Hablemos de Europa

[saturno]

Finlandia: Parlamento aprueba el plan
http://borsaitaliana.it.reuters.com/article/foreignNews/idITL5N0ZW1XO20150716

Juncker invita a los Chipriotas a la reunificación (con la UE)
http://www.lesoir.be/938660/article/actualite/fil-info/fil-info-monde/2015-07-16/juncker-appelle-chypriotes-une-reunification

Tsipras cambia a los 5 ministros que votaron contra el plan en el Parlamento
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/en-direct/a-chaud/5492-grece-alexis-tsipras-decision-remplacer-ministres.html

[sudden and sharp]

[...] La carreteras no serían como las que tenemos, tampoco serían las de 1960, lo que seguro no tendríamos es un montón de radiales deficitarias que solo se sostienen bajo el mantra pepitil del esto v´parriba eterno en el que se instalo en nuestra élite económica y política (los que se supone que son los enteraos), la misma élite que en privatizadísimas empresas energéticas ampliaba capacidad como si no hubiera mañana.

Con todo, están ahí. (Y otras muchas infrastrucyuras.) Resulta que nuestras queridas élites hasta dejaron algo a la vista. En Grecia y en otros sitios ni siquiera eso. Se lo han pulido o está en las suizas. Todavía tendremos que celebrarlo. 

Edit: Mira por dónde...

Un grupo chino compra el aeropuerto de Ciudad Real por 10.000 euros
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/07/17/actualidad/1437130421_864179.html
El paquete subastado no incluye algunos elementos como la terminal o el aparcamiento.

Y ojo, que éste era privado, si no recuerdo mal. (10.000€, madre del amor hermoso!)

[2 años]

[...] La carreteras no serían como las que tenemos, tampoco serían las de 1960, lo que seguro no tendríamos es un montón de radiales deficitarias que solo se sostienen bajo el mantra pepitil del esto v´parriba eterno en el que se instalo en nuestra élite económica y política (los que se supone que son los enteraos), la misma élite que en privatizadísimas empresas energéticas ampliaba capacidad como si no hubiera mañana.

Con todo, están ahí. (Y otras muchas infrastrucyuras.) Resulta que nuestras queridas élites hasta dejaron algo a la vista. En Grecia y en otros sitios ni siquiera eso. Se lo han pulido o está en las suizas. Todavía tendremos que celebrarlo. 

Edit: Mira por dónde...

Un grupo chino compra el aeropuerto de Ciudad Real por 10.000 euros
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/07/17/actualidad/1437130421_864179.html
El paquete subastado no incluye algunos elementos como la terminal o el aparcamiento.

Y ojo, que éste era privado, si no recuerdo mal. (10.000€, madre del amor hermoso!)

Pues, eso, lo mismo que en Grecia, en algún sitio escuché que ya habían intentado vender las empresas públicas y que nos las quería nadie,a los precios que querían, supongo, sólo consiguieron vender la lotería...pero alomejor es una información errónea...pero vamos que lo que dice el artículo que puso Muyuu es lo que tiene toda la pinta que pase.

[muyuu]

The failed project of Europe – Jayati Gosh zur deutschen Rolle in Europa | flassbeck-economics

The failed project of Europe

There is a stereotypical image of an abusive husband, who batters his wife and then beats her even more mercilessly if she dares to protest. Such violent behaviour usually reflects a failed relationship, unlikely to be resolved through superficial bandaging of wounds.

It is stomach-churningly hard to watch such bullies in action. But the world has been watching the negotiations in Europe over the fate of Greece in the Eurozone with the same sickening sense of horror and disbelief, as leaders of Germany and some other countries behave in similar fashion.

The extent of the aggression, the deeply punitive conditions being imposed for a very ungenerous bailout and the terrible humiliation and pain forced upon the Greek people are hard to explain in purely economic or even political terms. It seems to reflect some deep, visceral anger that has been awakened in the EU leadership by the sheer effrontery of a government of a small state that dared to consult its people rather than immediately bowing to their commands. The anger is also directed at the Greek people, who dared to vote in a referendum against the terms of a bailout package that offered them only more austerity, less hope and continued pain in the foreseeable future, just so that their country can continue to pay the foreign debts that everyone knows are ultimately unpayable.

