On
2-3 December the Sapienza University of Rome organised a Conference on “Present
and Future of the EU and EMU”, in honour of Francesco Forte. Speakers at the
conference illustrated Forte’s scientific and professional merits. This post
discusses Forte’s statement that “I governanti europei sono
cretini”, arguing that this is only part
of the problem: those who govern Europe have a different agenda, and European
institutions and policies can be likened to seismic faults, with an earthquake
probability gradually approaching near certainty over time. Forte also is on
record stating that “nothing is irreversible in economics”, facts prevail on
rules written on paper – an important lesson for those who are reconsidering
the terms of EU Treaties.
Introduction. Brexit
is widely viewed as a tendency towards EU disintegration, with the risk of
contagion spreading to its weaker member states. In truth the crisis is much
more serious: the EU has many fault lines, institutions and policies sliding
over one another and colliding like tectonic plates. There are also external
pressures similar to continental drift. With the passing of time the
probability of a catastrophic institutional earthquake approximates near
certainty.
Crisis management is not a way to, and does not promote
greater integration. At best it is ineffective, causing delays and inertia in
multiple crises; at worst it is used as a political tool to justify “mission
creep” and to avoid democratic monitoring of EU élites political,
non-transparent agendas and behaviour.
Fault Lines. There
are a dozen fault lines in the EU:
1 Brexit. Cameron
promised a Referendum to defuse UKIP challenge, hoping to replicate the success
of the referendum on Scottish independence, in destroying the Scottish Labour
Party while denying independence from the UK. He destroyed UK Labour, alright,
but in the whole of the UK a 52% majority on a large turnout secured
independence, i.e. to LEAVE the EU; he had to resign. His successor Theresa May
confirms “Brexit means Brexit”.
Brexit will be punitive: migrations control and EU
migrants’ lower access to welfare provisions, no ECJ jurisdiction, and the
rest, mean reduced UK access to the single market, in spite of significant
mutual losses, in order to discourage other exits or a’ la carte membership.
2 Trade policy. There
is a clear democratic deficit: either representatives
of 3.5mn Wallonians can block a Treaty affecting 545mn; or after 7 years
of secret negotiations with Canada, the Treaty on CETA (Comprehensive Economic
and Trade Agreement, like Transatlantic TIP and TransPacificPA, now unlikely to
be signed under Trump, who also intends to denounce NAFTA as “the worst trade
deal ever”) was unduly favourable to international investors, enjoying an ad
hoc ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) mechanism, protection of
profits from regulatory legislation, excessive protection of patents.
There is a pro-multinational corporate bias also in EU
“Gold Plated Revolving Doors” recruitment policy of high officials (Monti,
Draghi, Issing, Barroso, Bangemann, etc.).
The role of the nation state is that of protecting its
citizens from multinational corporations (Judt 2010): self-evidently this role
cannot be entrusted to the European Union.
3 Migrations. In 2014-16 there was an acceleration of
migrant inflows into the EU from the Middle East, the Balkans, South-East Asia
and Africa. Refugees escaping war and persecution are entitled to asylum (art.
13, Universal Declaration of Human Rights) but most migrants are economically
motivated and, unlike refugees, their right to migrate is unmatched by a
corresponding obligation under international law, to receive them.
Migrations yield a net welfare gain. In a world without
borders this would range between 143.3% (Hamilton et al. 1984) and
7% of global GDP (Docquier et al. 2012).
Gross losses are also involved (of workers in host
countries, especially if unskilled, and employers in countries of origin) which
cannot be overcompensated by gross benefits (accruing to migrants, workers who
remained at home, employers in the host country; consumers all round benefiting
from greater competition) so as to make everybody better off, because transfers
from gainers to losers would have to be international (impractical) and/or from
the poor to the rich (undesirable). Trickle-down cannot be taken for granted,
trickle-up is just as likely.
Migrations also involve the dilution of social capital
(whether viewed as physical infrastructure, or as welfare state benefits, or
trust and cohesion) freely appropriated by migrants while private capital is
fully protected globally. An unsustainable contradiction.
