What are Britain, France and Italy to do about Germany?

Under the guise of a review of two books on Germany, the Charlemagne column in tomorrow's Economist Magazine raises the reality of German power in today's EU. Read here.

On the week of the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, this seems most appropriate. Norman Tebbit, one of her closest ministerial colleagues, finely tuned in to her beliefs, in his comment last weekend for the Mail, blamed those in her Party who had her removed as working for Brussels, many suspect that is in fact merely code for German influence and objectives.

The 26 other countries of the EU will eventually have to decide their own attitudes to German control of their former nations, many European citizens whose forebears fought and emigrated to avoid such a fate, are likely to be unhappy at that prospect.

The leaders of the larger non-German EU ex-nations have a formidable problem to face, Italy actually physically lacks a leader as well as the character attributes one associates with such a position, as seems to be the case for both Britain and France. Nevertheless something has to be faced, we cannot go on much longer with children being allowed to starve in Greece, as was reported in the New York Times yesterday!

Cameron should send his Alternate to the E-Council on the MFF

At 2000 hrs CET this evening EU leaders will gather in Brussels for the Group Portrait of the Special European Council 22/23 November 2012 (extendable as necessary) called to agree the Multiannual Financial Framework for the EU from 2014 to 2020.

IF PM Cameron values his neck, he will send his designated Alternate with the sole authority being to veto any agreement that may be presented or advanced. That in fact is his own sole authority on this vast spending programme, as designated recently by our own sovereign Parliament.

The EU should not be discussing the MFF starting in 2014 this weekend, it should be finding the funds to reduce the 128.5% of GDP rumoured on Twitter to be the present Troika estimate of Greece's 2020 GDP to the IMF targeted 120%. A matter not involving Britain!

Present polls in the UK indicate 56% dissatisfaction with the EU which figure is growing strongly. As blogged yesterday morning, it is widely recognised on the Continent that Britain is heading towards the EU exit.

No Prime Minister, who values his own neck, could possibly be sufficiently sure of the coming uncertain and dangerous events to commit the nation to a further seven years of funding the waste, corruption and incompetence that the EU now quite clearly represents.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the USA. Rarely since the war have those Americans of European descent, had so much to be thankful to their ancestors for, in making the journey West, to escape the old Continent which once again seems bent on proving itself chaotic, essentially corrupt and ultimately ungovernable.

Maxed out Eurozone members meet into the night

Like a family of bankrupt spendthrifts the finance ministers of the Eurozone countries met into the night to fight over how they might start to pay off the massive debts and bailout obligations they have run-up over recent years.

The IMF in effectively blocking further advances by insisting Greek debt falls to 120% of GDP by 2020 means actual money transfers rather than vague promises will now have to be made.

Best not mentioned for the moment are the extra huge commitments run up by the ECB that future generations are almost certainly going to refuse to meet!

I will report again on this meeting on this blog when and if any real news emerges during the day

Former EU Commission President Prodi foretells "Grave Difficulties" for Britain

There is a wide-randing interview with the Italian politician, Romano Prodi, (whose own legacy to his own country incudes the present EU appointed PM,) in the pro-EU online website EurActiv, linked here.

The main section of the report on Cameron and Britain is quoted below:

"I do understand Cameron because his country is different from others. It is coherent with the Cameron doctrine that they do not want to take more part in the budget," Prodi said, noting the importance of the financial industry for Britain. "But they will become less powerful and someday they will be in grave difficulties," Prodi predicted;

 'Cameron will not stop Europe. He will simply get out of the room' 

Speaking of Cameron, the former Commission President warned: "He will not stop Europe. He will simply get out of the room in which decisions are being made." Since Britain's veto on the EU's fiscal treaty in December last year, senior EU and politicians now seem to accept that Britain should be left to cuts ties from the rest of the continent.

