Crisis in the United States of Europe Not

Twenty-seven European countries belong to the European Union (EU). They include Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain. All are in the grip of an economic crisis. But in Central Europe, there is a small country that is doing pretty well-even Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. Why are all of its larger neighbours in trouble? There’s a simple answer:

The dominant EU countries have allowed their dream of rivaling the United States as a powerful Federal State blind them to economic reality, and democratic politics. They took their eyes off the ball.

The name of the game at the foundation of the EEC (European economic community, forerunner of the European Union) was economic cooperation between independent nations of self-governing. European countries speak English, Spanish, German, French and Italian and the languages of many smaller countries. And have different systems of Government. So you can create a single patriotic nation like the United States of America only to sit and write a European Constitution. But that is what France and Germany have tried to do-have created a European Parliament (EP) which aims to clear trees from the national parliaments. But it doesn’t work. The people of Great Britain, for example, only becoming aware that exist when obtaining a ballot paper asking them to elect their “MEP” from a list of candidates, few if any of whom are known for their. The turnout for the election is small. United States of Europe (use) may be a reasonable aspiration, but only on a time scale of decades, one small step at a time, answering the question, not imposed on unwilling people.

Dissatisfied with the European Parliament (which is absurdly expensive and meets in two place, Brussels and Strasbourg), have created a European Central Bank (ECB) to oversee a new “Federal” currency, the euro. Of the 27 EU Member States, 17 discarded the national currencies to the euro. It was supposed to be another step toward a federal Europe, but they put the cart (the single currency) before the horse (the democratic desire to the Federation). The result is a political and economic crisis.

This was predictable. As you might expect a single bank, the ECB, in order to protect the individual national interests of 17 different countries? Before the merger of currencies, each country had its own Central Bank that has co-operated with the national Government to regulate currency according to the economic interests of the country. This power is gone and we see the disastrous result in this Euro crisis. The interests of Germany and Greece are in opposition. Germany experience terrible inflation in the 1920s and resolves never to let anything happen to them again. So they insist that the Greek Government must balance its budget by cutting jobs and pensions, regardless of political consequences. But Greece is already experimenting with public protests against the cuts and wants the ECB to come to her rescue. Currently there is stalemate. In the old days, could Greece devalued the drachma to become more competitive and get growing again. Now they share their currency with Germany. The EU’s problem seems to stand out so far Greece’s sovereign Government and let EU Commissioners tell them what needs to be done.

Welcome to the flourishing used; Goodbye to European democracy.

I hope that important people in public life will come to see it as a duty to say, clearly and concisely ‘ where they are coming from-their ‘ My belief in a nutshell ‘.