Moreover, any benefits of cultural enrichment can be
matched by losses from cultural impoverishment.
Here the seismic fault is an East-West divide, that caused Schengen area
collapse, the building of walls and the spreading of populism.
Populism must include cross-party and inter-class protest
against the reintroduction of poverty, mass unemployment, poor services in
stable societies, and above all against all losses from globalisation. Such
protest is an integral part of democracy and no longer deserves contempt and
demonization. A re-definition of populism is required also by the diffusion of
Information Technology and the fast inter-connectivity of people in everyday
life (e-mail, social media, blogging, mass access to leaked official documents
and to expertise, etcetera.)
4 Austerity. Maastricht
rules on budget deficit and public debt ceilings, and the tougher GSP and the
Fiscal Compact, have condemned member states to pro-cyclical fiscal policies,
protracted recession and mass unemployment, creating a North-South divide.
Early claims of a possible “expansionary fiscal
consolidation” were disproved by the IMF Research Department and now have been
abandoned. The IMF and other international organisations had under-estimated
fiscal multipliers in EU and OECD countries throughout 1970-2009, at an average
0.5 now recalculated upwards to be as much as 1.7 (Blanchard & Leigh,
2012).
This revision is due to the ineffectiveness of monetary
expansion close to a zero interest rate, lack of opportunities for exchange
rate devaluation, a large gap between potential and actual income and
simultaneous consolidation across countries. Also, fiscal multiplier for
expenditure cuts turns out to be up to ten times higher than for tax rises.
Fiscal consolidation is much more expensive in terms of
output loss than previously believed. Worse, it can be proven that, starting
from a hypothetical fiscal balance, a fiscal consolidation (tax increases
plus government expenditure cuts) will always necessarily result in an increase
instead of a decrease of the Public Debt/GDP ratio, with respect to what
that ratio would have been otherwise, as long as the fiscal multiplier is
greater than the country’s GDP/Public Debt ratio (See Nuti 2013).
Thus fiscal consolidation works only in countries with a
low Public Debt/GDP ratio, that do not need a consolidation. Renzi promised to
make Europe “change direction ” but run perversely large primary surpluses and
slowed down debt growth.
5 Tax competition. Taxation
across the EU is not sufficiently harmonised. In order to attract foreign
investment a beggar-my-neighbour tax competition destroys national and
EU collective tax revenue potential, making fiscal discipline more difficult.
As Luxembourg Premier, in 2002-2010 Jean-Claude Juncker
made “sweetheart deals” with at least 340 multinational corporations, reducing
their tax liabilities by billions of dollars. A poacher turned gamekeeper, he
now enforces austerity in countries which he robbed of their tax revenue.
Ireland, levying a 0.005% (sic!) tax on Apple European
revenues, is the most spectacular instance. It was fined €13bn but tax recovery
is doubtful and is not going to benefit the EU members damaged by its policy.
See also Fiat’s move to the Netherlands, etcetera.
6 The tiny EU budget (about 1% of EU GDP). The USA have a federal budget of over
20% of US GDP, which can support the issue and service of federal debt.
Individual member states can issue their own bonds involving a default risk
without threatening the dollar or the US financial system.
The tiny EU budget, combined with the rule that it should
always be balanced ex-post (by a variable income tax on member states)
rules out the possibility of issuing and servicing EU debt. It also rules out
financing major Europe-wide investment in infrastructure, or counter-cyclical
policies: the Juncker Investment Plan (€2bn EU funds expected to mobilise
€315bn private investment through impossible multiplier effects) has remained a
dead letter.
7 Divergence of welfare policies. Until the early 2000s the European
Social Model, a desirable target though not part of membership obligations,
relied on institutions as well as markets, providing employment protection and
a generous welfare state. The Model was
diluted and debased by EU enlargement to the East (2004-06), globalisation of
labour and austerity.