Turning to Greece and grave difficulties already in hand, a two day general strike starts in that ground-down and mortally wounded country today, as its villainous political class seems set to further strangle its citizens to gain a few more months of being able to collect their own danegeld!

Are Greece, Ireland and Portugal prepared to default to the EFSF?

The posting beneath this links to the "Lenihan Letter" which supposedly legitimises "RULE BY TROIKA" in Ireland. It appears to have been constructed on some very shifting sands.

One presumes that as ever amounts advanced by the IMF are secured, but can the same be said for sums advanced and due to the EFSF and the ECB. Can even money advanced by the EFSM, to which the UK is party, also really be considered as being of any worth, if not what percentage still is?

Should the three countries now barely surviving under the boot of the Troika decide that the game is no longer worth the candle, which given the comment below is quite clearly the case for Ireland, the EFSF commitments will then become due from the Sovereign State Guarantors.

Such a default would be particularly nasty timing for France, which has just pledged billions for Peugeot to continue making cars few wish to purchase!

Questions for Merkel, Schauble and all Germans

Following the decisions on legacy debt, insisted upon by Germany at last week's European Council Meeting of the EU's 27 Member States in Brussels:

What are the debts today of Greece, Ireland and Portugal as compared to those debts at the point of their entry into the Troika lending programmes?
 

I will wager that for each country they are today greater by a considerable amount than they were when each country entered their programmes, therefore:

What has been the point of all the unemployment, poverty, hunger and mass emigration the Troika imposed austerity has brought?  

Therefore thirdly and lastly:

Why has Germany again decided to crush and subjugate the entirety of Europe as the answers to the first two questions must lead one to conclude is their plan.

Britain and Europe

   I have been writing about Europe almost every day for a long time, almost as long as successive British Governments and Conservative Party politicians in particular have been doing all they could to not even think about it.  Even PM Cameron, with his well aimed attack of yesterday, as reported in The Sun, linked here, now seems aware that this feigned indifference cannot continue!

   The boycott of the Fiscal Compact contrived by Cameron at the final EU summit of last year, appears to have served little purpose, with an FTT or Tobin Tax proceeding under enhanced cooperation.

   The next logical British step,  a boycott of the single banking supervisor procedures agreed this week could not be justified given the UK has no eventual commitment to ever join EMU. The Czech threat of a veto is encouraging but the pressure to again fall into line will probably eventually prove irresistable.

   The solution clutched at by Cameron in yesterday's Brussels news conference, a new EU settlement followed by referendum acceptance or continuation of the pre-existing status quo, carries absurdity and expediency to new and ever more dizzying heights.

  What then to do? As I blogged first thing this morning, the economy has already broken down, appointment of a capable, experienced and functioning Governor of the Bank of England is thus priority number one, as then posted I believe Nigel Lawson fits the bill.

Next to go, quite clearly, is the Chancellor, George Osborne. Nick Clegg if he wishes his party to be saved from annihalation must now make this a condition of his continuing support for the Coalition .

   A British Foreign Policy towards a splitting EU must then urgently be prepared. A senior Liberal Democrat could concurrently be given responsibilty to assist in preventing such a breakdown occurring and negotiating a new place for the UK within, or among, the remanants of the failed EU!

   Saving what remains of sterling's value from the fallout from the euro disaster needs a seasoned and smart individual heading the Treasury, regular readers of my blog know well enough whom I prefer amongst the very few such that the nation presently seems to have available.

   Meantime watch the results of tomorrow's local elections in Spain as the best guide as to how much more time we may still have available to prepare.

   For a good report on the crumbling societies in Greece and Portugal watch Dateline London from the BBC this weekend!

Germany exposes the iron fist of solidarity over Greece & EADS

The following quote from Germany comes from the Chines media:

For his part, the FDP's parliamentary chief, Rainer Bruederle, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the chancellor's visit was “a clear sign of our solidarity with Greece.”  

