Angelique Chrisafis reports (22 June) Emmanuel Macron as saying that “the key to reconciling European people with the European project was to tighten rules on workers and make it harder for companies to employ cheaper labour from other EU countries or shift production to lower-wage countries, undercutting others”. Given that the new French president has identified the issue as one to resolve, why exactly is our government proposing to leave the EU and make us all poorer? There is an open goal for Labour here. Can they shoot straight?
Bob Nicholson
Frodsham, Cheshire
• Timothy Garton Ash (Opinion, 23 June) says “the rest of the EU … is making a credible stab at pulling itself together” based, it seems, on little more than the arrival of Emmanuel Macron on the political stage. Admittedly he looks good in a suit but it is surely better to base such judgments on his stated policies, which lead me to believe that he will crash and burn in two years like Hollande before him and for the same reason: he is rowing against the political tide.
But while Hollande was rowing against the austerity tide, seeking to reflate France’s economy (thereby seeing off the Front National) before being put back in the eurozone box by Angela Merkel, Macron is rowing against the anti-austerity tide, seeking to lay off thousands of public sector workers (which we all know is what “reform” means in practice) without first smashing the trade unions (Margaret Thatcher would have put him right there).
The EU’s problems will only be resolved when the deficit criteria of the eurozone nations are relaxed sufficiently to allow the individual nations to grow their economies, which means – given that there is as yet no German Jeremy Corbyn in sight that – someone has to change Merkel’s mind. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Macron.
Ian Mackillop
Ilminster, Somerset
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