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Britain will rejoin the EU within 15 years, former Brussels chief predicts
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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Pretty sure the EU won't let the UK rejoin with the same privileges next time
Ashamed to ask as an EU citizen, but did UK have some kind of special founding member privileges or something before? Didn't think we had that in the EU, only the vote by population size stuff.
We do, and Ireland, Denmark and Poland have gotten opt-outs, too (link). The United Kingdom, however, was so extreme about it, that Wikipedia dedicated an entire article just to their opt-outs.
The UK was no founding member of the EU by choice, if I remember correctly. And later on, they only joined due to the financial prospects, not the underlying idea(ls). They always acted as though they were special when they were part of the union (see aforementioned opt-outs) and completely lost it during the Brexit negotiations, when they acted as though they had some sort of leverage over the entire EU. I quite like CGP Grey's video on the topic: youtube.com
In my opinion, the French were right when they didn't want the British to join the union; most of their initial reservations did come true, after all. So, if the UK rejoined the common market without joining the EU, like Norway, for example, that would be fine by me. But no more.
As long as the British do not change their overall stance to the EU much more (and come to terms with their non-specialness), anyway.