The EU response to ignore completely the will of the Greek people as expressed in the referendum, and then to pushing even worse conditions on them for their resistance. These may be the most appalling and humiliating terms that have been seen in a non-war situation for any European nation, for the increasingly dubious advantage of staying within the eurozone.

Greece would become an economic protectorate, little more than a colony of Germany within the Eurozone. It will have no control over its fiscal policies, forced to sell valuable public assets just to keep trying to pay its creditors. It will have to reverse decisions to preserve some public employment (such as cleaning workers and security guards, whom it will now have to fire again). It will have to further cut pensions of elderly people who have already seen their incomes fall by 40 per cent. It will have to increase indirect taxes hitting the poor most. It will have to accept the constant presence of the external rulers, in the form of an IMF team that will monitor the budget and the activities of the Greek government. And the result of all this austerity will be more depression, in an economy that has been spiralling downwards for more than five years, encouraging the rise of rightwing xenophobic movements. This is a really prolonged Greek tragedy, with no clear end in sight.

EU leaders point to countries like Ireland and Spain and even Latvia, as supposed “success stories” of austerity because their governments took the bitter medicine and the economies are now recovering. This is nonsense. None of them has been made to suffer the extreme austerity imposed on Greece, and their much vaunted “recoveries” are on completely depressed levels of income that are still far lower than five years ago. Unemployment rates remain very high, even after the emigration of the young and of the best and brightest in these societies has made labour force numbers fall. They are being presented as successes only to promote a finance-driven approach to economic policy and camouflage the greater failure of the Eurozone to come out of stagnation.

The loudest European voices about how this is a betrayal of people’s will and how the current EU is incompatible with democracy today come from extreme rightwing parties like the National Front in France, the UK Independence Party, along with Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy. Centre-Left parties are too bound up in the flawed European project to protest, and more progressive movements like Podemos in Spain are in a state of shock. Indeed, the desire to prevent the rise of such progressive movements is probably a major force determining the bellicose stance of the EU towards Syriza.

But this drama is not over: the humiliation of Greece today will come back to torment European leaders tomorrow. The ideal of a united Europe is demolished, and the reality of the project is laid bare: in the interests of finance capital, enforced by the German state and fundamentally antagonistic to democracy and social justice.

This unhappy European marriage cannot last. The only questions now are: how long will it take before the breakdown becomes explicit? How much more pain and violence will be forced on people across Europe before that final break? And how long will German government bullying in the interests of finance capital be tolerated by the people of Europe and ultimately by the people of Germany themselves?

En alemán:

Das gescheiterte Projekt Europa

Es gibt das stereotype Bild von dem gewalttätigen Ehemann, der seine Frau verprügelt und sie nur noch gnadenloser schlägt, wenn sie zu protestieren wagt. Ein solches gewalttätiges Verhalten ist normalerweise ein Zeichen einer gescheiterten Beziehung, die nicht mehr durch das oberflächliche Verbinden der Wunden gerettet/geheilt werden kann.

Es dreht einem den Magen um/ tut einem in der Seele weh, wenn man einen solchen Tyrannen in Aktion sieht. Aber die Welt hat die Verhandlungen in Europa über das Schicksal Griechenlands in der Eurozone mit der selben ekelerregenden Mischung aus Entsetzen und Ungläubigkeit verfolgt, als die Führer Deutschlands und anderer Länder sich in ähnlicher Weise aufführten.

Das Ausmaß an Aggression, die streng strafenden Bedingungen, die für eine sehr unnachsichtige Rettung auferlegt wurden und die schreckliche Demütigung und der Schmerz, der dem griechischen Volk aufgezwungen wurde, können kaum mit rein wirtschaftlichen oder politischen Gründen erklärt werden. Es scheint, dass hier die tief sitzende Wut der EU-Führung über ein kleines Land zum Ausdruck kommt, das die Frechheit besaß, sein Volk zu befragen, anstatt sich unmittelbar den Befehlen zu beugen. Die Wut richtet sich auch gegen das griechische Volk, das es wagte, in einem Referendum gegen die Bedingungen eines Rettungspakets zu stimmen, das ihnen nur weitere Austerität, weniger Hoffnung und eine Fortsetzung des Leids in absehbarer Zukunft bringen sollte und ihnen nur so viel ließ, um weiterhin die Auslandsschulden zu bezahlen, von denen jeder weiß, dass sie letztlich unbezahlbar sind.

