Lots of bright ideas to solve the European crisis are being bandied about, from creating a new G-Euro, to replace the Euro in Greece at a lower value. How exactly this would work is not entirely clear. To anyone. To former German deputy finance minister Jorg Asmussen’s for a politically integrated eurozone that will be a “banking union, fiscal union, political union”.
Though this last proposal does sound extremely sensible, is there enough time to constitute such a union before the whole thing blows up in our faces? Not to mention the complex intricacies of what would actually be agreed to. That is a fully democratic union or another German imperial project where everyone cedes their sovereignty to the German Imperium?
As for the famous Euro bonds, after yet another resounding Nien from The Frau how can we hope for any remedy of the mess she has made of Europe? Let alone a remedy that may be set to work immediately since the EU no longer really has any time left.
So back to the very old idea. When the Greek armies had gathered to set sail for Troy at Aulis, the wind wouldn’t blow for them to launch their ships. So for the project to take off the Gods decreed that King Agamemnon of Mycenae, the top King of the pack (something like Angela Merkal perhaps, unless that is not a politically correct thing to say) would have to sacrifice his own daughter for the winds to blow in the direction of Troy.
The daughter who was sacrificed was none other than Iphigenia, tricked into coming to Aulis through a promise of betrothal to the hero Achilles. Now after she was sacrificed the winds did blow and the infamous “thousand ships” launched by that capricious lady Helen set off for the ensuing carnage.
The story, however, did not have a happy end. After ten years of war, when Agamemnon returned home he was savagely murdered by his wife, Iphigenia’s mother, and her lover, plunging the whole family into turmoil and more murder.
At this point the only thing that may save the rest of the EU is if Iphigenia/Greece is sacrificed. It is hoped and believed by a great many that if we throw the sick gall of Europe completely out onto the streets without a penny to her name, then the Union will have got rid of its problems and will sail off smoothly into the sunset.
So, many are hoping and planning and engineering such a sacrifice. Amputate the ailing limb! Turn Greece into the modern Iphigenia. It was their idea in the first place.
Such a solution is getting ominously nearer. It is difficult to envisage that Germany under today’s leadership will agree to anything sensible that might turn the Euro project round and bring it back on course. Would the Iphigenia style sacrifice of Greece do the trick?
Hardly! But it would play oh so well with The Frau’s voters. At least for the very short run.
When this happens, we shall go with the same dignity.