The moment the EU economy plunged over a cliff-edge.
Friday 31 January 2020 began like every other Friday. People all over the world got up from their night’s sleep, breakfasted went to work, went to school, did what they did every Friday, baby’s were born and people came to the end of their life cycle. It was just a normal day in the life of humans on the planet. Earth.
None more so than on the Continent of Europe, by the time the day had ended though 500 million European lives would have changed forever. At the stroke of 11 pm, British time and midnight European time 435 million people saw their economy suddenly saw their share of the World economy plummet in an instant. The EU economy which they all own plunged over a cliff-edge.
How did this happen?
When the UK left the EU on Friday 31 Jan 2019 at 11 pm, a significant shift took place in the World’s economic tectonic plates.
Unmentioned in the mainstream media — and unmentionable in Brussels — the economy of the European Union dropped dramatically on Friday.
The EU now has that sinking feeling. A little like the Titanic slipping to its final resting place.
- At 11.00 pm GMT on Friday 31 Jan 2020 the EU became a smaller economic player in the World
2. Trade deals with the EU are now less attractive for other countries
3. As a result of Brexit, the EU will be just 17.7% of the global economy this year, according to the latest IMF figures.
Meanwhile, the UK has that growing feeling — it’s positive for Brexit Britain
As I reported last month, the strongly Europhile and anti-Brexit IMF (International Monetary Fund) has updated its growth forecasts for last year and the next two years.
Brexit Britain is now forecast to grow faster than the Eurozone, faster than Germany, and faster than France. The IMF now predicts that the only two G7 advanced economies to outpace Britain will be the United States and Canada.
It is getting worse for the EU on the World stage
Following the EU Referendum in the UK in 2016, the EU suddenly became sensitive to the criticism about its pitiful performance in striking international trade deals. I have written about the pitifull small trade deals they have in the past and what they are and what they mean. For an organisation like EU they what I can only describe as lamentable. This is an area of “exclusive competence” for the EU Commission, which means that member states are unable to do their own trade deals.
Despite having an extremist-Europhile US President in Barack Obama, the EU was unable to conclude a deal with the largest economy in the World before he left office. To this day the EU still has no trade deal with the USA, nor any sign that this is likely any time soon. where’s the USA? Where are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia? (All members of the G20? You can read it here.
Since this was written the EU added two more countrys to their list first Mongolia.
https://medium.com/@graham100200/mongolia-one-of-eus-36-trade-deals-c9580e5af449
And then Singapore a year later
At 11 pm on Friday 31 Jan 2020, the EU suddenly became a much smaller place.
In an instant, the EU lost
- Its second-largest economy
2. It’s second-largest national population
3. One of its two nuclear and military powers
4. One of its two permanent members of the UN Security Council
5. Its only member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group
In the article above I have focused on the impact of Brexit on the economic size of the EU, showing how the EU fell over its own particular “cliff-edge” on Friday night.
It had to be done, I did this because no-one else had done it not the BBC, not Sky, not ITV. No doubt I will be told “Well this was obvious” by Remainers and by some Brexiteers.
Economics is only a small part of the story of Brexit. Still, the Remainer side mostly focused on economics for the past four years, so they might wish to reflect now.
The real story of Brexit, of course, was always about sovereignty and democracy.
[ Sources: IMF World Economic Outlook ]