The Bertelsmann Stiftung computes a Social Justice Index
for all 28 EU states, summarising: poverty prevention, equitable education,
labour market access, social cohesion and non-discrimination, health, as well
as intergenerational justice.
In the vast majority of EU countries the Index,
after years of decline, reached the lowest point in 2012-14 but is still
noticeably worse than before the crisis. There are significant country
differences, impacting on the relative attraction of migrations. (Graph 4, p.
17, plotting the SJI 2016 against the PPP GDP per capita 2015 illustrates well
the dispersion of both income per head and the SJI throughout the EU: the
rejection of a financial Transfer Union has involved a de facto Labour
Transfer Union.)
8 Tolerance of Illiberal Regimes. The original European design was
committed to shared values, listed by Angela Merkel in her message to President
Trump as “democracy, freedom, …respect for the rule of law and the dignity of
the individual, regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual
orientation or political views.”
Such commitment has been neglected by EU acquiescence in
member states’ illiberal regimes.
Hungary and Poland have restricted freedom of speech, media pluralism
and the protection of minorities.
In Hungary since 2010 the Fidesz government of Viktor
Orbán changed the election system, redesigned electoral districts, eliminated
checks and balances within governance built over the past two decades, reshaped
the juridical system and gained nearly full control over the media and all
state institutions.
Transparency International describes Hungary as a “state
captured by private interest groups”. Viktor Orbán in 2014 announced his desire
to create an “illiberal state” modelled on China and Russia. Recently he
declared the end of the era of “liberal blah blah”, predicting that
Europe would come around to his “Christian and national” vision of politics. On
2 October 2016 an overwhelming majority of Hungarian voters rejected the EU's
migrant quotas, though turnout was marginally too low to make the poll valid.
In Poland, since October 2015 Kaczyński’s PiS party
“attacked the country’s Constitutional Court, politicized the judiciary and the
civil service, and launched an assault on media pluralism.” (Müller 2016). The
EU treated it as a Rule of Law violation but took no further action for the
moment.
Accession state Turkey’s Erdoğan, emphasizing traditional
Islamic morality, claims to be a “conservative democrat.” Turkey’s authoritarian
involution accelerated after the failed coup of 16 July, when over 100,000
people were purged. In November the European Parliament condemned
"disproportionate repressive measures" and called for a freeze on EU
accession, but MEPs have no formal role in accession talks. Turkey will still
receive €6bn to take back migrants who failed to obtain asylum in Greece.
Robert Fico’s government in Slovakia has pursued a
similar brand of what has been dubbed “raw majoritarianism” (Sierakowski 2016).
Renzi’s constitutional reform (rejected by the 4 December Referendum) was also
a move towards power concentration beyond democratic control. A fault line is
dividing liberal and illiberal Europe.
9 The Euro: premature, handicapped, divergent. The common currency was supposed to
“crown” European integration, after political, fiscal and banking integration,
and a common foreign and defence policy, but was introduced prematurely, an
exemplar of the “crises create opportunity for integration” myth. It was also handicapped
by the ECB limited powers: unlike the Fed, the BoE and BoJ the ECB cannot
finance the EU budget or that of member states purchasing government bonds in
primary markets. The Euro also suffered from increasing divergence of member
state fundamentals. Nevertheless, the Euro gave us ten years of low inflation,
low and converging interest rates, trade and investment integration; its crisis
was due to contagion from the US credit crisis, and worsening public debt due
to bank rescues, feeding back onto banks’ balance sheets.
On 12 July 2012 ECB President Mario Draghi announced that
the ECB was “ready to do whatever it takes” to preserve the Euro. He tried Long
Term Refinancing Operations, Outright Monetary Transactions and Quantitative
Easing, against German opposition, but on a scale much lower than in the US.
Monetary expansion on its own, without fiscal expansion and with debatable
“structural reforms”, soon loses effectiveness.