Politicians from the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Greens struck a similar tone ahead of the visit, Merkel's first to Greece since the eurozone debt crisis ignited nearly three years ago.

Elsewhere German arrogance, disguised as EU solidarity, is displayed in the demand that should the merger of the Franco/German aircraft and defense firm EADS with British Aerospace be allowed to proceed, the combined company must be headquartered in Germany and the French and German Governments be given authority to retain state shareholdings.

Britain's remaining defence will thus lie almost entirely within foreign control, its non-EU markets in the USA, Australia, Canada and othe Commonwealth countries neutered and therefore our islands doomed to insignificance in a very short time.

Like Britain's power utilities, manufacturing industry, chemical busiuness and so many other once strong international concerns, British Aerospace will have been destroyed.

Less than 70 years since the end of WWII, Germany will have disarmed our country.

It seems the Prime Minister, David Cameron's party conference speech tomorrow could not fall at a more appropriate moment.

ESM Board to launch this vehicle for oppression today

As German Chancellor Merkel, travels to Athens today, to witness first hand the  squalor, human misery and destruction wrought by her policies over the past several years, the ESM, another tool for Germen domination of the European Continent will be inaugaurated in Luxembourg, in accordance with her desires and instructions, as reported here by RTE the Irish Broadcaster, whose ex-country is already entirely controlled by Germany through the same agency at work in Greece, known by the already everywhere reviled tag of "the Troika".

Those who actually control Merkel and the German Constitutional Court, which also appears to have now become their puppet, remain unkown and as yet still hidden from view.

Why would second placed Syriza enter a coalition on these results?

Given the 50 extra seats awarded to the winner, and the narrow 2.77% lead it took to gain them and the trend of voting between the two Greek elections and the disparity in voting between the old and the young - only one conclusion seems sensible this evening - CHAOS and UNCERTAINTY must continue for Greece

Enough Greek electoral folly - now back to Spain and Italy

Standard & Poor’s says the Spanish property crash is only halfway, yet the damage to the banking system so far has already forced the state to seek a €100bn (£80.4bn) bail-out. 

Spanish banks must roll over €545bn in debts, yet they are running out of collateral to borrow from the ECB. The banks can no longer prop up the state, and the state can no longer prop up the banks, and global investors will fund neither.

Ambrose Evan-Pritchard from the Telegraph this evening, linked here.

This blog predicted Greece would be a sideshow come the second election this year in Greece, with Spain and Italy at the forefront of concerns. I never would have guessed, however, that as the crunch moment arrived, the leaders of Germany, France and Britain would all be high-tailing it across the Atlantic to a beach resort in Mexico, for more wining, dining and pointless fantasy-world chat resolving nothing - (known in politer circles as the G20)

Why not inflate it up to the G100, like they did with our money for zero gain. G5, G7, G20 heck the precedent is set, the more countries the better the dinner conversation and the less chance of doing anything useful.

The consequences of Greece and Spain collapsing in tandem

The Economic Times from India has an interesting article on the consequences of the ever more likely-seeming combined collapse of Greece and Spain, read here.

The following is a brief extract, but the entire article is worth reading:

"When you have Greece and Spain happening at the same time, the problem becomes exponential and very, very dangerous," said Stephen Jen, a former economist at the International Monetary Fund who runs a hedge fund in London. "So far, the policy has been to buy time and build a firewall - but that just makes the cost bigger. There is just no good ending here."

The numbers do look dire.

Stephane Deo, an economist at UBS, estimates that the cost of a Greek exit to European taxpayers would be 225 billion euros, assuming Greece defaulted on the money it now owes to European public institutions.

But, he says, the real fear is that while that was happening, the slow-motion collapse of Spanish banks from toxic real estate loans could suddenly turn into a fast-moving bank run, as depositors pulled out their money.

