As the crisis has gone from bad to worse, one thing that has become very clear, is that it is not only the Monetary Union that is fatally flawed, but also the decision making process. As we have witnessed, it is not a process at all. It is a mess. A mess which always ends up in the same way. Do nothing much. Put it off for the next summit.
But what about these gentlemen in the picture and the whole of the commission and other “dignitaries” such as the head of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers?
There is the President of the Commission, which has been well served by people like Jacques Delors who had a vision, who knew how to get things done and who had clout. Today what do we have? A bunch of inept nonentities who do nothing at all. Or worse, are ignored when they try.
Take poor old Herman Van Rompuy, Mr “Who are you?” in Nigel Farage’s memorable mordant designation. He keeps scuttling around, wasting his time drawing up plans for the way forward, and how to effect full fiscal and monetary integration and all sorts of lovely things like that. Which are immediately thrown unread into the trash can by the Real Leader (what is the word for leader in German again?).
So, the whole of the EU paraphernalia are from useless to dangerous. A bunch of appointed, very well paid apparatchicks who make no contribution at all to any of the decisions that have to be made. As a result, what do we get?
Endless meetings and summits where Ministers and Prime Ministers and Heads of State all gather physically in Brussels to hash out whatever it is on the agenda. The hang around for hours and hours, enjoying good dinners with very good wines, we re told, and in the most successful of cases, end up agreeing to some fudge in the wee hours of the morning. A time when no one’s mind is really fully functional any more. And this shows in the way the decisions unravel.
How is it possible, at this stage in history, with all the technology now available, with all the experience of history at everyone’s fingertips, that such an important decision making body should be so clumsy, so crude and, in the end so utterly inefficient?
The summit meetings or meetings of Ministers should be nothing more than rubber stamps for negotiations and agreements that have already been reached or hammered out at lower levels. Instead we are treated to a performance of wrangling and in fighting over unprepared matters where the Euro apparatchicks are totally irrelevant.
So it is hardly surprising they are all upbeat, telling us the worse of the crisis is over, things getting better, next year will see growth and all the other claptrap.
Claptrap designed to hide the truth of the matter. Which is that in the absence of any real European institutions, the country with the most money (and least diplomacy) has decided to run the show to its own advantage. And not only does no one object, but no one even notices or minds. The Eurocrats are quite happy to be ridiculed and ignored and even reviled, as long as they remain appointees and do not have to be elected.
The other leaders, inevitably, all follow their own national interests. And how else could that be when it is top dog who is doing it worse than all the others?
And everybody acknowledges out loud, with a shrug of “so what?” acceptance, that no decisions on any of the important matters, like the banking union or Greece, can even be contemplated before the German elections lest Frau Merkel lose these elections.
So the whole of the EU has accepted to have as its only priority at this stage, the election prospects of one woman.
Does this make any sense? Does it inspire confidence in the future of Europe?