QE comes to a natural end for lack of eligible bonds. Negative interest
rates were introduced, to induce commercial banks to expand credit, but failed
to re-launch economic growth. “Negative interest rates are stupid. They
only shrink a bank’s capital, hinder the sale of credit and weaken the economy”
(Stiglitz 2016). Helicopter money might work, but then traditional fiscal
expansion seems preferable.
10 The recapitalization of commercial banks. The fragility of European banks is due
to the long deep recession worsened by austerity, uncontrolled expansion of
derivatives transactions, local credit concentration and bank governance
failures.
Large scale bail-out (Germany €241bn) is no longer
available since the EU bail-in directive came into force on 1-1-2016. Deposit
insurance is still the responsibility of national Treasuries. Bank resolution
rules will come into force in 2018. Bank supervision (stress tests, etc.) is
feeble.
German commercial banks are still in jeopardy because of
the persistent derivatives crisis (Deutsche Bank); liabilities to US fines for
selling toxic bonds (Deutsche and Commerz Bank) as well as the precarious state
of German Landesbanks. Basel III rules should make banks safer, but their
introduction in a recession slows down lending.
11 Foreign Policy. After
1992 the EU was complicit in NATO enlargement to the East, in violation of the
1990 confirmed deal between Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush whereby NATO would
expand not “one inch to the east,” (James Baker, see Zuesse 2015). A needlessly
aggressive policy became a missed opportunity for détente with Russia
(Romani 2014).
In 1991, after the dissolution of the SFRY, Germany’s
hasty recognition of Slovenia and Croatia put the EU in front of a fait
accompli and was followed by civil war (Bosnia 1992-95) and NATO
intervention (1999).
In Ukraine the EU helped initiate and supported the
Euromaidan movement that in February 2014 ousted pro-Russian President Viktor
Yanoukovich, elected in 2010. This was followed by Russian annexation of
Crimea, a “present” from Khrushchev to Ukraine in Soviet times (1954) but
ethnically Russian and militarily essential for access to warm-water ports. The
EU joined sanctions against Russia which damaged member states asymmetrically
(Germany continued to import oil and gas from Russia.)
After the US Presidential election Juncker declared that
Trump “did not know the world and his first two years would be wasted while he
travelled and learned”; his campaign had been “disgusting” – not exactly a
sober, diplomatic reaction. Merkel’s Social Democratic coalition partner,
Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, imitated Juncker and greeted Trump as
“the trailblazer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist movement.”
Member states are committed to CFSP – a Common Foreign
and Security Policy, aimed at Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management.
Acronyms (EUGS, HRVP, EDA, EEAS, EDP, CDA, INTCEN, EUMS INT …) and paperwork
abound.
12 Defence. Every
EU member state controls its own army but under the Common Security and Defence
Policy more than 30 civilian and military operations have been launched since
2003, in Europe as well as Asia and Africa. France, Germany Belgium, Spain and
Luxembourg also created Eurocorps, a military body for rapid deployment to
hotspots.
The lack of a democratic, political route to
decision-taking in military and paramilitary action at EU level is a further
source of gross instability. The EU
was divided over the Iraq War. Unilateral military initiatives were taken
against Gaddafi’s Libya by Cameron and Sarkozy, with Italian acquiescence. The
fight against Daesh is handicapped by divisions over the Assad regime, Turkey’s
dominant anti-Kurd stance, Saudi Arabia’s involvement and differences in policy
towards Iran.
A Franco-German Plan for closer EU defence cooperation
was discussed at the Bratislava summit last September; British Defence
Minister Michael Fallon declared that the UK would veto the creation of EU
military capabilities so long as it remained an EU member. President Trump’s
plan to require European states pay up for NATO’s costs contributes to sources
of dissension.
Other Potential Fault Lines. There are other potential
fault lines: energy policy – energy saving, alternatives to fossil fuels
and the nuclear option being still nation-based – or environmental policy -
the Paris agreement was ratified by the EU but relies on national
implementation policies; and the VW emission scandal uncovered by the US and
compensation denied to European customers.
External pressures.
