If we were to be very charitable (and extremely naive) and accept the supposed reason behind The Frau’s brutal (and undemocratic) imposition of her austerity panacea, austerity with no growth, austerity where the funds saved through this policy are not plowed back into the economy, but siphoned off into the black hole of Godzilla… I mean The Banks, which is the long term restructuring of the economy.

Again, if we by pass this idea of restructuring, which means nothing other than imposing a neo liberal dogma on Europe, of destroying all and any welfare or social structures, reducing all wages to a pittance and of course completely abolishing all and any labour rights (aka a “flexible” labour market), and take it as being a desirable outcome, can we even then see any successful outcome of this project, even in the so called long run?

With all efforts focused on this long term project of turning Greece into a little China, say, where footballs can be manufactured cheaply (because the workers will not be paid), where there will not be a deficit problem say, because the state will not have expenses to meet such as healthcare and certainly no pensions, because everyone will die off before reaching a pensionable age, aren’t we forgetting something?

For an economy to develop at all, in any direction, even in such a brutal and despicable one, it has to be on going. The “policies” imposed on Greece have only led to its rapidly increasing rate of destruction. So, in the long run, there will not be an economy left to do anything. Even manufacturing footballs with child labour, because there will not be any children left to exploit, for instance.

In fact there will be nothing left at all. Just a barren waste land of where there was once, way back in history, some crazy and exotic civilization that taught… what? Funny, mysterious, metaphysical, mumbo jumbo ideas called philosophy, ethics, democracy….? I think. Anyway a whole lot of obsolete and irrelevant pipe dream ideas that have nothing at all to do with our brave new world (apologies to Aldus Huxley… or perhaps not. A vindication of Aldus Huxley).

Greece will have gone to join Carthage and the Phoenicians. And Keynes will have been completely vindicated.

“In the long run we are all dead.” Because here in Greece we will be. Literally.

European Markets at 13 month high. Euro climbs back a bit. Low trading volumes. Traders on the beach or in a drunken stupor. Not much happening it would appear. At least not on the strictly business front where those not on the beaches are hoping for good news soon. Good news in possibly more QE in the UK and US. In Mario Draghi, now that he has been verbally backed up by The Frau, making good on his promise of saving the Euro.

Ok. It is August. You are never supposed to do much or even think much in August. As to the Finn squealing “The Euro doesn’t work!”, hang him. He is just an extremist. And Merkel’s, in essence, rebuff by Harper, that whatever else, Canada is not going to provide funds so Merkel can carry on with her favourite game of you pay I collect, was camouflaged so well in the pretty pictures, it didn’t even get a headline.

Only one rather snide little telling comment referring to the picture where The Frau is running her hand in the water and Harper is standing behind her. Is he thinking of kicking her in the water? Well, he didn’t.

Oh, and one last comment. The expected “face off” between Samaras and Merkel. Are you kidding? Unless you mean The Frau will face off Samaras who will come home running and crying and start telling us the only we he can keep his job is if he grinds us even further down into the ground.

Do we really care so much that he should keep his job? Okay. He succeeded in his life long ambition of becoming PM. Whatever for, one doesn’t know. It’s not as if he has any visions or even any ideas what to do. He is perhaps notorious for building up a persuasive line only to adopt the complete opposite if it suits his personal ambitions.

So don’t expect a face off with The Frau, whatever else. He will nod and smile and tell us he is “negotiating”, not a change in terms, God forbid! That has been dead and buried ever since he took office, no… He will tell us he is “negotiating” the extension and present that as a ground breaking achievement.

Meanwhile Greece will either sink into complete oblivion and disappear from the face of the earth.

Or else it will explode.

Have a good weekend everyone!

On BBC World TV there was a report from Somalia. The devastated war ravaged country that is now beginning to try and pull itself together. Among those interviewed was a fifteen year old girl. She said, I have never been to school but I want to get an education so I can serve the community.

Compare that with a LSE student, say, to take a random example. Question: Why do you want to get this degree? Answer: To be able to make a lot of money, as a consultant, or financial expert… say. Next Question: How do you think you could serve the community? Answer: What?

