Private Companies in Iceland rush to use Euro: What's that British Euroscpetics say about the EU as USSR II? How disgusting is that anyway.

A story in today's Financial Times refers to companies in Iceland that are rushing to adopt the Euro as an internal accounting device. The central bank there is putting on the brakes to avoid an unthoughtout lurch into a dual currency economy. Icelandic companies do so much business in the Eurozone that internal accounting is more conveniently conducted in Euros than krona.

So much for the claim of many prominent Eurosceptics that the European Union is like the old USSR. I don't recall companies in Iceland, or any other nation, rushing to adopt the old rouble as an accounting currency. According to other reports, there is now a greater volume of Euros held in the world than US dollars. The Euro is the official currency of a greater population than the population of the United States, the total economic output of the Eurozone is greater than the United States, though the average income is somewhat less. What is happening in Iceland confirms that the development of the European Union, including the instrument of the EuroEuro is not the USSR II.

Exactly how can anyone make such grotesque comparisons. How many people are political prisoners in the EU? Where is the Euro-Gulag? Which newspapers have been closed by the Commission? The EU needs many reforms, but how can a commentator of sound mind and mature years compare the political union of an increasing number of European democracies with Soviet totalitarianism? Criticism of the EU is fine, like any institution it needs to be held up to continuous harsh criticism, but the Britsh Eurosceptics are not harshly criticising, they are letting European leaders of the hook with their ravings. If they stuck to promoting the free market policies they claim to put at the centre of their political beliefs, they could make a difference in pushing the EU in that direction. But why engage when you can live in a fantasy bubble land of British nationalism in which all problems come from outside targeting immigrants and Eurocrats. These people usually like to wrap themselves in the garments of Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism. Funny how 'Libertarianism' and 'Classical Liberalism' turn out to mean social conservatism and nationalism. I just cannot remember the relevant passages in Locke and Smith, Tocqueville and Mill, Paine and Kant. Maybe that's because they do not exist.