Talking
of poor diplomacy . . . According to an ECB review, the per capita
net wealth of Germans is lower than that of their EU counterparts in
Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. Der
Spiegel welcomed this
news with the headline “The lie of
poverty. How crisis-stricken European countries are hiding fortunes”.
The accompanying cartoon showed a southern European riding a donkey
with panniers overloaded with euro notes. I guess stuff like
this contributes to the view that “A German EU is triumphing
economically but failing politically”.
As
I've said a few times, the Spanish are the best apologisers on the
planet and usually look as if they mean their florid forgive-me's.
Maybe this comes simply from practice, after a lifetime of
apologising to people who've been upset by your acts of selfishness
or thoughtlessness. But, anyway, I believe I've detected the one
transgression for which no one apologises. Indeed, the opposite can
happen, when the transgressor becomes verbally aggressive. This is
when someone takes someone else to task for blocking their passage by
chatting to a friend. And this can be whether the conversation is
taking place in an entrance, on the pavement or in the middle of a
road. If the aggrieved party should show any impatience, he or she is
likely to be met with a verbal insult and a contemptuous wave of the
arm. To show that he or she is breaking a fundamental rule of Spanish
life – Talking is paramount.
Wednesday
was a bank holiday here. But yesterday wasn't and neither was today.
Nonetheless, my perception was that the town and the roads were
busier than usual and my suspicion is that many people were indulging
in another Spanish custom, that of making a 'bridge' between the real
holiday (Wednesday) and the weekend. I do hope no Germans were
watching this flagrant holiday-making and seeing it as evidence of
Spanish laziness.
While
typing this post, I took this call:-
Hello.
Is that José Luis?
No.
Is
it José Fernandez?
No.
Who
are you?
More
to the point, who are you?
Someone
called me from this number.
No
they didn't
I'm
trying to contact José Luis or José Fernandez. Are you José Luis
or José Fernandez?
No,
I'm not.
Perhaps
I mis-dialled the number. Is this your number xxxxxxxx?
Yes,
it is.
But
you're not José Luis or José Fernandez?
[Laughing]
No!
OK.
Sorry.
I
listened to a discussion today between three people of different
faiths. The subject was a 'just war'. They all agreed in general that
there could be a just war but they differed in their views on a
particular war. For God it seems - in his capacity as the Cosmic
Joker - had given each of their faiths different criteria. Which must make sense to someone, if only Him.
Finally
. . .
According to Joschka Fischer, former Foreign Minister and Vice
Chancellor of Germany:- “This
crisis threatens to destroy the EU and the only way to save it is to
apply solidarity to the debt and, in general, to cede more
sovereignty. It's not known whether France or Germany are disposed to
do this”.
Here's
a Google translation of the rest of his article. You may or may not
like his prescription of a fiscal and banking union as the solution
but I think we can all agree with him on the size and nature of the
problem:-
A
few weeks ago it seemed that the worst of the European financial
crisis was behind them and that was approaching a return to
stability. But appearances deceive. A problem that (at least in
relative terms) could have been lower, that of Cyprus, was combined
with an almost incredible degree of incompetence on the part of the
troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and
International Monetary Fund) and became a major crisis.
Although
markets remained calm, the Cyprus crisis laid bare the full extent of
the political disaster caused by the eurozone crisis: European Union
is disintegrating from the core. Today, Europeans face a crisis of
confidence in Europe that can not be resolved with further injection
of liquidity by the ECB and therefore is much more dangerous than a
relapse of the markets.
Europe
had in the past a political order based on competition, distrust,
conflict of powers and, ultimately, the war between sovereign states.
That order collapsed on May 8, 1945 and in its place came another
system based on mutual trust, solidarity, the rule of law and the
pursuit of negotiated solutions. But now that the crisis is
undermining the foundations of this order, the trust becomes
distrust, solidarity succumbs to old prejudices (and even before new
hatreds between southern poor and northern rich) and give way to a
negotiated external imposition. And once again Germany plays a key
role in this process of disintegration.
Sooner
or later one of the great crisis reject the austerity imposed from
outside
This
is because to resolve the eurozone crisis Germany (which is by far
the strongest economy in the EU) imposed the same strategy that
worked for her in the early millennium, but internal and external
economic conditions are totally different. For southern European
countries hit by the crisis the formula defended by Germany, with its
mix of austerity and structural reforms, is proving deadly because
they lack two key components: debt forgiveness and growth.
Sooner
or later, one of the major European countries in crisis political
leaders will choose not to accept any longer the austerity measures
imposed from outside. Even now, at election time, national
governments more or less openly promise to protect their citizens
from Europe because Germany has ensured that the main ingredients of
the recipe for resolving the crisis are: austerity and structural
reforms.
The
effects of the thesis that southern Europe had to be treated with
"severity" for their own good (because, otherwise,
everything would remain the same) are obvious. So severe was the
treatment that it caused a rapid downturn, massive unemployment
(above 50% among young people) and a continued deterioration in the
fiscal situation by increasing the cost of debt interest. In fact, at
this time all eurozone countries were experiencing insufficient
economic growth or outright recession.
What
does Germany want? We cannot demand that all of Europe conforms to
Germany and the German political class lacks the courage and
determination to try to conform Germany to Europe. The question is:
Does Germany want to keep the monetary union and, with it, the
European Union, or leave things so that doubt and a lack of vision
accelerate erosion of the foundations of Europe?
In
this crisis, decisions surrendered to actions (or lack thereof).
Recently, “The International Herald Tribune” quoted the words of
Winston Churchill: "It is not enough to do our best, sometimes
you have to do what is necessary." That is precisely what we
need to do in Europe and the eurozone.
It
has long been known what is necessary. The price for the survival of
the monetary union and the European project is to expand the
communitarian sphere via the creation of a banking union, a fiscal
union and a political union. Those who oppose these changes because
they fear shared responsibility, the transfer of resources from the
rich to the poor and the loss of national sovereignty will have to
accept the renationalisation of Europe and with it, the loss of
international prominence. There is no alternative (and, indeed, the
status quo will serve for nothing either).
In
Europe everyone knows that the current crisis with either destroy the
European Union or produce a political union and that the only way to
save the euro includes solidarity over debts already incurred and a
future partial debt mutualisation. These measures necessarily involve
large transfers of sovereignty. Is Germany ready for it (or, for that
matter, France)?
National
politicians are responsible, in part, for failures that are
attributed to Brussels.
The
real crisis of the EU and monetary union is not of a financial but a
political nature; more precisely, it is a leadership crisis. All
European capitals suffer from a notorious lack of vision, courage and
firmness of purpose, but this applies especially to Berlin (and both
the government and the opposition).
European
National politicians never cease to criticize the EU for its lack of
political legitimacy; but they are partly responsible for the object
of their accusations. Or is that the pro-europeans are now so cowed
and discouraged that they prefer to relinquish command to populist
and nationalist anti-Europeans? If so, it will be a disaster, because
the crisis is too deep to admit of a technocratic solution.
Germany
is preparing for a national election in which (more or less as
happened in France during the presidential elections last year) the
European crisis does not figure, or at most it has a secondary role.
Both the government and the opposition believe that it is best to
wait until the day after the election to tell people the truth about
the most important question (and then only in dribs and drabs).
Getting
to that extreme would make democracy a farce. But maybe things will
turn out very differently: it may be that the dynamics of the
European crisis derail the plans of German politicians. There may
still be some unpleasant surprise and, from where we are, maybe
that's the main hope for Europe.
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