In our ‘western’ cult of self, greed is good, Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan’s favourite book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, and perhaps above all the infamous Thatcher quote: There is no such thing as society, might we not have lost what we claim to have established once upon a time?

And that is Civilization.

Antonis Samaras was voted in as Greek PM on the promise that he would “renegotiate” the appalling terms of the second “bail out” agreement originally negotiated by Papademos and Venizelos, that he would not cut pensions any further nor the lower scale salaries.

Now he is telling us that what we need is an extension of carrying out these appalling terms by two years. The problem for him is no longer the actual destructive recession inducing terms at all, but merely the time span for implementing them!

He probably hopes that the EZ and troika members will be too scared of Greece going belly up just yet and will agree to this extension merely not to rock the EZ boat. Whereupon Samaras will return to Greece as the hero who achieved the extension, completely forgetting that that was not what he had promised at all.

Such an extension would be just as disastrous as all the great “successes” already notched up by Papandreou, Papademos and Venizelos. It would, as the others before it, merely push Greece deeper and deeper into the black hole it is already in.

As to the “hero’s welcome” he supposes will be his… Has he learnt nothing from the Papandreou experience? And this time it won’t even be yoghourts hurled at him but something far worse.

But now we come to the EZ. If Germany does agree to this extension, all it will mean is that she is in fact fearful of a Grexit at this point. And all that will be achieved is AGAIN the proverbial can being kicked down the road. Because even in the knowledge of having this advantage, the present Greek government will do nothing at all to avail itself of this and will merely continue with the destruction of the Greek economy, in total obsequious obedience to the Mistress.

There are conspiracy theorists and those who do not believe in conspiracies. I belong to the latter group. Nevertheless, over the last few years The Frau has pushed us to our limits and often made us wonder whether perhaps there is some dark sinister plot behind all this Nonsense Economics eroding Europe. How else to explain it?

Well, no. This is not a conspiracy. It is, in my humble opinion, merely attributable to abysmal statesmanship. (Stateswomanship?)

I assume that Angela Merkel did not set out to destroy the Euro and weaken the whole EU project, let alone destroy it. Her bankers may well detest the Euro, as bankers have a very limited view of the economy (!) but on the whole, the Euro and the EU have served Germany exceedingly well and would have been set to continue to do so had not little Angela and her side kick Schauble happened to be in charge when the first rumbles of difficulty in the Eurozone began.

In my opinion The Frau did three things that have undermined the Euro and may well lead to a disastrous break up of the common currency if not the EU itself.

Her first faux pas, was to scream out to the markets that, Hey you guys! You know something? The Euro is not here to stay! It is not a currency like the dollar! It is not permanent! Now how did she do that? Well, it was back when the second “bail out” loan agreement was reached with Greece’s then PM George Papandreou after the first had failed miserably.

Neither of these two heads of government appeared to have a clue what they were doing. They agreed on a set of appalling terms and were both delighted with their achievement. Until Papandreou came back to Greece beaming that he had “saved” the country once again, and duly got egg in his face (almost literally) for his efforts. Others got yoghourt thrown at them.

In his panic (because that is what it was, not some sudden democratic epiphany) he decided to call for a referendum on these terms. Whereupon little Angela blew a gasket. How dare he? How dare this piddley nonentity question my terms in any way? (Mind you, she did have one point. Though Papandreou most certainly should have held that referendum he should have told her BEFORE agreeing to all her terms, not afterwards, and made agreement conditional on the referendum out come. Which he didn’t.)

In true Germanic, and possibly even more school marmish mode, she summoned him to the Cannes G20 meeting to give him a dressing down. To his eternal shame Papandreou, with his side kick Venizelos, duly trotted off obediently to do the Mistress’ bidding,

After publicly denouncing this outrageous intention of calling for a referendum (of all things! Who gives a damn about what the people want?) she instructed the PM of Greece in no uncertain terms: That he was not allowed to ask his people whether they approved of the terms she had set, but if he insisted on holding a referendum he would hold it on the date she would set (and not the Greek Parliament) and the question would be what she said it would be.

