EU LEADERS ARE MEETING IN Brussels to discuss the euro crises. No doubt further time will be bought at an ever lavish price (paid of course by the German taxpayer), until another crises looms in a few weeks or months time.
Despite the single currencies obvious failings; failings that have been there since the theoretical stage of its development; the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso still remains boastfully optimistic about finding a solution, “I'm sure [he opines] we'll find a solution.
"A good solution for Greece and for all the Euro area members."
If this is true, and they have such a “solution”, then why was it not tried much earlier - long before €93 billion were handed over to Greece?
What the euro zone needs is a Gorbachov figure instead of Barroso. In fact someone…anyone, who is prepared to spell it out to those assembled in Brussels.
Just as a one size of suit will not fit all sizes of human, then the euro could never find success in an economic community whose nations were so far apart economically; and where there was no political union in place.
Over the weekend, a comparison between the dire financial straits of California on America’s West Coast with that of Greece in southern Europe was made on the BBC: and the point was being made that California would not be allowed to default at any time because it is a state within a broader union. In other words a political union whose centre is Washington.
But in Europe a political union was never set in motion – probably because of its unpopularity with many of the north European countries: and this being the case, monetary union went ahead anyway despite countless warnings from Eurosceptics who today feel vindicated.
THE TROUBLE WITH Europe is that they have an emotional attachment to what they like to boast of as, solidarity. What this means, is that any form of empirical evidence that display any kind of opposition to the progress of the European ideal will not find sanction within the corridors of Brussels, or any other European institution.
So when the ideal of a single currency was eventually introduced; even before full political union and on an indiscriminate basis; then the train would have sooner or later had to hit the buffers; and there would be tears a plenty. Which brings us to today’s events in Brussels.
Perhaps the two statesman who have the future of the euro in their hands are President Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkle of Germany.
Bailing out, what many Germans see as an indolent Greece, while they themselves work their socks off to create the wealth that is supposed to help enhance the lives of their present and future generations, is deeply unpopular and Ms Merkle knows this; plus, with elections due in Germany, she is no hurry to continue to spend her people’s hard earned taxes so freely, as has been done in the past to keep solvent a country that, had hard-headed common sense prevailed at the time, would have been put in the second tier of a two stage single currency.
Germany does not need Europe and her people know this. Germany has, since the end of the Second World War, flourished. Her people have been industrious and successful in helping their country to become and remain, within the top three of the world’s league of economic success.
As far as Germany is concerned, the current arrangements are detrimental to the nation’s continued success. Of course at the same time, Germany will have achieved more through her people’s industriousness, than what the country failed to do militarily between 1939-45.
This is not an anti-German point I am making. I admire modern Germany and its people. I just believe she could have bettered the continent by remaining a trading partner. Her people would have benefited, and what is a national government for if not to promote all advantage to its citizens.
The German people, perhaps more so than any other European peoples, believed in the European Union because of their country’s 20th century history. But guilt is no substitute for the hard headedness required to keep your nation’s people prosperous.
As far as Germany is concerned, in embracing the EU, she has fallen foul of the same romanticism that attracted her to Nazism: and yes, the EU is indeed incomparable to Nazism. My point being, is that idealism comes in many forms, and the European Union is just another variant of the many failings of what is a noble sentiment.
FRANCE IS THE OTHER PILLAR of what she hope will eventually become a United States of Europe. While the German people seek only partnership with the rest of Europe, both her own as well as France’s political leadership are far more ambitious.
In France’s case, her leadership’s ambition is to put the whole continent on the same basis as the United States of America - as another superpower; with France hopefully manning the ships compass and directing (in particular) foreign policy.
If solidarity means anything to a people, then it is to the French that it carries the most weight. For France, above all other European nations, has spent more time bathed in the waters of political idealism. She, for instance, remains proud of being at the centre of 18th century Enlightenment.
She administered the guillotine to the ancient regime of monarchy and made France a republic. She gave birth to a leader who also had European ambitions for France - an imperial France, after he elected himself emperor. Napoleon threatened Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries as Hitler did in the 20th century.
Both Germany and France are now at the helm of the good ship European Union and are determined to make the single currency work, whatever it takes.
WHATEVER IS AGREED TODAY in Brussels you can bet one thing. Any decision will not encompass the withdrawal from the first tier of euro currency membership, of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
The European leaders are on a trajectory that will cause great harm, not only to Europe but to the West as well as other world economies. Faith is one thing, it replenishes the soul during adversity. But blind faith in a political project that, through the recalcitrance of its believers continues on a fateful path to ruin, is beyond all comprehension.
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