European membership, number 54: Europol

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EU membership, Europol, security in Europe

What is Europol? Well it’s like Interpol – Inspector Clouseau  and that sort of stuff.

Interpol was established in 1923 and covers 190 countries.

Europol is the European equivalent. OK lets get serious….

This is the introduction to the Europol website

Europol is the European Union’s law enforcement agency whose main goal is to help achieve a safer Europe for the benefit of all EU citizens. We do this by assisting the European Union’s Member States in their fight against serious international crime and terrorism.

Large–scale criminal and terrorist networks pose a significant threat to the internal security of the EU and to the safety and livelihood of its people. The biggest security threats come from terrorism, international drug trafficking and money laundering, organised fraud, counterfeiting of the euro currency, and people smuggling. But new dangers are also accumulating, in the form of cybercrime, trafficking in human beings, and other modern-day threats. This is a multi–billion euro business, quick to adapt to new opportunities and resilient in the face of traditional law enforcement measures.

Bob Wainwright, the director of the EU’s law enforcement agency said: “If you put at risk any part of the framework for international police cooperation and intelligence sharing, that Britain currently relies on, then there clearly is potential for consequences.

“I think there are some pretty serious security consequences actually.”

He added. “If we accept that the EU does provide an important part of our security … then the debate moves on to how do we mitigate that potential loss, so it becomes a damage limitation exercise.”

Also the former heads of MI5 and MI6 have warned that leaving the EU could undermine “our ability to protect ourselves” from terrorists.

Baron Evans of Weardale, the former director-general of MI5, and Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, say Brexit could also lead to “instability on the Continent”, compounding the current “economic difficulties, the migration crisis and a resurgent Russia”.

In an article for The Sunday Times, the former spy chiefs warn that a vote to leave could damage intelligence sharing because the EU would restrict surveillance powers if the UK were not in the union.

To see other posts about our EU membership ( there are obviously 54 others, this being number 55) click EU membership summary And if you think any of them particularly relevant then please feel free to reblog or share them.

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European membership, part 44; National Debt.

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EU membership, National Debt

Repaying the interest on our National debt could cost us at least twice as much as what we would save by leaving the EU.

This is something that has not been mentioned much….well not at the time of writing this which is 21/05/2016 publication will be in a few days time

As of Q1 2015 UK government debt amounted to £1.56 trillion, or 81.58% of totalGDP, at which time the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £43bn (which is roughly 3% of GDP or 8% of UK government tax income). Approximately a third of this debt is owned by the British government due to the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme, so approximately 1/3 of the cost of servicing the debt is paid by the government to itself, reducing the annual servicing cost to approx 30bn (approx 2% of GDP, approx 5% of UK government tax income).

The cost of servicing this debt is significant. In 2012 the debt amounted to a little over £15,000 for each individual Briton, or around £33,000 per person in employment. Each household in Britain payed an average of around £2,000 per year in taxes to finance the interest.

If we leave the EU and if as a result the value of the pound drops and interest rates increase, then this will affect our repayments.

Mark Carney said that in the event the UK left the EU, or looked as though it would leave, the interest rates we pay here in the UK – what he called in City jargon “the risk premium attached to UK assets – could rise.

OK lets get technical, info from a House of Commons briefing paper number 05745 issued on 21st April 2016 check it out.

It says that for 2015/16 we had a national debt of £1,594 billion and the interest  repayments amounted to £45.1 billion. This represents an interest rate of 2.83%

Now if interest rates go up as Mark Carney suggests then a 1% increase to 3.83% would result in repayments of £61.1 billion or an additional burden of £16.0 billion per year.

To put this in context in 2015 the UK government paid £13 billion to the EU budget, and EU spending on the UK was £4.5 billion. So the UK’s ‘net contribution’ was estimated at about £8.5 billion

Or by coming out of the EU we might end up paying twice as much as we would save in order to repay our National debt. Now that would either end up with us paying more tax or receiving increased cuts to services or a combination of both.

To see other posts about our EU membership ( there are obviously 51 others, this being number 52) click EU membership summary And if you think any of them particularly relevant then please feel free to reblog or share them.