And what was the question little Angela decided would be asked of the Greeks? Mind you, as she put it, one question and one question only.

DO YOU WANT TO STAY IN THE EURO?

Whoops! There goes that can of worms! The one she and…  what’s ‘is name? The one starring in a best seller Roman a Clef in France at the moment? Rocky something? Anyway, the can they had been kicking down the road. Well this one burst open and released all the worms all over the place. The strong woman of the EZ had just officially and roundly declared that the Euro is NOT irreversible, and it is NOT here to stay! (Mario Draghi, please note).

We can kick anyone out whenever we like, Greece today, Portugal tomorrow, perhaps even Spain further down the line! So there goes that myth. She shot the Euro straight out of the sky all by herself (no we don’t count Sarkozy. All he ever did was grin obsequiously and nod.)

Now her second act of sedition against the Euro was taken at the same time. The infamous PSI, Public Sector Involvement, a bad euphemism for Greece’s partial default. Little Angela was the one who had insisted that the private sector must also pay. Because she had no idea what this meant. Only in her strict disciplinarian Germanic way she decided “they must pay too!”

Now, apart from failing abysmally in its primary intent, in that all it did was worsen Greece’s overall position because all social security funds, universities, hospitals etc. who had been holding Greek bonds got well and truly screwed. And that was only for starters. And overall debt remained high. In fact, to use a Greek expression, all it achieved was a hole in the water.

But hang Greece! As far as anyone else is concerned Greece can just go to hell. The other message little Angela shouted to the markets with this little brainwave of hers was:

EURO SOVEREIGN DEBT IS DANGEROUS! DON’T BUY SOVEREIGN BONDS OF PERIPHERAL EURO STATES BECAUSE THEY RUN A HIGH RISK OF DEFAULT!

There now, how’s that for containing the crisis? Arguably it has contributed quite a lot to the rising spreads on interest for Spain and Italy (so far.)

But her worse disservice not only to the Euro but to the very idea of Europe is the pernicious can of worms she opened up through her vicious propaganda.

Since, she felt, she could not persuade the German voter to bail out their own banks, this disastrous scheme of laundering the money through insolvent states was cooked up in that innovative little brain. Only this then led to more propaganda. That of the profligate, lazy, good for nothing parasites of the south versus, the virtuous, hard working, long suffering Northerners who had to keep bailing them out.

This fired the flames of rancour and hate. The age old European prejudices and animosity that had receded over the years, sprang back into life with a vengeance. The northerners (who forgot they owed a large part of their economic success to the European market and the Euro) started feeling superior to and disdainful of those swarthy lazy parasites.

In their turn the southerners (this is particularly true of Greece but not exclusively) were jolted into remembering the atrocities of the German occupiers during the war. Angela was portrayed as the new Adolf (mustache and all) and the hate and animosity grew and grew. Not helped by numerous instances of German tourists in Greece who refuse to pay the bill at the taverna, saying, oh we’ve already paid you far too much! And such like.

Now, the Euro may be broken up or maybe saved. Greece may remain in the Euro and continue its downward death spiral, or it may not. But what The Frau has managed single handedly (ok, with little Wolfie’s help) to ensure, is that she has turned Europe into a steaming cauldron of mutual hate and recrimination which it will be virtually impossible to integrate further as needs to be done.

Federal elections are to be held in Germany next year. Campaigning on the populist plank has already begun. 70% of German opinion is all for throwing Greece out of the Euro. Rossler has already climbed on this “bash Greece to get votes” band wagon. And he is not the only one. Herr Fuchs of Angela’s own party has done so too, and no doubt many more will follow. Inevitably so.

No one cares about the Euro project! All they care about is getting elected to parliament. Besides, they are all cock sure by now that a Grexit will solve all their problems. And it may well. It may well solve Greece’s problems too. Or it may not. But in the long run, all this propaganda and mishandling of the so called European sovereign debt crisis has cancelled  European integration prospects.

