A time for political innovation and renewal?
The editorial in the Irish Times, this morning, concludes with the statement to which I have added a question mark in the headline to this posting! It also includes the following paragraph:
Britain, outside the Euro Group, and happily now also the absurd Fiscal Treaty, has nothing to offer or contribute in the further period of navel gazing upon which the economically sclerotic EU is about to embark.
As the editorial also comments, however, it is elections that will actually now set the agenda, not that on the referendum in Ireland on the Fiscal Treaty, of which Ireland is unhappily only a paid supplicant rather than contributor, but those in France and subsequently in Germany where Merkozy, the architect of the growing disaster will eventually be judged.
Supposedly President Sarkozy belongs to Europe's centre right, but there is no such thing as a non-socialist or non-corpoatist in France. Similarly in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's background makes her nominal membership of a centre right political grouping somewhat suspect. Will the hard left emerge in France and Germany or will the present elite continue to control, heavily hidden and disguised as ever - now that really is an interesting question, to be determined, I would suggest, according to the rate and depth towards which the engulfing EU economic catastrophe now advances!
The work put into stabilising the euro zone ranges from completing the €130 billion bailout package for Greece, endorsing the action by the European Central Bank in pumping €1,000 billion liquidity into the euro zone banking system, and negotiating the fiscal compact treaty. Whether it will buy two or three years’ time to put these other measures in place, as Dr Merkel believes, very much remains to be seen. The structural and institutional changes required badly need to be spelled out in more detail and be subject to much more widespread political debate throughout Europe.
Britain, outside the Euro Group, and happily now also the absurd Fiscal Treaty, has nothing to offer or contribute in the further period of navel gazing upon which the economically sclerotic EU is about to embark.
As the editorial also comments, however, it is elections that will actually now set the agenda, not that on the referendum in Ireland on the Fiscal Treaty, of which Ireland is unhappily only a paid supplicant rather than contributor, but those in France and subsequently in Germany where Merkozy, the architect of the growing disaster will eventually be judged.
Supposedly President Sarkozy belongs to Europe's centre right, but there is no such thing as a non-socialist or non-corpoatist in France. Similarly in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's background makes her nominal membership of a centre right political grouping somewhat suspect. Will the hard left emerge in France and Germany or will the present elite continue to control, heavily hidden and disguised as ever - now that really is an interesting question, to be determined, I would suggest, according to the rate and depth towards which the engulfing EU economic catastrophe now advances!
Labels: EU collapse, Merkozy
posted by Martin at 6:31 AM
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