Trump’s
election to the US presidency might worsen the EU crisis. The likely rise in
interest rates, following his plans for $1,000bn infrastructure investment, is
bad for the European South and bad for banks which should have sold government
bonds much earlier but did not; the Euro will probably fall, generating a
greater German export surplus which ceteris paribus will force the South
to run larger budget deficits. Trump’s plans are reminiscent of Reagan’s
policies which led to defaults in Latin America.
Interconnections. Many of the EU faults are
inter-connected: immigration was encouraged by the divergence of welfare
policies; its problems were aggravated by austerity; it was precipitated by EU
foreign policy and war involvement; has contributed to Brexit.
Difficulties with CETA are bound to hinder any
after-Brexit EU-UK Treaty. Tax competition clashes badly with austerity. ECB
negative interest rates contribute to the crisis of commercial banks and raise
their recapitalisation requirements, and so on.
Local earthquakes feed back onto the Union as a whole:
e.g. the failure of Union attempts at stopping the authoritarian involution of
Hungary and Poland, and of enforcing national quotas for refugees relocation,
has damaged further EU credibility.
Remedies. In
principle, the virtual tectonic plates that make up the EU could be controlled
by European governance. The remedies to secure the EU entire system are
available, in many cases even without amending the Treaties.
Thus Brexit might be softened by revamping UK membership
of the EEA (Yarrow 2016) or the creation of a European Continental Partnership
(Pisani-Ferry et al. 2016). The
migration crisis might be reduced by a common asylum acceptance regime; a
stronger common external border; re-location of refugees across countries under
penalty of losing structural funds; stopping the Dublin Treaty placing an
unfair burden on EU frontier countries; deducting the financial burden of
migrants from the permitted fiscal deficit.
Migrants welfare entitlements might be restricted to what their states of origin would offer the recipient country’s nationals, on plausible grounds of reciprocity. Entitlements might be restricted during an initial period (the current UK proposal), or made conditional on residence requirements. Re-patriation of economic migrants often is problematic, but ought to be considered with greater determination. During his campaign Trump has caused a sensation by announcing plans to repatriate 11 million undocumented immigrants, scaled down to 2 million after the election. But during his tenure in 2009-2016 President Obama re-patriated 2.5 million immigrants, often in debatable circumstances – more than the previous 19 Presidents combined. Pakistan re-patriated 800,000 Afghans; last year Sweden announced the re-patriation of 80,000 immigrants.
Migrants welfare entitlements might be restricted to what their states of origin would offer the recipient country’s nationals, on plausible grounds of reciprocity. Entitlements might be restricted during an initial period (the current UK proposal), or made conditional on residence requirements. Re-patriation of economic migrants often is problematic, but ought to be considered with greater determination. During his campaign Trump has caused a sensation by announcing plans to repatriate 11 million undocumented immigrants, scaled down to 2 million after the election. But during his tenure in 2009-2016 President Obama re-patriated 2.5 million immigrants, often in debatable circumstances – more than the previous 19 Presidents combined. Pakistan re-patriated 800,000 Afghans; last year Sweden announced the re-patriation of 80,000 immigrants.
Austerity might be loosened by excluding from the
permitted deficit public investment, which does not involve an
inter-generational transfer, or the payment of government arrears towards
suppliers, which involve a change of creditors and not an increase in debt.
Potential output, relatively to which the permitted deficit is calculated,
might be estimated according to a more permissive methodology like that of the
OECD. The maximum trade surplus permitted, currently of 6% of GDP, should be
reduced to 4% in line with the maximum trade deficit permitted; surplus
countries exceeding that ceiling (like Germany at 8.5%, or Holland) could be
forced to run a parallel budget deficit in order to facilitate other members’
fiscal discipline. ECB seigniorage could be mobilised to fund the issue of
bonds to reduce national public debts in proportion to ECB shares, as proposed
by Wyplosz and Pâris 2014 in their PADRE scheme (Politically Acceptable Debt
Restructuring in the Eurozone) and by Nuti 2014. This would avoid a Transfer
Union.
