Sarkozy says he believes Euro crisis has passed?

Open Europe's daily news email today reports Sarkozy stating the following:

“Europe would not be financially, economically, socially and politically equipped to deal with another crisis of this importance”. He confessed that he believed at one point that the euro would implode, adding “I wasn’t the only one, this conviction was shared with Mme Merkel, we were close to a catastrophe”.

Strange comment, when one considers that everything Merkozy has so far achieved merely makes the crisis worse and the ensuing debts and risk from the inevitable break down of the ECB that much more costly and likely more rancorous, thus unlikely to be resolved without very real, probably bloody, conflict!

I had assumed the mood of optimism at the most recent EU meeting was a brave face put on to dupe french voters, surely these national leaders and EU apparatchiks do not really believe they have really tackled anything?

Hollande thinks Merkel boycott could backfire on Sarkozy!

In France the widespread European boycott being imposed by leaders from the right on the socialist candidate François Hollande is seen from the left as likely to backfire. A report this afternoon from Der Spiegel discusses that matter in detail and is linked here.

It is hard for this non-French resident of France to comprehend the incumbent's strategy unveiled in Toulon, of suggesting the sole course for French national survival is submergence by Germany, followed by signing the EU Fiscal Treaty or fiskalcompakt, designed to achieve just that!

Time to recall Sarkozy' Davos remarks from Fenruary 2011

As I blogged at the time, Sarkozy's remarks, also reported on video from this link to the actual posting, were pretty clear on the consequences foreseen by Merkozy in letting the Euro drift:

"Whether it be Chancellor Merkel or myself, never, never will we turn our backs on the euro. We will never abandon the euro, we will never drop the euro," Sarkozy told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"The euro spells Europe. The euro is Europe and Europe has spelled 60 years of peace on our continent, therefore we will never let the euro go or be destroyed," he insisted.

"For us, it's not simply an economic issue, it has to do with our identity as Europeans. For those of you who want to bet against the euro, be careful how you invest. We are determined to ensure the strength of the euro."

"It is of such importance that we will be there whenever it needs to be defended. The consequences of it failing would be so cataclysmic that we could never entertain the idea," he declared.

As President Sarkozy's re-election campaign gets under way, it seems important to remember these words, for none of his actions in the interim seem to indicate he either then, nor indeed now, has a proper grasp of the full extent of the gravity and extent of the disaster that he and Angela Merkel have jointly created.

It is not at all encouraging that he remains jointly in charge of the EU as it clearly approaches a Greek default and what he has therefore forecasted will be a cataclysm.

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:

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!

Half of Merkozy confronts reality - Sarkozy in Bayonne

"Raw, cynical blackmail against a whole people" - Yannis Panagopoulos.

"Why have Germany and France been risking a social explosion in Greece for a deal that isn't going to stick anyway?" asks Hamish McRae in his column in The Independent this morning.  His two answers to that question may be read from this link. The first centres around the traditional fears of contagion to the EU periphary, his second is about France.

Both assume that the EU has arrived at this point as if by some dreadful mischance and that none of what is now taking place could have been foreseen. I have been linking to articles written by Mr McRae for long enough to be fully aware that Mr McRae knows perfectly well that such is not the case. We are here because that is where the EU has been planned to deliver us!

The Euro was always doomed to arrive at this point, as an economic's journalist and writer of note, Hamish Mcrae must know that nothing could have prevented it, only the timing was uncertain. Therefore when he discusses the arrangements Merkozy now plan to consolidate their control over Europe he must do so in the knowledge that this was their chosen destination.

I wonder if Mr McRae's support for Merkozy's actions, clear from his column, would extend to a cancellation of the elections, first in Greece, thereafter in France?

Every failed Merkozy summit makes a springtime EU smashing tsunami more probable!

President Sarkozy's latest farce of a summit with Chancellor Merkel makes his electoral prospects this spring less certain. As reported on this blog yesterday the main concrete item to emerge was a commiment to speed more funds to the ESM, thus further weakening France's credit ratings.

At present a scenario with the front running socialist contender François Hollande facing a run-off in the second round of the Presidential contest against Marine Le Pen (whose father managed a similar feat against Jaques Chirac,) seems not at all unlikely, especially given the fact that the main identifiable plank of Sarkozy's campaign seems to be to merge France "with"  (many would say submerge "under") Germany.

Things can be made no more certain given that footballing hero Eric Cantona, has today been reported in Le Figaro, as seeking to gather the 500 signatures from elected officials to also be able to stand, a report with video in French is here.

Merkozy in Berlin today!

More lunatic mouthing of meaningless platitudes are scheduled in Berlin around lunchtime. On the other hand Reuters forecasts this:

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy, aiming to align the two powerhouse partners that have driven European integration, will also focus on how to boost employment in the current era of austerity.

Merkozy Dinner For One

German speakers make an old English film "Dinner for One" part of the Christmas season every year. Now it has been spoofed up for Merkozy and the Euro fiasco as may be seen here:



More light entertainment at the expense of the Euro currency after ten ghastly years of its wealth-destroying presence in notes and coinage, may be found on the blog of "The Boiling Frog," linked here.

Sarkozy of France contemplates import taxes! Merkozy's messy messages!!

In a New Year message the French President has suggested import taxes as offering a potential substitute for austerity. The average French citizen, having little grasp of the restrictions imposed by both the EU and the WTO, mpay console themselves briefly with that suggestion, but such false hopes would seem unlikely to survive until next May when the elections take place. More detail on the coming French elections is here.

Elections in Gerrmany follow next year, read here. Merkel's message for 2012 is reported here.

The Merkozy machine that has so far seen itself as guiding the EU response to the unfolding EU economic disaster, is thus losing its wheels, even before any clear course has been set. How long into this New Year will hats continue to be hung on closer economic governance being any kind of cure for the present crisis?

Merkozy propose new EU Treaty will require only 85% involvement!

The joint Merkel/Sarkozy press conference in Paris had little new, other than the main point in this post's headline.

The EU Council on Thursday/Friday will decide whether the new treaty will consist of 27 or 17 former nation states. It will mainly involve a Golden Rule for signatories setting  a 3% deficit maximum in their national constitutions, enforced by this new treaty as overseen by the European Court of Justice.(Pretty much a re-run of the former Growth and Stability Pact, laughingly scrapped, without penalty, on the sole decision of France and Germany).

Sarkozy recognised in questions that France would be unable to pass such a Golden Rule, given the rejection by the existing Upper House in France, he therefore accepted that no progress could be made until after the French Presidential and General Elections in May 2012. Therefore the leaders talk of haste seemed mere widow dressing!

Further details will be posted on this blog as they become available.