State of the Union EMU

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Göran Persson och federalismen

Ever closer union

State of the Union

Bankunion är på väg
"a big step towards more European integration – a genuine transfer of sovereignty
and a significant strengthening of European institutions"
Wolfgang Schäuble, Financial Times, August 30, 2012

What would make some difference is if the money provided were not some sort of loan but rather an outright gift.
Such gifts can be made in advance (although they rarely are) or after the event, when they are called write-offs.
Sometimes a recipient itself turns what was once a loan into a gift. This is called a default.
But northern countries understandably don't want their past loans turned into gifts, and
they don't want to be forced to make new gifts until the crack of doom.
Roger Bootle, Telegraph 24 June 2012
Highly recommended

Herman Van Rompuy on Tuesday published a plan for the future of the eurozone
The plan calls for progress towards commonly issued eurozone bonds and the eventual establishment of central EU treasury
The proposal – which urges the eurozone to work simultaneously towards a banking union, fiscal union and political union
– contains measures that move beyond what some member states have indicated they are willing to accept.
Financial Times 26 June 2012

If you want to understand what is happening to the European Union’s constitution, the EU flag is a good place to start.
European leaders will agree to delete references to the flag in the constitution.
Everybody knows the flags will keep flying.
The words in the constitution will change. But the substance will remain the same.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times June 12 2007

It is a union of nation states that has created something
less than a federation and more than an alliance.
how much did that vision presume the blurring or even fading away completely of national boundaries and identities?
Was ever closer political union a way of describing a federal or super state?
Chris Patten, FT June 2 2010

It is a union of nation states that has created something
less than a federation and more than an alliance.
How much did that vision presume the blurring or even fading away completely of national boundaries and identities?
Was ever closer political union a way of describing a federal or super state?
Chris Patten, FT June 2 2010

The truth is that the vision we are offered is too often dated, irrelevant and impractical, and that we require pragmatism, common sense and honesty to bridge the yawning gulf between rhetoric and reality.

To argue that the democratic legitimisation of what happens in the EU depends on its component nation states is not to display a lack of vision.

A third question points to the role of Europe beyond the achievement of a sort of glorified customs union.

Through example and enlargement Europe has promoted stability around its borders. The task is not yet completed. We still have much to do in the Balkans.

Above all, we should understand that the really existential issue for Europe is how we handle Turkey’s membership application.

The single currency was created by eurocrats, foisted upon its people and bound to end in tears.
Liam Halligan Daily Telegraph 29 May 2010

"We are clearly confronted with a tension within the system," Van Rompuy opined.
"The dilemma of being a monetary union and not a fully-fledged economic and political union.
The tension has been there since the single currency was created. However, the general public was not really made aware of it."

Despite what Van Rompuy says, some of us – economists, politicians and commentators – have been shouting about the dangers of the eurozone for many years.

When we did, the trough-nuzzling, self-appointed EU elite, which Van Rompuy represents down to the tip of his Mont Blanc pen, dismissed our concerns as "alarmist" and "anti-European".
Meanwhile, the Brussels publicity machine spent vast amounts of taxpayers' money on propaganda telling the Western European public that the eurozone was not only safe, but if their countries didn't join then "jobs and growth" would suffer.

I wrote in a national newspaper column over a decade ago, "but I find it difficult to see how an 11-member eurozone can be maintained over the long term in the absence of substantial fiscal transfers".

The former chancellor, Denis Healey – not my kind of politician, but an intellectually able and honest man – was another shouter. "European Monetary Union is either a step towards political union or it will fail," he boomed in April 1998.

Nobel-Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, also weighed in early, warning the single currency would ultimately cause major problems. "The euro was really adopted for political and not economic purposes, as a step towards the myth of the United States of Europe," Friedman declared in September 1997. "I believe its effect will be exactly the opposite."

The economic contradictions of the eurozone are being laid bare, exposing for all to see the political hubris and vanity upon which the entire edifice was built. Yet Van Rompuy and his ilk are incapable of admitting they were wrong. Instead, they claim "nobody" ever warned the public about the dangers of joining the euro.