How are we going to surrender our sovereignty, a) to those arrogant, overbearing, nazi style dynasts who want to destroy us? and b) to include those lazy, good for nothing, swarthy parasites who bring us down? I am afraid if there ever was a chance of cultivating a European identity, which would be the fundamental prerequisite for any kind of solid European Union, it has been completely ruined now.

And that, the destruction of Europe’s prospects as an integrated political entity is probably The Frau’s crowning achievement.

Perhaps not always, but most certainly in the current phase of history. The Economist appears to have concocted (unless it is real!) a wonderful image of The Frau:

Now, I dare say it is a bit self serving in that she is depicted knocking back the whisky rather than beer or schnaps, but still.

A friend pointed out another flaw to this image. Surely, she said, The Frau is the one who wrote the book and therefore doesn’t need to be reading it! Well, I for one, have no argument against that.

All I can say is hooray for British humour! Humour is, after all, the only thing we have lest to fight this surreal idiocy we are living through.

Anyway, for all the sympathy we might have for The Frau and her precarious position. She is, we are told, trying to get it right and is distressed at being depicted as a nazi in the countries she is trying so hard to save.

Well that could be one indication for her, were she bright enough to be able to decipher such a message, that she may not be going about it in the best of ways. We are also told in these articles (which are well worth a read) that she expected the structural reforms and austerity she has been imposing (with a particular vengeance in Greece) would have led to growth.

Now, why does not that fact that her policies have led to the very reverse not make her stop and think for a while? (And, to be fair, this goes for the whole incompetent bunch of them in the EU Commission, the IMF and of course the German establishment).

And here is where we have idiocy’s crowning achievement. In his excellent little book, (little in page size, otherwise very great) “End This Depression Now”, Paul Krugman describes the right wing pundits who were all gung ho for deregulation, free market economics and all the rest of that dogma which has directly resulted in the horrendous collapse of the global economy.

He tells us these “Very Serious People” as he dubs them, insist, even now, that all and any policies (particularly Keynesian ones) not in line with their own dogma would be catastrophic. Why is that? can’t they just see the evidence? Surely it is so obvious that it doesn’t even need to be debated, that the economy is collapsing because of their dogmatic adherence to a policy that simply failed horribly?

Well, the answer to that is, that if they were to accept this fact it would be tantamount to admitting they have been very wrong for a very wrong time. And they cannot do that.

Neither can the Frau, it would seem.

Bye bye Euro?

Today is the anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. We all know the first bomb was dropped on August the 6th 1945 on Hiroshima, but the second one on August the 9th is not often recalled. It was equally devastating and perhaps even more than inhuman, in that the Hiroshima bomb had already demonstrated what this weapon would do.

History is strewn with the inhumanity perpetrated by humans. If this is not an oxymoron. There are always reasons. We had to end the war. For the bomb. We had to eradicate the evil race threatening our civilization. The German concentration camps.

There is always a reason. The vilest of human, that is inhuman behaviour is always justified. Take the Spanish Holy Inquisition. This was the highest calling of all. In God’s name we devised and carried out the most horrendous torture on God’s children. To save their souls we ravished their bodies!

Though not comparable to the above cited horrors, the German led EU now cites very good accounting reasons for why it is throwing millions of people all over the continent into destitution, lowering life expectancy through the willful dismantling of all healthcare services and so on.

We have to do it. To reduce the deficit. To reduce debt.

It never occurs to any of these enlightened despots that there may be another way. That there may be a humane way. Or that anyway, what they purport to be trying to do, balance the books in our case, is perhaps not of the primary importance they pretend it is.

And what they never ever admit to is that, hey, maybe we did get it wrong! Look at the results!

No. The results are always attributed to other factors, other players, and usually to the victims of their actions themselves.

That is why I am not too optimistic that the Eurozone situation will get sorted out and in time.

It would take guts and it would take vision to do that. Qualities sorely lacking in all those making the decisions.

