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Radical Eurozone Shakeup Could See Brussels Get Austerity Powers
Confidential paper from council president Herman Van Rompuy proposes empowering the commission to impose austerity
The European commission could be empowered to impose austerity measures on eurozone countries that are being bailed out, usurping the functions of government in countries such as Greece, Ireland, or Portugal.
Herman Van Rompuy is circulating the eurozone plan ahead of a crucial EU summit on Thursday and Friday. (Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters) Bailed-out countries could also be stripped of their voting rights in the European Union, under radical proposals that have been circulating at the highest level in Brussels before this week's crucial EU summit on the sovereign debt crisis.
A confidential paper for EU leaders by the EU council president, Herman Van Rompuy, who will chair the summit on Thursday and Friday, said eurobonds or the pooling of eurozone debt would be a powerful tool in resolving the crisis, despite fierce German resistance to the idea.
It called for "more intrusive control of national budgetary policies by the EU" and laid out various options for enforcing fiscal discipline supra-nationally.
The two-page paper, obtained by the Guardian, formed the basis for discussions on an interim report tabled by Van Rompuy, the European commission and the Eurogroup of countries that have adopted the euro, which is to be debated on Wednesday among senior officials in an attempt to build a consensus ahead of the summit.
Elements, however, have already sparked a backlash among eurozone member states and the suggestion that countries could lose their voting rights seems already to have been dropped.
The options outlined by Van Rompuy heavily emphasize the need for a new punitive regime overseen by EU institutions that would be given new powers of intervention. The proposals and policy options, if agreed, will be seen as seriously curbing the sovereignty of member states in setting budgetary, economic, and fiscal policy.
For countries deemed to be insolvent and in receipt of eurozone and International Monetary Fund bailouts but failing to meet the terms, Van Rompuy raised the prospect of drastic action, suggesting: "The granting of exceptional powers to the [European] commission (or another body) to take enforceable measures in the country concerned so as to ensure the stability of the euro area."
It added: "In case of consistent non-compliance, political sanctions such as the temporary suspension of voting rights [in EU councils]" might be imposed. Senior EU officials said this suggestion had been dropped in recent days.
As part of a German-led drive for a eurozone "fiscal union", Van Rompuy highlighted the potential for harmonizing pension reforms, social security systems, labor market policy, and financial regulation: "Consideration could be given to use legislation to define minimum common features." Officials also said this idea had run into stiff resistance in recent days.
Other "possible further steps" generating a "higher degree of economic convergence" in the eurozone could include reinforcing the commission's and the Eurogroup's rights of prior scrutiny "of all major economic reform plans" and sanctions if the commission's recommendations to individual countries are ignored. Van Rompuy also raised the possibility of using the EU budget to reward sound fiscal conduct within the eurozone – and to punish recalcitrants.
On the two most important rules governing the single currency – that budget deficits do not exceed 3% of gross domestic product and that national debt ceilings stay within 60% of GDP – Van Rompuy called for "stricter rules" and "extended capacity of the EU institutions to enforce them".
Countries in breach of the euro rulebook could have to submit draft budgets "for approval" to the Eurogroup and the commission. The document said "a budget adopted not in line with the stability and growth pact [euro rulebook] could be considered in breach of EU obligations".
While most of the options listed might appeal to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her campaign to entrench a new era of rigor in the eurozone, Van Rompuy broke ranks with Berlin's objection to eurobonds, though he was careful to stress that any mutualization of eurozone debt would need to be gradual. "A staged criteria-based process could be envisaged and be a powerful incentive for fiscal discipline."
The eurozone blueprint agreed on Monday between Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy is focused on medium-term reforms. But Van Rompuy argued that "the current situation calls for immediate action. Beyond stabilization tools, some structural steps for deepening the economic union can be implemented rapidly."
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Show AllThe "German-led drive for a eurozone "fiscal union"" reminds me of the German-led drive for European union begun in 1939. If Germany overplays their hand Euro nations will begin leaving the union. It seems to be getting rather close to a certainty.
This article confirms that "fiscal union" is even bigger than that. Expect to see US style medical insurance extortion schemes, high unemployment among young people institutionalized as older workers are no longer able to retire, and a series of unelected banksters sitting on the thrones of all nations.
That is the goal.
Are these characters TRYING to start a war?
No, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Such countries as Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece now get the blood squezed out of them by this completely unaccoutable, appointed European Union bureacracy in the form of the European Central Bank and the European Commission. Then the people's elected representatives in the European Parliament have no voice in this. Now that's despotism on a regional scale. Now which countries will be the next victims of this depsotism of unaccountable bureaucracy? We need to see reform of this monster before it's too late.