Die Reaktion der EU bestand darin, den Willen der Griechen, wie er im Referendum zum Ausdruck gekommen war, zu ignorieren und ihnen für ihren Widerstand noch schlimmere Konditionen aufzubürden. Diese sind vielleicht die schrecklichsten und zutiefst demütigenden Bedingungen, die es je für eine europäische Nation in einer Nicht- Kriegssituation gab, für den zunehmend zweifelhaften Vorteil eines Verbleibs in der Eurozone.

Griechenland würde zu einem wirtschaftlichen Protektorat, kaum mehr als eine Kolonie Deutschlands in der Eurozone. Es wird keine Kontrolle über seine Finanzpolitik haben, es wird gezwungen, wertvolle öffentliche Vermögenswerte zu verkaufen und damit weiter seine Gläubiger zu bezahlen. Es wird seine Entscheidungen, einige öffentlich Beschäftigte zu erhalten, zurücknehmen müssen (wie z.B. Reinigungskräfte und Sicherheitspersonal, die nun wieder gefeuert werden müssen). Es wird weiter die Renten der alten Menschen senken, die bereits einen Rückgang ihrer Einkommen um 40 Prozent hinnehmen mussten. Es wird die direkten Steuern erhöhen müssen und damit die Ärmsten treffen. Es wird die permanente Anwesenheit externer Herrscher in der Form des IWF hinnehmen müssen, die den Haushalt und die Handlungen der griechischen Regierung überwachen. Und das Ergebnis all dieser Austerität wird weitere Depression sein in einer Wirtschaft, die sich schon seit fünf Jahren in einer Abwärtsspirale befindet. Damit wird das Aufkommen rechtsgerichteter, fremdenfeindlicher Gruppierungen begünstigt. Dies ist wirklich eine verlängerte griechische Tragödie, und ein klares Ende ist nicht in Sicht/ohne Aussicht auf ein gutes Ende.

EU-Politiker verweisen auf Länder wie Irland und Spanien oder sogar Lettland, als angebliche „Erfolgsbeispiele“ für Austerität, weil diese Länder die bittere Medizin geschluckt hätten und ihre Volkswirtschaften sich erholten. Das ist Unsinn. Keines dieser Länder musste ein so extremes Austeritätsprogramm durchmachen wie das, das Griechenland aufgezwungen wurde. Die vielgepriesene „Erholung“ erfolgt auf sehr niedrigem Einkommensniveau, das immer noch weit niedriger ist als vor fünf Jahren. Die Arbeitslosenquote ist in diesen Ländern weiterhin hoch, die Zahl der Beschäftigten (labour force numbers) sank, nachdem viele der Jungen, Besten und Klügsten ausgewandert sind. Diese Länder werden nur deshalb als Erfolge präsentiert, um für einen finanzgetriebenen Ansatz der Wirtschaftspolitik zu werben und um zu verschleiern, dass in der Eurozone der Versuch, aus der Stagnation herauszukommen, gescheitert ist.

Die lautesten Stimmen in Europa gegen diesen Betrug am Volkswillen und die Klage, dass die EU inkompatibel mit der Demokratie sei, kommen heute von Parteien vom extrem rechten Flügel wie dem Front National in Frankreich, der UK Independent Party und der Fünf-Sterne-Bewegung von Beppe Grillo in Italien. Die Parteien links von der Mitte sind zu sehr in das gescheiterte Europäische Projekt verwickelt um zu protestieren und progressivere Bewegungen wie Podemos in Spanien befinden sich in einem Schockzustand. Tatsächlich ist das Ziel, das Aufkommen von solchen progressiven Bewegungen zu verhindern, ein entscheidender Grund für die feindselige Haltung der EU gegenüber SYRIZA.

Aber das Drama ist noch nicht vorüber: die Demütigung Griechenlands heute wird die europäischen Führer von morgen heimsuchen. Die Idee eines vereinten Europas ist zerstört und die Realität des Projekts wird offenkundig: die Interessen des Finanzkapitals, durchgesetzt von Deutschland, grundlegend antagonistisch zu Demokratie und sozialer Gerechtigkeit.

Diese unglückliche europäische Ehe kann nicht fortbestehen. Die einzigen Fragen sind nun: Wie lange wird es dauern, bis das Scheitern eingestanden (explicit) wird? Wie viel Schmerz und Gewalt wird den Menschen in Europa noch zugefügt werden, bis es zum Zusammenbruch kommt? Und wie lange wird das Tyrannisieren der deutschen Regierung im Interesse des Finanzkapitals noch toleriert werden, von den Menschen in Europa und schließlich auch von den Menschen in Deutschland selbst?