Standard & Poor’s has just cut Greece’s rating from stable (stable CCC that is of course) to negative because, we are told: “… Greece is likely to miss the financial targets set by its lenders which increases the risk of the country defaulting on its debts.”

Well I never! Is there really a risk of Greece defaulting on its debts? The question is not “if” it will default but when and how. And I have to repeat for the umpteenth time it is time to stop whipping this dead horse. It will never come to life. It’s dead. And again, must I reiterate, how can a country begin repaying its debts when your targets and formulas for getting the economy on track have only lead to a full blown depression and an economy that continues to sink fast. How do you repay a debt if your lender refuses to let you work to earn any money?

But who gives a damn about any of this? No, Greece must meet its targets and it must make cuts of a further 11.5 billion or else!!!! Threat against threat! No more money to prop up banks. Hmm….

Now, our current Minister of Finances, perhaps the only sincere man in this whole nonsensical charade, is trying his best to find the 11.5 billion. What for though? Even if he does, this will only lead to a further deterioration of the economy and an eventual default anyway. Does he not know that?

He does of course. But he has an idea in mind which is: “We must stay alive until Europe comes up with a complete solution to the Eurozone.“

In other words he knows very well it is all nonsense leading to hell, but we must mark time, stay within the Euro till a comprehensive solution for the Euro is found so Greece can remain within the Eurozone.

Though the only coherent thing we have heard from our governments so far, I am afraid there are three draw backs to this policy at this time.

The first, that Mr Stournaras assumes that the Eurozone will find a complete solution to the mess, and also that this will not take that long. A BIG assumption on both counts.

Second, that such a solution can be found without making a scapegoat or perhaps ritual sacrifice of Greece who all along has been roundly blamed for everyone else’s mistakes and not just her own.

And last but not least, he expects the Greek people will hold their breath till this miracle happens. But by the time it does, if it does, we will all have died of suffocation.

But this is August, the London Olympics going strong to keep our minds off the ominous future. In an case, Armageddon wont happen before some time in September. So one of the sports I have watched with interest is the synchronised swimming.

It couldn’t help reminding me of Esther Williams and those magnificent Ziegfeld Follies. What a spectacle. I have no intention of denigrating all the effort and hard work going into this, but I just couldn’t help thinking of Mme Christine Lagarde who practiced this sport we are told, and thinking just how much like the Ziegfeld Follies she and her antics really are.

Inadvertently Mario Monti has hit the nail on the head in his Der Spiegel interview. What he said, about European leaders needing to free themselves from their Parliaments, and the German outraged response, that we need more Democracy rather than less have, at last, pin pointed the crux of the matter when it comes to the EU’s utter dysfunction!

And first we have to define the meaning of Democracy. In this debate I would be one hundred percent on the German side, only we don’t seem to have the same concept of what Democracy means. In the current Monti – Merkel spat, all sides of the German political spectrum have joined to defend their democratic decision making process and they are right to do so. One hundred percent right.

Only it would be nice if they extended their staunch defence of Democratic processes to the other countries of the EU, particularly the weaker down trodden ones, where it has been German practice to ride rough shod over all and any democratic processes.

A few examples of this. Perhaps the most glaringly insulting one was when Papandreou announced he would be holding a referendum on the terms of the new “bail out” in Greece. Merkel stamped her foot, summoned him like a vassal to Cannes (and the fool went, but that was his mistake not Merkel’s) and instructed him like an Imperial Governor that he was NOT to hold a referendum! Or if he did, it would be She, The Frau who would tell him when to hold it and what to ask!

Incidentally her ‘what to ask’ opened a can of worms that have been running riot all over Europe ever since. The question, Do you want to remain in the Euro? Thereby accepting by default that the Euro was NOT here to stay as poor Draghi keeps croaking.

Next, she told the Italians they could not hold an election despite their political impasse and imposed the good and obedient (as she thought) technocrat, Mario Monti instead. The same thing happened in Greece with the appointment of the Technocrat Papademos of questionable ability, to say the least. And thereafter German acquiescence had to be sought to hold elections with Herr Schauble (a Minister of another state) finally conceding, and then propagnadizing outrageously in favour of one party against another.