With Spanish banks now holding deposits of 2.3 trillion euros, such a loss of confidence could be disastrous for Spain and for the highly interconnected global banking system. The financial world's assumption lately has been that it is sufficiently prepared to absorb the consequences of a Greek withdrawal from the euro. But if a Spanish banking collapse were factored in, Europe's long-dreaded "Lehman moment" might finally arrive. "The scale is just so much bigger, when you talk about Spain," Deo said.

A lighter hearted Sunday look at Greece and the Euro

Many thanks to a regular correspondent, who sent me this which struck me as so apt as to compell me to break my self-imposed weekend blogging embargo!

If you want a plain explanation as to what's happening in the Eurozone with regard to the Greek debacle, perhaps the following will enlighten you:

The tribal wisdom of the Lakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that; “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount". However, in government more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 1.  Buying a stronger whip. 2.  Changing riders. 3.  Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4.  Arranging to visit foreign countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. 5.  Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 6.  Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 7.  Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 8.  Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed 9.  Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance. 10.  Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance. 11.  Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses. 12.  Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And of course.... 13  Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

EU Commissioner confirms EU and ECB working on Euro Grexit

The report comes from ekathimerini, linked here.

Placeman Papademos informs his EU masters that all is OK in Greece except...

"Greece suffers from a lack of capacity to implement policy, manage public finances, collect taxes, open markets to competition, make public procurement work efficiently and innovatively, pay suppliers, or offer timely judicial review to its citizens,”

All the above is according to a draft document, seen by Reuters, as published in an article on the letter sent by the former Goldman and ECB banker to his bosses in Brussels.

The entire article may be read in ekathimerini, linked here.

Greece is printing its own Euros!

The statement should come as no surprise for that is what the euro common EU currency is all about. However such production is supposedly under the control of the ECB for each member bank. Greek euros begin with the letter Y before the serial number, we must hope that any non-ECB authorised notes printed by the Greek Central Bank bear no other introductory letter, for if they did the euro currency would be immediately sunk.

The report on this apparent clandestine extra money production comes via The Slog, linked here, and the following is part of the translated source report from Belgium:

"Greece is printing its own Euros. The bank of Greece credits the accounts of Greek banks that would have been shutting their doors but for the emergency funds. All Greek banks are effectively bankrupt, it is that simple. These zombie banks can only survive through these ELA injections. Within the ECB system the only collateral for the euros created within the ELA mechanism - is the guarantee of the Greek state. I do not know what you think of this, but my humble opinion is that this guarantee is as good as worthless. You can change all sorts of declarations about the whys and wherefores of these operations, but believe me, the basic fact is simple: only by allowing the Greek central bank to print euros [create euros] can you avoid the implosion of the entire Greek financial system, with all the consequences that this would have for the eurosystem as a whole"

Breakthrough for Democracy as EU talks of bridging loan & elections

Bloomberg TV, following the euro once again falling through the $1.30 mark, is reporting that consideration is being given, within the EU, to grant a bridging loan for Greece to make the €15 billion bond repayments due in mid-March, to see Greece through the elections planned for April in that suffering country.

This is considered as a major step forward by this blogger, and a welcome volte face from the direction negotiations seemed to be headed all day yesterday and particularly last evening.

If Greec can hold proper elections, with all candidates and parties uncommitted by prior undertakings, the EU itseld will prove the main beneficiary, by then being able to proceed with a legitimately elected government.

We must wait to see what develops, but for once with some faint hope that somewhere within the deep dark morass that the EU has become, a little common sense is flickering into life.

RBS head of European Credit Strategy, Gallo, predicts hard default fot Greece & Portugal!

The video interview with Margaret Brennan of Bloomberg may be viewed from this link.

Charles Dumas on the hopelessness of the Greek and Italian mess.

Link to a short Bloomberg video clip is here.

Greek agony still ongoing. But will that be true for the elections?

PASOK support slumps from 44% to 8% that is a lot of sitting MPs in Greece about to be jobless! Can the elections still be held as planned, that for me is now the most interesting question.?