Monday, March 9, 2015

Ekaterina Blinova — Eurozone: A Union of Democracies or Berlin's Backyard?

Berlin has transformed the European Union from a union of democracies into an "empire," imposing its will on the indebted Eurozone periphery, a British analyst notes.

Philippe Legrain, a former economic advisor to the president of the European Commission, expressed his growing concerns regarding evident constraints imposed on democracy in the Eurozone by Germany and Brussels.
 
The author is citing German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, who claimed ahead of the Greek elections in January 2015 that "new elections change nothing." And he was right: regardless of their electoral pledges, Greek authorities have been forced to accept the bailout conditions, voiced by the "omnipotent" German finance minister. 
The analyst underscored that Greece's issue is not the only one: in almost every election since the financial crisis of 2008 European voters "have thrown out their government, only to be told by Schauble and his Eurozone minions that the new administration must stick to the failed policies that the voters have just rejected."....
Fourth Reich?

Sputnik
Eurozone: A Union of Democracies or Berlin's Backyard?
Ekaterina Blinova

4 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

I’m getting bored to tears by people (normally lefties) who make the blindingly obvious point that membership of the European Union and/or Eurozone involves a loss of “democracy” and sovereignty. Alaska enjoys less “democracy” as a result of being part of the US than if it were independent. Boo hoo.

Moreover, the EZ is a system in which each nation (rightly or wrongly) is supposed to pay its way. Those were the rules of the game when it was set up. That inevitably gives power to creditor nations, e.g. Germany. Plus creditors wielding power over debtors is NORMAL: if there were no EZ, creditors would still probably dominate debtors. “He who pays the piper calls the tune”.

NeilW said...

Creditors wielding power over debtors is limited by two things.

(i) bankruptcy.
(ii) the size of the loan.

Generally the bigger the loan the less influence the creditor has since the debtor knows they can cause serious damage to the creditor by pulling the bankruptcy plug.

The reset button threat is what keeps creditors under control. That much we learnt from debtor's prisons.

Tom Hickey said...

Ralph I’m getting bored to tears by people (normally lefties) who make the blindingly obvious point that membership of the European Union and/or Eurozone involves a loss of “democracy” and sovereignty. Alaska enjoys less “democracy” as a result of being part of the US than if it were independent. Boo hoo.

Actually, this has been a huge deal politically since the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, much to the dismay of the states' righters.

Schofield said...

Trying to run your money creation system on a closed as opposed to open system as the Eurozone does automatically involves a de facto loss of democracy!

http://economicsrantsnmusings.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=1