An unacceptable meddling into the affairs of another Democratic state. In addition Greece is required to fire 150,000 public sector employees and is forced to sign up on this or be deprived of any funds at all. There is no excuse for what the Greek government did, under duress or not (this is where Mr Papademos’ judgement comes into question) but Greek Public Service Employees happen have tenure for life and this is enshrined in the Constitution.

I do not agree with this, but it came about for reasons going back in history. Nevertheless, the firing of these employees is Unconstitutional. No matter! Fire them or drown! Says The Frau. The Greek Constitution is, for her, nothing but a piece of expendable rubbish.

So, what we have here is a double standard to say the least. And in fact touches on the crux of the matter where it comes to utter European dysfunction. It is not the Economics but the Politics that is at the heart of the European Crisis.

The EU has become George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where some animals are equaller than others. In the novel it is the pigs who are top dog… (excuse the pun, I couldn’t resist it). In today’s EU the PIIGS are the scum of the earth and the Germans are the Orwellian Pigs. That is, Germany is equaller than others here. So Germany’s Constitution must be upheld, Germany’s Parliamentary procedures must be respected and so on. Yes. Of course.

But should not Germany show the same respect for Constitutional legitimacy and Democratic processes in the other states too? Well no. She doesn’t. When it comes to Europe she can behave like the strutting Imperial power she believes she has become and thumb her nose at everybody and anybody else’s Democratic rights and legitimacy. Which is what she has been doing throughout the Crisis.

Now Monti, poor Monti, he got the wrong end of the stick. He urged that leaders should free themselves from the fetters of their own Parliaments to deal effectively and swiftly with the escalating problems of the Euro. What he meant was that we can’t wait for your Constitutional Court to decide on the EMS, say, in September when it is all on the verge of coming crashing down much sooner. Do something! Quick! Is his anguished cry.

But perhaps, being an appointed technocrat, he put the cart before the horse. What is needed if Europe is to function and not collapse in a heap of fragmented national hatreds, is MORE democracy Mario, not less. So far the leaders have been doing just as they please with no reference to elected bodies or the will of the people. The People of Europe do not exist. They do not have a collective voice. The European Parliament is a castrated talking shop that can make no significant decisions.

So what we need is European Democracy and no more appointed stuffed shirts like Barroso and Rompuy who simply listen to their Master’s (Mistress’s actually) voice and do her bidding quite regardless of any will of the European People.

If Europe is to work and the sovereignty of individual states is to be consigned to a central governing body in order to function, this Central Governing Body CANNOT be the German State with all its trappings, to the exclusion of all other states. If there is to be a proper European Entity, Germany too must forfeit her sovereignty to the Central Governing Body. There is no other way.

But this Central Governing Body cannot be a group of appointed apparatchiks as it is now. It cannot be dominated by the strongest state to the detriment of all others as it is now. It can only come about through free and fair elections throughout Europe. The Government can only come about through this universal European suffrage. Now whether this will be on the USA model or some other federal model is, at this point immaterial.

What is interesting is that although in his legitimate panic Monti has called for less Democracy and Germany has dug her heels in in defence of her own Democracy, the real problem is that Germany doesn’t want Democracy for Europe, neither as a whole, still less for the individual states constituting it. Only for her self!

And Monti, if he thinks about it, doesn’t want Less Democracy, but a truly Democratic Europe where decisions taken at summits, for instance, are acted upon immediately, rather than allowed to fall by the way side by the big bully on the block who is fuming with resentment at the little pip squeak who forced her hand.

Be careful Monti, you dared cross The Frau. Notoriously Germans do not like to be crossed by minor entities.  Those who dare do so are designated to be “taught a lesson”! And we all know what that means!

But Mario, you have the greatest ace up your sleeve! You can leave the Euro tomorrow and the Italian Economy will flourish! To the detriment of the German Economy of course. So which is it to be?