"Consent of the governed" which Thomas Jeffreson spoke of and "government of, by, and for the people" which Abraham Lincoln referred to must have meaning. All the European Union's people need action to put this Nenderthal and Pagan Prussianism of the German based ECB under control of the EU's people, and the time for that is now.
Occupy the EU''s appointed bureaucracy for the people. "All power to the people" as Thomas Paine said.
Austerity Powers must be Austin's sister.
If I ever have another daughter I may well name her Austerity, the first daughter sure wasn't austere...
What we need is a global investigation into the events of 9/11 - the precipitating event that ignited all this injustice. Seriously. Who's been benefitting?
9-11 made sure the 1%'s license to steal has no expiration date.
No, that license did not require 911 and predates it.
9/11 renewed the license to condemn and exploit. The way to peace is back through 9/11.
Many things have been used as an excuse to renew the license.
If you study the oppression of people worldwide throughout the 18th thru 20th century, after most land was discovered or collected really, the travesty of man's inhumanity has a distinct statistical feature to it. Thievery has become a science of psychology and manuverability, and that is what this is, outright thievery by the very wealthy to control everything. 9-11 is a symptom of the disease, not a cause.
911 did not precipitate genocide against the native people, the War against Mexico, slavery, the rise of the Robber Barons, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the dozens and dozens of wars of aggression throughout Central America and Asia, the breaking of organized Labor, the Red Scare, the HUAC hearings and the Blacklists, the Palmer Raids, the War on Drugs, the fire-bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, the use of atomic weapons against Japan, the refusal to accept Jewish refugees on the eve of WWII...
There are all kinds of austerity measures, how about the state of Florida department of economic opportunity giving false and inaccurate information to unemployment recipients.I was told I could take a part time job and it would not affect my benefits. If the job did not work out I could quit. That was a bold faced lie. Once I quit , I had to file a new claim for unemployment, and because I quit I was not only disqualified from unemployment benefits , but also disqualified from the federal emergency benefits. I had qualified for all emergency unemployment benefits, had I not taken a part time telemarketing job, not my trained profession, I would not have lost my benefits.This form of misinformation can only come down from an organization that is run by right wing republicans, thank you Governor Rick Scott, your cronies leadership cost me over 12000 dollars in aid , until I find a job. But worse yet, is that community watch fusion center stasi being paid to follow me around, and their contractors, are a lot of people who are not going to get x-mas money, because I cant leave my house, I am broke.
And this post is more for them than you, sorry stasi, its going to be a lean xmas. I know you stasi read my posts, I know you had the power to pull strings and award me the aid, but you did not, so now you will go broke too.
I truly am sorry, but I was following bad instructions from Rick Scotts Department on Economic opportunity.And the system is setup to kick you out and keep you out. This will be my final posts, i dont feel like playing with you stasi any more.
There are all kinds of austerity measures, how about the state of Florida department of economic opportunity giving false and inaccurate information to unemployment recipients.I was told I could take a part time job and it would not affect my benefits. If the job did not work out I could quit. That was a bold faced lie. Once I quit , I had to file a new claim for unemployment, and because I quit I was not only disqualified from unemployment benefits , but also disqualified from the federal emergency benefits.Dirty tricks from republican controlled governments and departments.Or the agent I was taking to was very poorly trained. I had qualified for all emergency unemployment benefits, had I not taken a part time telemarketing job, not my trained profession, I would not have lost my benefits.This form of misinformation can only come down from an organization that is run by right wing republicans, thank you Governor Rick Scott, your cronies leadership cost me over 12000 dollars in aid. But worse yet, is that community watch fusion center stasi being paid to follow me around, and their contractors, are a lot of people who are not going to get x-mas money, because I cant leave my house, I am broke.
And this post is more for them than you, sorry stasi, its going to be a lean xmas. I know you stasi read my posts, I know you had the power to pull strings and award me the aid, but you did not, so now you will go broke too.
I truly am sorry, but I was following bad instructions from Rick Scotts Department on Economic opportunity.And the system is setup to kick you out and keep you out. This will be my final posts, i dont feel like playing with you stasi any more.