The adverse distributive effects of globalisation are
harder to handle: short of a global Exchequer taxing gainers and
over-compensating losers, the transfers involved have to take place within
nation states or Unions, compensating domestic losers from additional revenue
raised by taxing domestic taxpayers regardless of whether they are gainers from
globalisation, or out of savings in domestic expenditure.
Clashes. These
effective remedies are in line with the original European design. Unfortunately
they clash with the hyper-liberal design that has gradually perverted European
policies, as well as with conflicts of interest between states, ideologies,
welfare regimes, classes, bureaucracies, memories and expectations.
In Germany the Ordo-liberal tradition of Walter Eucken in
the 1930s, based on competition and monetary stability as the pillars of
society, is still a heavy inheritance. In German and Dutch the same word Schuld,
means both Debt and Guilt.
German memories are long about interwar hyper-inflation,
wrongly believed to have caused Hitler’s ascent to power, generated instead by
the deflation and austerity of Chancellor Brüning in 1929-32. But Germans have a short
memory about their own Wirtschaftswunder, the result of a redistributive
currency reform, cancellation of public debt of over 300% of GDP and Marshall
Aid – all measures which they denied to Greece. “Thomas Mann dreamed of a
European Germany. His wish has turned into its opposite. Today we have a German
Europe.” (Lafontaine, 2015).
Lenin (1915) was prophetic: “… a United statesof Europe,
under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary”. Conversely, Hayek
(1939) strongly supported interstate federalism as essential to his liberal
project: international mobility of goods and factors would constrain national
state policy, and heterogeneity of interests would constrain federal policy.
Hence Thatcher’s support for UK membership (Parijs 2016).
The New European recently
stated that “Brexit is not an earthquake. It is the aftershock of the death of
European Social Democracy”. This is only partially correct: Brexit and other
forms of the EU crisis, and Trump’s triumph, are not an aftershock but a
foreshock, part of a seismic swarm which may or may not be followed by “the big
one”.
And it is the agony – not quite the death yet – of a
particular, perverted form of Social Democracy: hyper-liberal, globalist,
austerian, pro-multinationals, unequal, politically correct, pre-Keynesian
after Keynes and pre-Minskyan after Minsky, relying on alleged but unreliable
mechanisms of self-regulation and self-balancing of markets, through
international mobility of labour (Schengen, Pope Francis, Hillary Clinton) and
capital (Maastricht).
Exitaly/ExIT/Italeave. Citizens are reluctant both to move from
locations of high seismic risk, and to face the cost of implementing
anti-seismic measures to secure their homes and public buildings and
infrastructure. EU countries are reluctant to abandon Europe and the Euro,
despite the proven impossibility of securing sustainable European institutions.
Therefore the idea that "there is no salvation
outside Europe", and that "we need more European integration
rather than less" - instead of a different Europe – is just as
senseless and fearful as the refusal of actual and potential earthquake victims
to move elsewhere, and the purblind commitment of the Italian government to
"rebuild everything as it was, where it was.“
In any case, it is absolutely necessary to imagine,
investigate and assess the likely consequences of an exit from the Euro and
Europe, on the part of Italy and other countries that have suffered the
consequences of European multiple crises.
First, Italy might be required to leave. Imagine a
balance of payments crisis, a burst of capital flight, restrictions on capital
movements and bank withdrawals, a panic run on the banks. European assistance
might be provided, subject to draconian conditions. This is where Greece got to
before it capitulated. But Italy is much larger, it might be offered assistance
in insufficient quantity, or the government might be unwilling or simply unable
to meet the required conditions before the imposed deadline.
Then the ECB would no longer be able to provide emergency
liquidity assistance, and the only choice left would be between a barter
economy or the introduction of a national currency. The trouble is that this
would require long and secret preparations, which are difficult to imagine in
Italy.
Second, the cost of Exitaly would be enormous, but
perhaps not as large as it is often suggested. It should not be taken for
granted that the large cost of leaving Europe would be necessarily greater over
time, in terms of present value, than the large cost of remaining in Europe
without the necessary, possible but unlikely improvements.