In our persistent but feeble attempts to try and understand just what the hell is going on with the so called European sovereign debt crisis, we keep coming up against a brick wall. It’s all so illogical! All solutions pressed and imposed lead to the opposite of what they were supposed to do. And yet, the so called leaders of Europe persist in spoon feeding the rest of Europe with the same deadly potion again and again. And here, logically enough, this has lead to the creation of the death spiral that Europe now finds itself well in the throes of.

It is illogical! It is Nonsensical! It is down right stupid! Not to mention completely counter productive. In fact it is a living example of Einstein’s definition of stupidity. That is when you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting that this time you will achieve a different result.

So why is this happening? For all the scorn I have poured over the likes of Frau Merkel, Mme Lagarde, Herr Schauble, Junker, Barroso, Van Rompuy and the rest, it is unfair to claim they are all stupid! At the very least they may be devious and self serving, but not stupid. So what is going on here?

I have been accused of trying in vain to find some narrative that will explain all these ludicrous events when, quite simply, there isn’t a coherent story. I have also been told that all this is not the result of some decision making and policy implementation, but merely the cyclical dynamics of an inevitable decline.

Well, I can’t argue with any of these, can I? But being first and foremost a story teller, I DO have to find some kind of a narrative! So I thought I would offer a medical metaphor this time.

And that is that the European project has turned cancerous.

When the European Coal and Steel Union, which later metamorphosed into the EEC, then the EU and its EZ branch, was originally set up it was for one reason alone. Germany had devastated the continent through vicious and barbaric warfare not once but twice within less than half a century. Such a union in the heart of Europe, tying up the economies of France and Germany at first and then the six and so on, would lead to peace on the continent.

And so it did. Extremely successfully. Though the European project never really caught the hearts and minds of the people, it did appear to abolish all belligerency between them, and perhaps even bring them a little closer. Until, the culprit of the story finally realised that all this, the Euro in particular, after the Marshall Plan funds, had made her top dog Economically in Europe again.

At which point Germany reverted to type. You do as I say, as I decide, because I know better, or else you will be severely punished! Now here, we have to put part of the blame on that inept narcissistic French politician who managed to become President of the Republic, Sarkozy. Instead of balancing Germany and keeping her in check, as had been the role of France from the Community’s very inception, he decided it would be more fun? less strenuous? more suited to his servility? to become the bully’s side kick instead of its counterweight.

And we have now reached the point where the break up not only of the Euro Zone but perhaps even the EU itself is not only not inconceivable any more but is even beginning to look inevitable.

Here I agree, deficits, debt, recession inducing measures and so on are irrelevant as an explanation. What has happened is that Europe has reverted to from. The peoples of Europe who never really acquired a “European” identity for all the bluster,  have been pushed back into their age old national prejudices.

The states of the north who did very well out of the Euro because it opened up a market for them in the south they otherwise would never have had, are now back to feeling that they are superior, more civilized, better than those swarthy, lazy, good for nothing (not to mention racially inferior) southerners who, they believe, created the mess! So they should be punished.

In their turn, the southerners, and particularly those who experienced the horrors of German occupation in the last war,  see their former dynasts as being out to get them again, to throw them into poverty and rip off all their assets. Much the same way they did during the war.

The peoples of Europe have begun to hate each other again. They hate the arbitrary way Germany is perceived to be throwing her weight around. In their turn, Germans hate the way they are expected, as they see it, to keep paying for the profligacy of the south. The truth is completely absent from these narratives. Partly (if not wholly) because of the propaganda, or populism used by ALL politicians throughout Europe for their own self serving interests and hang the interests of their own country and even more “Europe”.

So the EU, originally set up to abolish belligerency within Europe and create co operation and solidarity between the peoples of Europe in order to eradicate war, is now doing exactly the reverse. Europe has turned in on itself. The European Union is now fanning the destructive fires of national prejudices and hatreds that it was set up to quell.

In effect, a cancer is now eating up Europe against which there no longer seems to be an effective antidote.