The ECB has been talking recently about basically creating a council that would allow it to override the decisions that member states make. Then there is the fact that the economic policies go against the vast, vast majority of what the people in the countries want, and ignore options that would do better at resolving the fundamental problems of the EU (if it is even possible) far better than reactionary, illogical austerity will. It is a full, frontal attack on democracy. What amazes me is that members states don't respond by simply leaving, or threatening to leave, over these types of measures. What the hell is the EU doing for them, what is the ECB doing for them, to justify them staying? A simple cost benefit analysis would do. Are there benefits from staying in the EU that outweigh the costs? It is clear that the costs are now far above the benefits. The people in the member states should either push hard to leave or to get rid of the parasites in government who will sell their country down the river for a failed ideology or for self serving reasons.
Sadly, if you actually read the projections that the people CREATING the policies have for the members states who will have austerity forced on them, they say that the public debt to GDP ratio will be HIGHER in a few years. All of that misery, supposedly to reduce public debt and to make a bunch of parasitic banker crooks whole, and they won't be any better shape in regards to the ends they are trying to achieve. It is a blatant move to rescue the over bloated financial sector at the expense of the real economy, the health of working people and their democracies. These bastards are neoliberals though, they don't know any other way to run an economy. That have no solutions. I HATE this language though:
"The European commission could be empowered to impose austerity measures on eurozone countries that are being bailed out"
These countries are NOT being bailed out! Semantics matter. These economies are being pillaged and sacrificed. The creditors are being bailed out, the banks, and they are stealing from actual people and the productive economy in order to do this. There will a possible lost generation because the crooks in government don't want the financial sector to lose and for (public and private) debt to shrink relative to the ability to pay. If it were to shrink the creditor parasites would have to sacrifice and see their power drastically reduced, and that just can't happen. So destroy the real economy and create a new rentier class. If the people in Europe don't punch these bastards square in the mouth they deserve what happens to them.
The European "bailouts" are no different than the contrived US "deficit ceiling crisis".
The banksters (via the politicians they own) implement "austerity" or some other bogus program to allegedly reduce govenrment costs. In reality only domestic program costs get reduced while military industrial complex and other corporate welfare costs skyrocket, leading to ever greter demands for more cuts to domestic programs.
With each passing month more of the 99%'s wealth is transferred into the hands of the 1% while governments' balance sheets stay in the red.
You are right but it is even more radical than that. Europe's social model is on the chopping block. The very things that differentiate Europe from the US are now being eliminated. The social policies that allowed for better upward income mobility? On the way out. The primacy of the real economy of production, where finance is a small part that helps the real economy perform better? Gone. Now it is the real economy dying to save banker crooks. Classical economists talked about rentier interests. These were groups of people who made their living on unearned income. Landlords who made their money through rents were an example. We are seeing the creation of the new rentier class, only this one will have worldwide power. If we don't beat these bastards into submission we will see a tyranny unmatched in human history. I know it sounds overdone, it really isn't. It is frightening how much power finance has, and it produces NOTHING tangible. Its product is debt.
"You are right but it is even more radical than that. Europe's social model is on the chopping block."
And that is by design. This is the end that was sought. Once this is complete the financial bosses will never be faced with comparisions to social and national programs that actually work/ed. Once again getting rid of the competition is the goal.
Wilber1: Your post (and analysis) is right on! It seems to me the same bankers' boys' club decided that if they were going to wreck The New Deal on this side of the Atlantic, why stop there? Especially when the recipe book for Disaster Capitalism has delivered to them the pretext to cut back on all those wonderful European social programs that ignorant Americans love to mock. With the Empire makers having over-spent their gambling hands, they now aim at ALL citizens in an effort to shore up the resources necessary to spread empire like the Cancer that it is. --------------------------------------------------------- Apart from the debt to "Brown People" is the insidious device known as "Defense," which has drummed up support (at least some) for a War on Terror that essentially has citizens paying for the very forces that will one day police them, if not incarcerate them for speaking up about their now foregone liberties.
Okay, this is a great Matrix, blue pill, red pill moment. Do you swallow the blue pill, which proclaims that our corporate benefactors really know what's best for "us 99% and that to take more out of the bottom and middle class is the only way to go. Or do you swallow the red pill that says war is not a great way to create jobs and spur the economy or duh, improve the quality of life for most on this small blue planet we share. Second hand ICBMs have no market value. If rich people like the profits they earn from war, let them pay for this luxury instead of passing the cost on to future generations. Investment in people/environment benefits the next seven generations. Which do you choose?Time to stop focusing on short term profits which war brings and evolve to the good of all offered by the long term - clean air, food and water, representative government, including representation of the environment, fair trade as opposed to free trade, and _______________ (fill in your own blank). "Living in an uncomfortable truth trumps by light years any benefits derived from living a lie." I just came up with this.