Übersetzung: Stephanie Flassbeck

[JENOFONTE10]

Un grupo chino compra el aeropuerto de Ciudad Real por 10.000 euros
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/07/17/actualidad/1437130421_864179.html
El paquete subastado no incluye algunos elementos como la terminal o el aparcamiento.

Y ojo, que éste era privado, si no recuerdo mal. (10.000€, madre del amor hermoso!)

Pienso con este ejemplo tan 'terruñista' (era privado pero la Caja CLM creo que lo financió con alegría) en la confusión entre valor y precio 'subjetivo marginalista', frente a valor 'objetivo'. Evidentemente el valor-trabajo añadido en construir el aeropuerto ha sido muy superior a 10.000 €. Se confirma una vez mas, la ley económica de la oferta y la demanda, en la que la escasez y el precio tienen una relación directa (inversa con la abundancia).

La 'democracia terruñista' que vampirizó las cajas de ahorros hasta matar su gallina de huevos de oro, pudo financiar coyunturalmente lo que se le antojó al genio local de los 'pelotazos', pero como los griegos ahora, llegó el momento de chocar con la realidad económica, que no es democrática ni germanófoba, aunque las cédulas hipotecarias de CCLM se vendiesen en el mercado alemán.

Como dice PP.CC., ahora es cuando los pisitófilos del valor 'subjetivo' (vale lo que se pague) se escandalizan de lo poco que se paga por el valor intrínseco (objetivo) de un aeropuerto que baja tanto porque se lo dan a fondos 'buitre' 'que-tiran-el-precio-y-compran-chollos' .

No he visto mucha pugna por el aeropuerto de Ciudad Real. Creo que los griegos pondrán en el fondo de privatizaciones como aval sus aeropuertos en las islas. Espero que valgan mas por si no devuelven lo que les presto (es que pago mis impuestos).

Saludos.

[muyuu]

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/euro-finance/uk-makes-biggest-contribution-juncker-plan-316405

The UK may be a Eurosceptic country, but it has made the biggest contribution to the flagship project of the Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker – the €315 billion Investment Plan for Europe designed to stimulate the EU's post-crisis economy.

The UK announced yesterday (16 July) it will contribute £6 billion (about €8.5 billion) to projects benefiting from finance by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI),better known as the Juncker Plan. This is in fact the biggest contribution so far.

Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said he was delighted that the UK announced £6 billion – nearly €8.5 billion – of co-financing for the EFSI.

“This is the biggest announcement yet and will have a big impact on SMEs and infrastructure in the UK. The Investment Plan for Europe is moving into high gear," Katainen said.

Britain is the ninth country to contribute to the Plan after Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, even before the EFSI becomes operational.

In February, Germany and Spain announced that they would contribute €8 billion each. In March, France and Italy also announced €8 billion in pledges. In April, Luxembourg announced that it will contribute €80 million, and Poland announced that it will contribute €8 billion. In June, Slovakia announced a contribution of €400 million and Bulgaria announced it would contribute €100 million.

Last February, a report by credit rating agency Standard & Poors said that the UK will benefit almost twice as much as the other large European countries from the Juncker investment plan.

[muyuu]

Según el reddit, estadísticamente y por goleada España pertenece al "Sur" y no al "Oeste" de Europa.

http://imgur.com/a/64qIU

Oeste:


Sur:



https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/3djmtw/how_redditors_divided_up_europe_crosspost/

[muyuu]

Yanis Varoufakis

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/17/dr-schaubles-plan-for-europe-do-europeans-approve-english-version-of-my-article-in-die-zeit/#more-9296

Dr Schäuble’s Plan for Europe: Do Europeans approve? – English version of my article in Die Zeit

On 15th July 2015 Die Zeit published this piece. Here is the original English language version.

The reason five months of negotiations between Greece and Europe led to impasse is that Dr Schäuble was determined that they would.