Finally, reflections and discussions about the mutual
costs of Eurozone disintegration would strengthen the negotiating position of
those seeking to reduce the risks from catastrophic shifts and collapse.
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Justice Index 2016”, Gütersloh.
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pp. 41-43, October, Washington.
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with Poland”, New York Review
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Reduction in the Eurozone, Geneva Reports on the World Economy, Special Report 3, ICMBS
and CEPR, January.
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Tucker and Guntram B. Wolfe (2016) “Europe
After Brexit: A Proposal for A Continental Partnership”, Bruegel
Institute, 29 August.
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Controstoria, Longanesi, Milano.
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Threat to Europe”, Project Syndicate, 19 January.
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and its new discontents”, 5 August, Project Syndicate.
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Plot — And How To Defeat It”, Social Europe, 29 November.
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Foundation.
7 comments:
Un grande affresco, con un finale purtroppo noto. Le soluzioni ci sarebbero e sono quelle che tu indichi, ma manca chi voglia metterle in pratica. Finirà male, e questi oltre che criminali sono incoscienti, perché quando arriverà il terremoto non è detto che loro si salvino.
Thank you, Carlo. Yes, I am depressed and pessimistic.
By the way, Mario Draghi has spoken at last (but perhaps he would have been wiser to remain silent).
See Reuters, http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1542KL
Leaving the Euro is possible, now says Draghi, as long as a country first pays off its debts towards the ECB under the Target2 system (whereby trade deficits and capital flights are cumulated as liabilities towards the ECB that finances them automatically, a bit like transferable rouble liabilities in the old Comecon). A move from denial to threats. Under Target2 Italy has a debt of nearly €400bn and Germany a credit of nearly €800bn. But if a country decided to leave without paying that debt what could the ECB do??? Here paradoxically it is the debtor who has the upper end.
Out here in the United States the role of Putin and Russia is constantly highlighted when it comes to any analysis of EU faultlines or fissures or prospects and their purported efforts to exacerbate them, What is your view on the Russian role, if any, and their motivations and strategy in the evolving EU/Eurasian game?
Ashok
Before Trump's Presidency Putin and Russia were demonised in the States. I do not believe there was any Russian interference with the Presidential elections (the way there had been in Britain from Attlee until Thatcher), and there was no need against a candidate as unattractive as Hillary Clinton. Now there are much better chances of improved US-Russian relations.
Clearly Putin is angry with the EU because of their economic sanctions. He got away with his interventions in Ukraine and Syria but there is not much he can do to enhance the chances of EU disintegration, especially since the Germans are much better at this. European Russia is undoubtedly part of Europe and should be more involved with the EU but Germany will not accept this.
I am more worried by Trump's hostility towards the EU, though I confess I am pleased that he is braking on globalisation, annoying the Germans and promoting large infrastructure investment that will bring global benefits.
And I hope Russia will be able to rejoin the G-7 turning it back into the G-8.
Obama's policy against Assad was totally disastruous.
I have read your list of 12 faults in the EU and I am much in tune with it. I would add a 13th one (a kind of 8bis), from an economic and governance standpoint, that is a premature EU accession of several post-communist transition economies, in particular Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and also Romania and Bulgaria. Now they pay the political price for it.
An unfortunate follow-up might be a Frexit, if Le Pen would win the French election; the probability is not nil.
I agree, W.A., EU enlargement was in many ways premature, but then the accession process was used as a way to speed up transition and to direct it towards a uniform model compatible with EU membership. That process certainly speeded up transition towards open market economies, but it also directed it towards a hyperliberal, austerian, globalist economic model, and could not avoid the frequent move towards an authoritarian political model.
Margaret Thatcher endorsed EU enlargement as a way to prevent EU deepening; the German were anxious to access cheap labour directly in these countries. Others romantically applauded newly found European unity. Now we all pay the political price of that premature enlargement.
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