So let’s give them €4 trillion a year to lose then, eh?
So, the European institutions have lost at least €100 billion in just the past few years in lending to Greece. Yes, there’s no cut in the headline amount of debt but the interest rates and maturities are such that those lending have indeed lost a minimum of €100 billion of that €320 billion lent.
So, here’s Guy Verhofstadt:
If Europe is to exit this crisis, the eurozone must act now to implement radical reform that will deliver a genuine political and economic union, to ensure this kind of crisis is never repeated. This means we must go further and do it faster. It means a sharing of sovereignty among the EU countries that have the euro as their currency. It means a common debt management system and a European treasury.
The standard estimate is that the European Union would have to dispose of some 25% of GDP if it is going to be able to run a proper fiscal policy across such a diverse area.
So, our former Prime Minister of Belgium is suggesting that the people who have just lost €100 billion should be given €4 trillion a year to piss away.
Fuck ’em, time to leave.
€100 billion? I have seen estimates that they have given Greece five times that since 1980.
This was not only predicted, it was intended. The Euro designers said that at some point there would be a crisis and the only solution would be deeper union – Federalisation.
I would be appalled but I can’t believe the German tax payers will go along with that.
In the meantime America has caved in to Iran. Idiots.
It is too late for a political and fiscal union. Which country could actually convince their electorate to agree to it?
As far as I am concerned, this is the start of the break up of the EU as we know it today. I think there will be an EU in ten years time, however, the member state list will be different and smaller.
SMFS: America has not caved to Iran. Obama and Kerry have cut a deal with their fellow despots in Iran.
“If Europe is to exit this crisis,”= if me and my mates are going to take full advantage of this disaster to increase our power, we must claim that the use of power is never the problem, only the insufficiency thereof. Oh, and let’s keep quiet about the fact that we knew from the start that lots of little people were going to get hurt by the €.
Verhofstadt is one of the original economic war criminals who promoted the Euro. And of course he sees it as an opportunity to expand the European Project. That was one of their original aims. I did enjoy his speech to Tsipras in the EuroParl though.
The good thing about the Greek crisis is that it has instructed the peoples of Europe as to the reality of the true nature of the ‘European project’. Everyone has seen in full view exactly what ‘Europe’ will do to them (Left or Right) if they step out of line in the future. They now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the guff about co-operation and fraternity etc is the velvet glove hiding the iron fist.
Its instructive how the Left are finally allowing the scales to drop from their eyes. Of course they have to rationalise it all in their tiny minds that the EU is now ‘neoliberal’, which allows them to oppose it, but whatever. If the Left start to hate the EU for being neoliberal, why should I care about their reasoning? As Churchill said ‘If Hitler invaded hell, I’d make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons’. I agreed with Tony Benn on the EU, and I thought he was one of the greatest dangers to the UK in the 70s and 80s.
This crisis might actually mean that both sides of the political divide are represented on the OUT ticket in 2017, which in turn will make it harder for the usual suspects (the BBC/Guardian common purpose brigade) to paint the out campaign as UKIP racist fruitcakes. I’d say the odds on an OUT vote win just shortened.
Interesting times.
he good thing about the Greek crisis is that it has instructed the peoples of Europe as to the reality of the true nature of the ‘European project’.
I always understood it to be a grand political project to unite the West, though such was rarely stated. I always thought that everybody understood it to be a grand political project to unite the West.
” I always thought that everybody understood it to be a grand political project to unite the West.”
Yes they did, but in a ‘Lets all join together and sing hippy songs’ sort of way, not a ‘Do as the Germans say or get stomped’ sort of way. Everyone thought the Germans had transmogrified from Iron Fist to Nein Danke hippy types. Which on the surface they have – they no longer want to invade Poland or kill all the Jews. They are still quite keen on being in control though, as we are seeing. They are just using money rather than tanks this time.
The mask has slipped and the rest of Europe (even the Left) have noticed.