline themselves to do it, but they do.
It's not just physical, it's emotionally taxing. The carers develop obvious bonds with their clients
- who then at some point die. Their work and their care is hugely helpful to that part of society.)

Security is twofold. Economic security is necessary for physical security. But obviously not
sufficient. EU membership as well as NATO membership does offer some kind of guarantee to, say,
Estonia and Latvia that Russia won't try to pull a Crimea on them.

There is another type of security, namely against organised crime. Bielefeld is on a motorway from
Rotterdam to Moscow via Berlin and Warsaw. My shirt maker is in the middle of town, in a pedestrian
zone with people living in apartments above the shop. He was completely cleaned out in November;
nobody heard a thing, and they must have done it in about an hour. Shirts, you say? Sure, the brand
costs twice as much in Moscow as it does here. It was easily a six-figure value. It happens a lot.
The only way to control it is through extensive police cooperation. After all, it takes them hours
to drive east. Big data, checking number plates. The Brits know how to do it; the Germans need it.
To my mind, the cooperation amongst police forces and civil security is a big win. Most of it is
structurally supported through the EU, and that structural support goes if the UK leaves.

3.

Don't forget, also, that neither the Germans nor the French want to be left alone with each other,
and nobody else in the EU wants to deal with the equivalent of their co-chairmanship. That is not
because of nasty politics, although there has been plenty of that over the centuries (Germany
invaded France three times in 60 years just before I was born). That is because of sincere cultural
differences in internal politics. The Brits aren't the only people who have to contend with it -
everyone does. That is why Europe has been continually at war until 1945 and then at cold-war
(though not so cold if you lived on the border and were killed as you tried to cross) until 1989.

And, not to mince words, the EU has managed, in my view remarkably, over the last forty years to
turn itself into the guarantor that that won't happen again (a point which Dick made). Please don't
underestimate that. Mutual economic dependence of many countries is *the* way to stop things going
pear-shaped. Helmut Kohl said it most clearly, and took the biggest risk on it, despite Margaret
Thatcher's concerns. (Some of those concerns, BTW, have turned out to be justified. The German
control of the Greek fiscal crisis, for example, coupled with the belated recognition that Germans
have a distinctive approach to economics which is not widely shared amongst other nations - and not
by me either.)

It's that kind of clarity of vision which Angela Merkel exercised to help solve the Syrian refugee
problem. That's not Germany alone; even though everyone was squabbling there was an enormous amount
of coordination involved. It's a European solution, with Germany just providing the housing. We've
got a few families in my village. I can see their house as I write. Others are next door, in the
village museum. I see the kids walking to school each morning with their colorful
typical-German-schoolkid backpacks on. They all wave and smile, except for the one kid glued to his
iPhone screen. Of course they do. Two months ago, they were being bombed out of their houses. This
is the kind of thing Jo Cox gave her life for. I'm proud we're doing it. Without the EU, nothing
like this would have happened. A critical part of it is the role played by the British Navy. It is a
fantastically complex political and logistical problem in which British participation is crucial.

4.

That all said, the EU unquestionably needs reform.

Everybody is fed up with big multinationals playing around with tax laws (in computer science it's a
well-known algorithm called "divide and conquer". In tax law it was called "Double Irish with a
Dutch Sandwich"). Everybody, that is, except the small country that most encouraged it and benefited
at the expense of everyone else. And the man responsible for all that was then appointed, not
elected, president of the Commission. It's not just Cameron's head which exploded. Mine did too.

How on earth are we going to reform tax laws so that this kind of thing can't happen? Only by doing
it all together, whatever that entails. Isn't that obvious?

Who is leading that effort? The UK. How is that effort going to continue if the UK steps out? There
is only one little country hoping it'll stop. Everyone else, including Germany, wants it to continue
until it's done and sorted.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
MoreInCommon
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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