After two and half years of dithering, fudging, kicking the can down the road, mismanaging, imposing a rigid, ineffective antediluvian austerity policy, the EU has final screeched to a halt in front of the make it or break it point. What everyone knew from the beginning but no one dared even say openly, finally has to be dealt with. In a hurry. If there is to be a monetary union it can no longer continue in this distorted way. There has to be fiscal union, banking union, above all perhaps “cultural” union as Warren Buffet has put it.
Angela Merkel’s total mismanagement of the crisis has done a great disservice to the prospects of a proper European Union. Apart from her Nonsense Economics based on dogmatic rigidity, her modus operandi has been perhaps fatal to any hope of building the cultural union required for such a project to succeed.
She has thrown her weight around, acted like the schoolyard bully and perhaps worse of all played to her gallery. That is she has used a populism to lure and dupe her own voters in Germany and created bad will and hostility all around. To the German electorate she has presented Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean countries as lazy, good for nothing profligate parasites.
She has lied to her electorate consistently making them believe that these infamous and destructive ‘bailouts’ were direct hand outs, perhaps even gifts, from the German taxpayer to the profligate Greeks who do nothing but sit in the sun all day while the Germans work their buts off. She has consistently failed to admit that this has all been a nice little earner for Germany, she has failed to explain that the German surpluses were only achieved owing to the Euro enabling the southerners to buy so many German products and so on.
On the other hand, the so called bail out policies have been imposed in such a heavy handed insensitive way, making the people least responsible for the mess bleed most, that it is not surprising that ill will and animosity has spread throughout the peoples of Europe.
The Greeks identify all things German with the Nazi occupiers of the war, the Germans think of the Greeks as subhuman leeches and so on. Angela Merkel has undermined the very basis on which any European Union could be formed. This has to change drastically if there is any hope ahead. Unfortunately such mending takes time and that is one thing the EU no longer has since The Frau managed to squander it all together with any goodwill there was.
And since things are pressing and ideas are being hurriedly bandied about, we must not forget (as we are currently doing) that no such union can ever be based on anything but full democracy. Otherwise it will just become another German Empire. So it is all very well saying we must proceed with fiscal union and an integration of the banking sector and all countries must now surrender their sovereignty to Brussels, even for defence matters and so on, but “Brussels” has yet to be defined.
If by Brussels we mean the Merkel led directorate of unelected unaccountable spineless Eurocrats currently running the show, then that will never work. And another matter of paramount importance is, when we say “fiscal integration” and that Brussels will be the one to decide on budgets, are we implying that there is also no choice in what kind of policy we, the people of Europe want?
Are we implying that we all have to sign up to the neo liberal Chicago School ideal of no welfare! No labour rights! Growing economic inequality and so on? This is what “Brussels” under The Frau’s iron boot is imposing. This is in fact the recession inducing policy that has brought Europe to its knees and is threatening to tear it asunder.
If Europe is to integrate properly it can only do so in a democratic way. That is we cannot start by fiscal integration if we have not defined what kind of integration we want. More deregulation for banks say, or the preservation of European values and rights that have been gained through revolutions and blood?
This is not something that can be left to unaccountable politicians playing the populist game to their own electorate while ignoring everyone else. We cannot start by surrendering sovereignty to Brussels like a blank check, letting them impose a dastardly neoliberal policy on the whole of Europe and then wonder why the continent has burst out in flames again. If integration is to succeed it cannot be done by bits and pieces. This is after all what got Europe into the soup in the first place.
First we’ll set up a monetary union which we know can’t work without fiscal union but we’ll see about that later on. Well it is later on right now and that kind of wishy washy, bit by bit policy cannot work anymore.
It is make or break time and before we surrender anything to “Brussels” we must ensure that “Brussels” is defined by the will of Europe’s peoples. The European Parliament must become the seat of all power. The EP must be the body that elects and controls the Commission. And of course there must be debate and voting on what kind of Europe do we want? What is our top priority? The welfare of our peoples or the welfare of the financial wizards, say?
In the climate of hostility and ill will between the peoples of Europe spawned by Mme Merkel this will be a tough goal to achieve, but a necessary one.
Without full democratic integration of Europe there can never be any other kind.