To give up sovereignty is to give up ones freedom to the bankers.
short, sweet, and directly to the point. thanks.
A Government of Goldman-Sachs, by Goldman-Sachs, for Goldman-Sachs...
BINGO
Isn't it mind blowing that this new class of super wealthy globalists, have managed to crash the world's financial system, by design, get the governments to bail THEM out, while at the same time bribing governments' ministers to cast the blame on their citizens' socialist safety nets, as the last nail driven in the coffin of any economic systems that were close to being equitable, stable, and egalitarian.
Now Americans have will have NOTHING to point to, and our new monied masters are just tickled pink at the prospect.
Hue said what I would have said.
...people will go on, bare footed, learning from those who managed so far.
Dear Ireland- just tell them to go to hell, and drop out of their GD "union". They aren't worth spit.
right on! Follow Iceland's and Argentina's examples. It's up to the little countries to show us the way. The "union" is just a bankers' straitjacket, turning formerly sovereign nations into colonial possessions of corporate/financier cartels, who are "mining" the pocketbooks and bank accounts of the local natives.
A bit difficult seeing as the EU has bailed out Ireland to the tune of €100billion. £8 billion from the UK which works out at a cost of £300 per UK family and the UK isn't even in the Eurozone. As for Iceland, they desperately want to join the EU and were all set to do so before the 2008 crisis broke and they became bankrupt overnight owing Europeans who had money in Icelandic banks billions, which they are unable to pay back.
Better to just take the loss and wipe the debt off the books than spend generations in slavery paying for crooked ponzi schemes and zombie banks from hell, imho. Iceland did it right.
"Don't send your damn central bank here, and Don't bail us out if we go broke" should be the slogan of every small country in the world. Better to live in poverty than loose your whole country to this Bank Mafia.
Nothing good ever comes from a Central Bank. We got rid of ours three times already. It's time to do so again.
End the Fed.
The dirty bastard UK doesn't have enough money to EVER repay Ireland and the Irish for what they have done over the millenia. I say FU(k 'em.
Damned Irish, always exploiting the English. When will it ever end?
Yeh, imperialist colonisers that should get the hell out of the UK. Literally millions of them, a third of the population in the North West UK alone!
Sorry sLiMsHaDyn, I didn't realise you hypocritical Irish nationalist twisted with irrational hatred. My mistake.
“Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.”
It's the twisted and hypocritical GOVERNMENT of the UK that I find so unendearing. I find the everyday englishman him/her self, to be wonderful. As for the "Irish" born in England and living there, they ARE just as English as the rest of you, just as I am as USAn as any WASP, though they'd disagree.
Sorry to have to point out your fallacious argument is meaningless. Your mistake, indeed. Read your trite little poem again, as it begs the question "WHY".
OMG. You are serious.
Yes, I'd say that he is serious. It reminds me of southerners in the US who resent the descendants of former slaves returning south.
No, I'm not serious: I'm part Irish myself. I just enjoy winding up fanatic bigots I encounter on the interwebs. The Irish and English have very good relations these days, thank you, and very close ties hence the £8 billion aid which hasn't similarly been forthcoming to Greece or other struggling Eurozone member states. It's a few diehard bigots like yourself clinging on to old historical hatreds that are the problem, and typically, you're not even Irish but an American therefore have very little understanding of the complex issues of which you write. That also might explain why my ironic tone went undetected! As for my 'trite little poem,' it's actually by the Nobel Prize winning Irish Poet W B Yeats which anyone remotely familiar with Irish culture and history would have been aware of, thereby demonstrating that, evidently, you are not.
I'm all Irish, myself, and the only bigot blowing up is you. Very good relations between Irish and English folks; true. I have met many brilliant English people in Ireland, Irish people in England, and both in the USA, Ireland and England.
"...clinging on to old historical hatreds that are the problem." Really? What, are you 5 years old? The problem is YOU who would gloss over the past without acknowledging what happened and the consequences. The 8Billion BPS in "aid", as you call it, is a good gesture towards a debt that can never really be paid, and we Irish in fact know that it can't, and we move on. It's you who is bent out of shape at the (unlikely) prospect of a 300 BPS "austerity" measure falling on UK families, if there was a default. You have apparently NO understanding of what is happening and should limit your discussion of the matter accordingly.
