HAVING MADE THE RIGHT DECISION not to join the euro, one would have thought that a feeling of schadenfreude would have been the right response to the unfolding calamity now besetting our European partners. After all, the whole venture was heralded within the corridors European power as the glue that will forever bond the continent’s various civilisations into a homogeneous whole. Much back slapping followed, and much inflating of egos occurred among those politicians chosen to oversee the whole undertaking.
In this country at the time, there was much Merlot drunk (more in sorrow than in celebration) among our Europhiles within parliament; who had either spoke or typed their support for the euro. They were all representative within the main parties who cursed the decision not to join. Their warnings of disaster for our economy went unheeded, and they sat back abiding their time until we would have to go cap in hand, as we once did in the early years when Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle refused us entry to the Common Market.
Such was their certainty that history would once more assert itself with the euros success, that many a Europhile’s political career became predicated upon that success. So all that was needed was for such people to wait until the nation called them forward to serve; at a time when the pound sterling was bound to take on the pallid aspect of the ancient groat.
Such people today are indeed silent, but not awaiting their chance of political preferment; but either hoping that their support will, over time be forgotten; or they will remain the servants of a European single currency come what may.
BUT MANY OF THOSE like myself, who believed that a single currency was not only undesirable, but unworkable (given the blue print concocted for its introduction), did not realise that our nation would be just as much a prisoner of its failings as those nations that drunk from the poisoned chalice.
Today, the idiocies of our so-called European partners have created and spread a contagion, not only throughout Europe, but throughout the Western world. In this country four of our major banks, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, have, between them, tied up more than £214 billion in the so-called PIIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain.
What this will mean for us, is that we will have to keep pouring billions of pounds, either directly through Europe, or indirectly via the International Monetary Fund (IMF), into keeping these countries within some level of solvency.
What should have happened of course, is that each of these countries should return to their own currencies. In the short term it would have meant further pain for all concerned. But in the long term, these nations would recover. They should not have been given the opportunity to become part of a European single currency in the first place. If I were a Europhile, I would have fought for a two speed Europe: which was something that, at the time, was airily dismissed…for it had to be all or nothing.
Now, rather than feeling a sense of schadenfreude; because of our own bank’s exposure to the failing economies of Europe, those of us who stood fast against the whole idea of a single currency, are in a better frame of mind than the Europhiles who truly believed.
But we now have to face the possibility of one or more of the PIIGS defaulting on their debts. According to Jason Karian, of the Economic Intelligence Unit[1]: ‘It was not politically palatable for the tests to consider an inevitable Greek default
‘After so much dithering to date, there is no elegant solution to the euro area’s debt crisis. The pressure brought to bear by the markets next week should sharpen the minds of policy-makers. Harsh medicine is needed. The sooner that officials swallow hard and take decisive, painful measures to draw a line under the crisis, the quicker that Europe’s sickly financial system can begin to nurse itself back to health.’
Harsh medicine indeed! The whole European project was born from the tragedy of the Second World War, when a United States of Europe was first concocted as an antidote to Europe’s volatile past. Such an arrangement however, required a great deal of deception and duplicity from its enthusiasts if it were to see the light of day.
As its enthusiasts were no architects; and as they were driven more by idealism than practicalities, they pursued their dream without any workable intellectual blue print. If they had, then a two speed euro would have saved them today’s devastation.
I AM STILL ANGRY; because, having made the right decision regarding a single currency, this nation still has to cough up billions because of our banks involvement in the PIIGS. Our banks are still holding, not only the nation, but also the politicians to ransom. Despite making the intellectually correct decision regarding the introduction of the euro, we are still in thrall to the whole European project.
I hope that the euro fails; I hope that the PIIGS’ nations can go back to their own currencies; I hope that, if this happens, the whole concept of European unification through political and economic union, will also fail.
Europe is better served by its age old allegiances between nation states. Part of the enthusiasm for a United State of Europe in the modern world, is based upon a European anti-Americanism, and the hope of tailoring an entity to compete with the USA.
Nationhood has been created over the centuries, involving the spilling of much blood wherever it has been attempted; and nationhood should remain the unit of identity for all peoples. Nationhood should not be sacrificed so easily when wars have been fought through the centuries to defend its existence involving the deaths of millions.
THE NATION STATE, for all nations within Europe, should continue and Europe’s people should remain suspect of their politicians wet dreams of a Europe that forfeits their national identity.
The single currency was an unrealistic and impracticable adventure that has finally met its nemeses…the free market. Its creation should serve as a warning to any kind of reliance upon an idealistic future – especially when it involves economics.
The European project, as it is currently perceived, had better die a graceful death than continue to incur the anger of its citizens. The people of Europe have been ill-served by every institution that the EU has managed to create. All over Europe the people have seen their own parliament reduced to nothing more than a rubber stamp for whatever the European union proclaims as law; and they wonder why they should continue to vote (in such circumstance) for their own parliament to exist at all.
Such is the state in which we find ourselves; a state which our politicians show little enthusiasm for changing, yet a state that still recommends itself to the European Union.
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