Human Wrongs Watch
– In recommendations to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of July, the German Council of Economic Experts outlined how a weak member country could leave the Eurozone and called for strengthening the European monetary union.
**Map of Europe shaped as a virgin | Author: Heinrich Bünting (1545–1606) Link back to Creator infobox template wikidata:Q99420| Date: 1582 | Wikimedia Commons
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants Greece out because he does not believe that it will ever be able to refund the loans it has received so far, and because he thinks it is question of principle to be strict.
In an interview with Der Spiegel a few days after the historical date of Jul. 13, at the end of negotiations on Greece, he said: “My grandmother used to say: benevolence comes before dissoluteness.”
“To ensure the cohesion of monetary union, we have to recognise that voters in creditor countries are not prepared to finance debtor countries permanently … A permanently uncooperative member state should not be able to threaten the existence of the euro.”
Explaining the recommendations of the Council of Economic Experts, however, its chairman Christoph M. Schmidt expressed another opinion.
This is the best illustration of Germany’s Europe. Any country which does not fit into the German scenario will have to quit. Europe is no longer a question of solidarity, it is all about fiscal and monetary considerations.
Germany now says that federalism has exceptions – whenever a member of the Eurozone is perceived to be challenging the rules of the monetary union, it will be subject to complete annihilation of its state sovereignty and national democracy. This is the kind of federalism that Germany has now proclaimed.
This German position on its vision of Europe, where political and ideal considerations are no longer the basis of the European project, has triggered a strong response from a normally obedient France.
President François Hollande, who appears to have suddenly woken up, has come out with a call to reinforce European integration through the establishment of a “Eurozone government”, which run in the opposite direction from that of Berlin.
Germany will of course go ahead and pursue its own course, but the Paris-Berlin axis which was conceived as the fulcrum of European integration has now been seriously weakened after Germany’s imposed agreement on Greece on Jul. 13. So we have now a major realignment.
France has been the country which has always blocked any substantial progress on European integration, by continually voting against any radical step towards integration in order to preserve as much of its national sovereignty as possible.
Now it is Germany which is intent on changing the course of integration, from a political project to a fixed exchange monetary system based on creditor countries – a system in which some democracies are more equal than others.
***Subdivision of Europe according to the cultural criteria | Author: Grossgliederung_Europas.svg: NordNordWest | derivative work: Dch (talk) | Source: Grossgliederung_Europas.svg | Wikimedia Commons
Schäuble has been reported as expressing concern over the European Commission’s increased political role, interfering in political issues for which it has no mandate.
And it is a stark fact that the 13 July Brussels agreement has sought to remove politics and discretion from the functioning of the monetary union, an idea that has long been very dear to the French, and now are the French who want more European integration as protection from a German Europe.
We should all realise that the idea of Europe as a political project, based on solidarity and mutual support, is on the wane.
Monetary union is no longer just a step towards a democratic political union, as Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand sought at the reunification of Germany, and the creation of the Euro.
We are, in fact, going back to a more toxic version of the old exchange-rate mechanism of the 1990s that left countries trapped in a mechanism which worked primarily for Germany, and which led to the exit of the British pound and the temporary exit of the Italian lira.
But the euro, as Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman says, “has turned into a Roach Motel, a trap that’s hard to escape.” Once you’re in, you cannot get out, and you have to accept the diktat of the creditors.
Another Nobel laureate in economics, Joseph Stigliz, who was Chief Economist of the World Bank, says that the current European policy of austerity at any cost, is like going back to a “19th century debtors’ prison. Just as imprisoned debtors could not make the income to repay, the deepening depression in Greece will make it less and less able to repay.”
Of course, what is never said openly (except by Stigliz) is that in the Greek bailout one central reason for the extremism of the new package of conditions was to teach a lessons to a radical left-wing party, Syriza, and to the Greek people who had had the audacity to reject the calls from European leaders to vote against that party.
It is not by chance that countries like Poland, which were asking to be admitted to the Eurozone, have withdrawn their applications. The euro has become a rallying political issue, with parties from all over Europe asking to withdraw. It has become the first line of action for those who oppose European integration.
Until now, the answer of European governments has been that withdrawal is impossible under the European constitution. But now that the German Council of Economic Experts has come out with a concrete proposal on how to do that, that line of defence is crumbling.
