EXCLUSIVE : Germany fails EU criteria for joining the Euro

EU may have ‘rules’, but they are continually broken

And post-Brexit, EU’s 3rd largest economy Italy is over twice the limit

In the EU’s latest official figures, the mighty power-house economy of the EU – Germany - is unable to satisfy the rules for joining the Euro.

eurozone_debt_gdp_criteria

A total of 14 countries fail the test, including the EU’s three largest economies after the departure of the UK : Germany, France and Italy, all of which are of course using the Euro as their currency.

What is this test?

Eurozone criteria

One of the key measures used by the EU Commission in determining elegibility for joining the Euro is the ratio of Government debt to GDP.

Here is how the EU describes this test:-

Sustainable public finances:
Government debt as % of GDP
Reference value: not more than 60%

[Source: EU Commission]

How the EU has rules but ignores them

Unfortunately half of the EU28 member states fail this test. Of the 19 member states currently using the Euro as their currency, well over half would be ineligible to use it if they applied now. 11 of the EU19 countries in the Eurozone are over the limit.

It is worth stating when looking at the chart above, that whilst Germany is only just over the limit, it is has exceeded the limit by far more over recent years. At the time of the EU Referendum in the UK, Germany’s debt to GDP ration stood at almost 70% - significantly over the 60% limit.

Observations

Brexit Facts4EU.Org has repeatedly pointed out to the British government over the past three years that the EU claims to be a “rules-based organisation” but that it continually breaks or ignores its own rules.

We have lost track of the number of times we have heard in Parliament – often from the PM’s own lips – that something or other can’t be done because the EU says so.

Most of the time, these ‘rules’ were simply invented. For example there is nothing in any Treaty which precluded the UK from negotiating trade agreements with other countries, provided it didn’t sign them until its date of departure.

There was nothing saying that we had to negotiate on three limited areas (the ‘financial settlement’, the N.I. border, and citixens rights), before discussing the overall relationship on leaving.

Even where the EU does have its supposed ‘rules’, these are broken all the time as we have demonstrated on numerous occasions. Readers only have to look at the disastrous state of the Schengen ‘no borders’ zone to see how the rule of free movement has not been working for years.

The sooner the UK frees itself from this dysfunctional and rapidly-failing bureaucratic mess, the better.

Under NO circumstances must the Government remotely consider extending Article 50, as the PM now seems intent on doing. She has said on more than 100 occasions that the UK will be leaving the EU on 29 March.

This is a promise to the British people that she simply must not break.

[Sources: EU Commission | Eurostat official statistics database]

22 Jan 2019

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Reader Comments 8

1. Greg, Leeds , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 08:45:

The EU should add a footnote to every page of their 'Rule-book', saying:
"These rules are to apply unless and until the EU Commission decides otherwise. These sudden changes can be applied at any time, to any member state or group of member states - even or especially in a discriminating manner - without any announcement from the EU."

2. J. Slater , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 10:35:

How I laughed, and laughed.
Facts4EU, you have made my day!

3. Steven , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 12:25:

I have no objection to Article 50 being extended PROVIDED we achieve a clean, FULL, worthwhile Brexit at the end of it. This utter shambles of a ‘government’ have wasted so much valuable time I fear the worst ie that MPs will pass that utter disgrace of a withdrawal agreement aka REMAIN WITH CHAINS just so they say Brexit has been delivered. A bad treaty remains a bad treaty regardless of what time limit there is for signing it within!

4. Not4EU, London , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 14:31:

Response to Steven, NO.
Tomorrow, it will be six years since Scameron made his announcement to Parliament to hold a referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017. After 40 years we could finally have our say. He effectively gave the EU over two and a half years to put together a deal to persuade us to stay before the referendum. As we all know, he didn't try at all & the EU offered even less. They failed. There's been over two and a half years since we voted to leave. Two simple and understandable options, leave or 'remain' (integrate) that seem to be beyond the intellectual capacities of many who are supposed to represent the people. The people understand what leave means. Only our EU quisling Parliament doesn't.
No more pushing the can down the road in attempts to reverse/delay it. There will be no 'deal' as the EU has repeatedly said that a deal (trade) cannot be made with a member. Only political integration & continued control by the EU is currently on offer in the dreadful WA. I'm deeply concerned to hear some MP's in the House seemingly softening to accept the 'deal' if the backstop is adjusted/removed, ignoring the rest of the unacceptable 'terms'. They will be equally unforgiveable as the treasonous EUlings that infest our institutions. This is the plan. To scare the non-thinking braindead pollies who are incapable of understanding the difference between a trade deal and a Treaty of submission and conflate the two, & to vote for May's WA as Nadine Dorries said "to get it over the line" instead of standing up and believing in their country which is what we want them to do. Controlled opposition? Don't they know that WTO on 29th March is the default that they voted for?
The only way was always to leave and then negotiate a trade deal, on a level playing field. France may be surrendering to Germany with the Aachen Treaty, but we will never accept our Parliament's surrender of our country to a foreign power.

5. Concerned Expat , Tuesday, January 22, 2019, 14:42:

Not4EU I am in complete agreement with you.
Anyone shouting and screaming for a second referendum is a fool, It would be the third one anyway, and so far we were lied to on the first and second. The people who voted leave, finally after 40-odd years of treachery got their say. You could tell on the faces of the establishment goons, that the people would be asked to vote again, as the answer they gave to leave was wrong!
Two and a half years later after all this procrastination and we still have not left. Think of all the deals and arrangements that could have been made in that time!!
The people voted leave, the politicians voted the other way to keep their pension pots and salaries on a roll and to hell with the country. That's all they care about. They are very short sighted to not be patriotic and do as the people and country demand. I am trying ever harder to be polite.

6. barbara Jell , Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 05:36:

Steven, it would be masochistic madness to extend Article 50! I am horrified that you are gullible enough to even suggest it. If our Remainer Prime Minister and the Government could not effect the clean break they were mandated to deliver in two and half long years, how why on earth would they be incentivised to deliver it at all if we extend time limits ad infinitum? Prolonging the agony of being subjugated indefinitely by a monstrous, Federalist Dictatorship would simply be playing into the hands of gleeful Remainers and the EU alike. We have to get out NOW and on WTO terms.

7. Ashley Great Britain , Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 07:35:

Hear hear,I second that!

8. Steven , Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 13:09:

Those of you who have made critical remarks about my comment should understand I DON’T want to see ARticle 50 extended but the reality is that huge amounts of time have been wasted by this deliberately incompetent ‘government’ and the danger is that as pressure of time is so short to come to an agreement that even people like Jacob Rees-Mogg will buckle under Remainiac Maybe’s pressure and give his vote to passing that hideous so-called Withdrawal Treaty which must NEVER be passed ie it ISN’T just that evil joke of a Irish backstop which is the problem but more like the vast majority of the document.
Maybe is deliberately running down the clock hoping that the Remain WITH CHAINS ‘withdrawal treaty’ is enacted. If this happens, we will become the EU’s first colony and HAVE TO ASK THEIR PERMISSION TO LEAVE needless to say that will NEVER come since they make a profit out of our membership.
At least, under our present EU membership, we have the ability to leave IF we had a government committed to that course of action which we don’t at the moment so let us BIN that so-called withdrawal treaty NOW in its ENTIRETY and leave at the end of March.

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