Regarding the poem, again you show how ignorant you are as the author has nothing to do with the hateful context in which you put it forth. You think exactly like those who call for gratitude from the indigenous peoples' descendants for bringing them "civilization", you write with the tome of a rednecked shrill who wonders why the decendants of freed slaves aren't just grateful for the freedom "bestowed" upon them by your "benevolent" people. You are Margaret Thatcher extolling the virtues of some "old white men" and their "gifts" to this world.
Have a great day with your partial Irish self, now. Thanks for admitting you're an internet troll.
Nicely done.
You're not Irish, you're American. Sure, you probably celebrate St. Pat's day listening to your Pogues record, with your can of Guinness, sentimentalising a heritage which your comments suggest you know little about, but you're no more Irish than Disneyland's castle is a real castle. You seem typically what the true natives call a 'plastic paddy' meaning a clueless yank drinking in some plastic Irish theme pub banging on about the 'old country.' Nice of you, safely living thousands of miles away, to maintain and stir up animosities and hatred that people who've spent the last century living on the front line of them just want to put behind them. All just so you can feel some bogus sense of Irishness! Typical American, others get bombed and die why you sit out of it all waving your ridiculous little shamrock ranting on about 'the cause,' like it was just Hollywood bullshit instead of real life. You know nothing about modern day Ireland or Europe at all. People here are heartily sick of all that hateful shit so kindly keep it to yourself. It's not 'glossing over' anything, its just a weariness of fishing bits of kids from out of blown up shopping centres.
You're the Troll, not me. I post a perfectly reasonable comment about why it is unrealistic to expect Ireland to leave the Eurozone, (which anyone with half a clue about modern day Eire and its economic and political position would see is a ridiculous premise) and you suddenly post a lot of nationalistic vitriol aggressively writing 'fuck em.' Provocative, don't you think? So then I started winding you up seeing as your type of clueless, hate-spouting 'plastic paddies' just get on my tits.
I don't mind in the slightest paying £8 billion to help out Ireland and wasn't complaining but trying to indicate the helpful cooperation involved to someone who had a wiff of aggressive nationalist about him, an intuition which was later proved right. And incidentally, you are wrong, this money WILL impact on many UK citizens, not that I mind, like I said.
Thanks for your speculations about myself and my views, none of which were remotely accurate but just phantoms from your own mind, and why you mentioned slaves in the American South I have absolutely no idea but I'm sure it's all part of your interesting compelexes.
Thank you for taking time to read my posts.
You suffer from poor reading comprehension and an inability to look outside of yourself. My parents are (were, actually- me da is deceased) both from Ireland, I have a large family living there, I know how they feel about all of this, and that is all the real deal. Just drop it now; I thought that you might glean something from my posts, but it's quite evident that you can not. We're done, partial paddy.
That was my whole point: 'Just drop it now.' Otherwise this fighting just goes on forever.....
And you've made mine.
When George H. W. Bush told us about the emergence of the New World Order this is what he was talking about. Of course, he and the other 0.0001% would never call it by a more accurate name - Fiscal Fascism.
Well lets see: they have managed to replace the leaders of Greece and Italy with their people. They caught the head of the IMF in a scandal and replaced him, with Christine Lagarde, (who of course thinks a lot more like them.)
So, I was thinking the other day, it has been pretty much a coup d'état. Now all they have to is sit back and let their “help” tie up the ends.
Back in the Sixties a man wrote a book entitled: “TRAGEDY & HOPE
A History of The World In Our Time”.
Originally written about the IMF, the song "They Call It Democracy" says it all:
"Padded with power here they come /
International loan sharks backed by the guns /
Of market hungry military profiteers /
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared /
With the blood of the poor /
Who rob life of its quality /
Who render rage a necessity /
By turning countries into labour camps /
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom /
Sinister cynical instrument /
Who makes the gun into a sacrament -- /
The only response to the deification /
Of tyranny by so-called "developing" nations' /
Idolatry of ideology /
North South East West /
Kill the best and buy the rest /
It's just spend a buck to make a buck /
You don't really give a flying fuck /
About the people in misery /
IMF dirty MF /
Takes away everything it can get /
Always making certain that there's one thing left /
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt /
See the paid-off local bottom feeders /
Passing themselves off as leaders /
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows /
Open for business like a cheap bordello /
And they call it democracy /
And they call it democracy /
And they call it democracy /
And they call it democracy /
See the loaded eyes of the children too /
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do /
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast /
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast /
They call the revolution"