According to many analysts, Angela Merkel is playing with fire. Germany cannot remain a credible leader of a coalition of Northern and Eastern European countries and ignore the realities and needs of Southern Europe. This is unsustainable, even in the medium term.
Meanwhile, the world goes on. Within seven years India will have overtaken China as the most populous country in the world, while within a few decades Nigeria will have a larger population than the United States.
And Europe? Europe will have become the continent with most old people and lower productivity, and will have to face its four horses of the apocalypse:
- a solution to relations with Russia;
- common agreement on how to deal with the dramatic flow of immigrants, when countries are not even able to relocate 40,000 people in a region of 450 million;
- a real policy on the explosive Middle East and terrorism; and soon
- the request of United Kingdom for a new agreement on the European Union, or else it will exit Europe.
We can safely bet that those negotiations, which will be based purely on economic issues, will be the kiss of death for the original European dream.
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*Roberto Savio is the founder and former Director-General of international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS).
In recent years he has also founded Other News, a service providing ‘information that markets eliminate’.
Roberto Savio: utopie@ips.org. http://www.robertosavio.info. The author has granted permission to Human Wrongs Watch to publish his article.
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Other articles by Roberto Savio on Human Wrongs Watch:
The Hidden Truth Behind the Greek Drama
Greece – A Sad Story of the European Establishment
Immigration, Myths and the Irresponsibility of Europe
Voracious Finance Growing Like a Cancer
The Crisis of the Left and the Decline of Europe and the United States
The West and Its Self-Assumed Right to Intervene
A Guide to the Religious Conflict in the Arab World
Blissful Ignorance Makes the West Slide into Mishaps
Pillar of Neoliberal Thinking Is Vacillating
It Should Be Clear What to Expect from the World Social Forum
Foreign Policy Is in the Hands of Sleepwalkers
What if Youth Now Fight for Social Change, But From the Right?
The Exceptional Destiny of U.S. Foreign Policy
Climate Change: Governments Say All the Right Things But Do Exactly the Opposite
Global Governance and Common Values: the Unavoidable Debate
Of Banks, Inequality and Citizens
The Paris Killings – A Fatal Trap for Europe
Ten Major Handicaps Facing 2015
The Steady Decline of Social Europe
The “Incestuous Relations” Between Governments and Energy Corporations
Four Key Reasons to Understand the Irresistible Attraction of Radical Islam
Europe Is Positioning Itself Outside World Arena
Planet Racing Towards Catastrophe and Politics Just Looking On
OP-ED: International Relations, the U.N. and Inter Press Service
Ever Wondered Why the World is a Mess?
Economic Growth Is Anything But “A Rising Tide Lifting All Boats”
Banks, Financial Institutions and Citizens — The Urgent Need to Update the Seven Deadly Sins
The Decline of the Middle Class
The Rich Complain That We Do Not Love Them
The Free Market Fundamentalists Are Now in Europe
The ‘European Dream’ Going the Way of the ‘American Dream’
Thatcher, Reagan and Their “Revolutions”
Cyprus: Do You Understand What Has Really Happened?
Hugo Chávez’s legacy to Latin America
“The Tide Is Growing, But The System Does Not Realise It”
The Palestine Drama, Public Theories and Hidden Realities
China Opening a Confrontation on the Sea
After Two Lost Decades, Japan Went to Sleep
Japan – Ethics, Democracy, Growth
China, Japan Brewing a Serious Conflict
A Personal Experience with the American Justice System
Finance’s Ethics: a Leap into the Past
Banks and Politics Do Not Mix Well
2015 Human Wrongs Watch
Image:
**Map of Europe shaped as a virgin | Author: Heinrich Bünting (1545–1606) 
| Date: 1582 | Source/Photographer:http://www.raremaps.com/gallery/archivedetail/21632/Europa_Prima_Pars_Terrae_In_Forma_Virginis_1548_Rare_Variant_edition/Bunting.html | Wikimedia Commons
***Subdivision of Europe according to the cultural criteria | Author: Grossgliederung_Europas.svg: NordNordWest | derivative work: Dch (talk) | Source: Grossgliederung_Europas.svg | Wikimedia Commons
Baher Kamal
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
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