http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7759082.stm Just say the UK joined the Euro... Does anyone have a clue at what exchange rate this might occur?
the pound is in trouble and it's gonna get worse as brown buys next election with his kids money , but joining the euro ,cold day in hell that one, ( not that i'm against it , just won't happen)
Here's the link again http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7759082.stm I got it to work -the story is on the bbc website anyway. I don't know how likely this is to happen, but with a chancer like Crash Gordon at the helm -I wouldn't put it past him. He is already Britain's worst ever chancellor and well on his way to becoming Britain's worst ever PM. Anyway, back to the question -If it did happen, and I know that's a big IF -how would they work out the rate at which sterling would join the Euro?
Strange times as eurozone woos UK By Ben Shore Europe business reporter, BBC News, Brussels So the president of the EU commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has said Britain is "closer than ever before" to joining the euro. Well, up to a point. As chancellor, Gordon Brown killed off the idea of getting rid of the pound in 2003 by saying the UK was "not yet ready for membership". Since that decision, the issue has died in political debate. But clearly we are living in strange economic times - and there are many who believe Britain's membership of the euro is the logical conclusion of the European single market. For Mr Barroso in particular, the prospect of the fifth-largest economy on the planet suddenly using the same currency as almost all of continental Europe is a tantalising prospect, because it would be a huge boost to the prestige of the EU as a whole. And euro supporters can make a cogent case. In news conference after news conference, Mr Barroso and the commissioner responsible for economic affairs, Joaquin Almunia, trot out the same line: "The euro protects." I don't think I have heard Mr Almunia speak without that phrase popping up at some point and it is aimed fairly and squarely in the direction of London, because pressure is building on the pound. Next year, total government borrowing will be a whopping 8% of GDP and total government debt by 2014 will reach 57.4% of GDP. Those are the government's own figures - do the maths differently and the liabilities are even greater. Can the pound survive such high levels of debt? Some European voices venture to suggest not. Imposing discipline But it's not simply about borrowing. Entry into the euro would mean Britain being obliged to follow exactly the same rules as everyone else. Under the current debt-ridden circumstances, the commission would already have initiated a so-called "excessive deficit procedure", demanding that the UK gets its borrowing under control. Some believe this budgetary discipline would help the UK, but one suspects Mr Brown and Mr Darling are not kindly disposed to getting letters through the post telling them exactly how much money they can borrow and when. Which leads us to the central point about Mr Barroso's comments. The European Commission might be able to overlook Britain's current economic woes in order to snare the prize of British membership, but a domestic constituency for joining the euro does not appear to exist. The prime minister saw off the possibility as chancellor, most of the mass-market press hate the idea and public opinion polls have always shown a majority against joining. Mr Barroso knows all this, so why exactly is the UK closer now than ever to euro entry? Well, perhaps he is betting on 2009 being a very bad year indeed. The public have heard all about the financial crisis, homeowners have seen values dropping and big retailers are going to the wall. But it's only December and the government's own forecasts show next year will be worse than 2008. A serious devaluation of the pound might just focus British minds more closely on to the positives of the euro. But that seems like a long way off for now.
Parity is the rumour. A referendum is meant to be held which the saviour of the world/dear leader would lose. We were meant to have a referendum on the European constitution as well though.