By the time I attended my first Brussels meetings in early February, a powerful majority within the Eurogroup had already formed. Revolving around the earnest figure of Germany’s Minister of Finance, its mission was to block any deal building on the common ground between our freshly elected government and the rest of the Eurozone.[1]

Thus five months of intense negotiations never had a chance. Condemned to lead to impasse, their purpose was to pave the ground for what Dr Schäuble had decided was ‘optimal’ well before our government was even elected: That Greece should be eased out of the Eurozone in order to discipline member-states resisting his very specific plan for re-structuring the Eurozone. This is no theory of mine. How do I know Grexit is an important part of Dr Schäuble’s plan for Europe? Because he told me so!

I am writing this not as a Greek politician critical of the German press’ denigration of our sensible proposals, of Berlin’s refusal seriously to consider our moderate debt re-profiling plan, of the European Central Bank’s highly political decision to asphyxiate our government, of the Eurogroup’s decision to give the ECB the green light to shut down our banks. I am writing this as a European observing the unfolding of a particular Plan for Europe – Dr Schäuble’s Plan. And I am asking a simple question of Die Zeit’s informed readers:

Is this a Plan that you approve of? Is this Plan good for Europe?

Dr Schäuble’s Plan for the Eurozone

The avalanche of toxic bailouts that followed the Eurozone’s first financial crisis offers ample proof that the non-credible ‘no bailout clause’ was a terrible substitute for political union. Wolfgang Schäuble knows this and has made clear his plan to forge a closer union. “Ideally, Europe would be a political union”, he wrote in a joint article with Karl Lamers, the CDU’s former foreign affairs chief (Financial Times, 1st September 2014).

Dr Schäuble is right to advocate institutional changes that might provide the Eurozone with its missing political mechanisms. Not only because it is impossible otherwise to address the Eurozone’s current crisis but also for the purpose of preparing our monetary union for the next crisis. The question is: Is his specific plan a good one? Is it one that Europeans should want? How do its authors propose that it be implemented?

The Schäuble-Lamers Plan rests on two ideas: “Why not have a European budget commissioner” asked Schäuble and Lamers “with powers to reject national budgets if they do not correspond to the rules we jointly agreed?” “We also favour”, they added “a ‘Eurozone parliament’ comprising the MEPs of Eurozone countries to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of decisions affecting the single currency bloc.”

The first point to raise about the Schäuble-Lamers Plan is that it is at odds with any notion of democratic federalism. A federal democracy, like Germany, the United States or Australia, is founded on the sovereignty of its citizens as reflected in the positive power of their representatives to legislate what must be done on the sovereign people’s behalf.

In sharp contrast, the Schäuble-Lamers Plan envisages only negative powers: A Eurozonal budget overlord (possibly a glorified version of the Eurogroup’s President) equipped solely with negative, or veto, powers over national Parliaments. The problem with this is twofold. First, it would not help sufficiently to safeguard the Eurozone’s macro-economy. Secondly, it would violate basic principles of Western liberal democracy.

Consider events both prior to the eruption of the euro crisis, in 2010, and afterwards. Before the crisis, had Dr Schäuble’s fiscal overlord existed, she or he might have been able to veto the Greek government’s profligacy but would be in no position to do anything regarding the tsunami of loans flowing from the private banks of Frankfurt and Paris to the Periphery’s private banks.[2] Those capital outflows underpinned unsustainable debt that, unavoidably, got transferred back onto the public’s shoulders the moment financial markets imploded. Post-crisis, Dr Schäuble’s budget Leviathan would also be powerless, in the face of potential insolvency of several states caused by their bailing out (directly or indirectly) the private banks.

In short, the new high office envisioned by the Schäuble-Lamers Plan would have been impotent to prevent the causes of the crisis and to deal with its repercussions. Moreover, every time it did act, by vetoing a national budget, the new high office would be annulling the sovereignty of a European people without having replaced it by a higher-order sovereignty at a federal or supra-national level.

Dr Schäuble has been impressively consistent in his espousal of a political union that runs contrary to the basic principles of a democratic federation. In an article in Die Welt published on 15th June 1995, he dismissed the “academic debate” over whether Europe should be “…a federation or an alliance of states”. Was he right that there is no difference between a federation and an ‘alliance of states’? I submit that a failure to distinguish between the two constitutes a major threat to European democracy.

Forgotten prerequisites for a liberal democratic, multinational political union

One often forgotten fact about liberal democracies is that the legitimacy of its laws and constitution is determined not by its legal content but by politics. To claim, as Dr Schäuble did in 1995, and implied again in 2014, that it makes no difference whether the Eurozone is an alliance of sovereign states or a federal state is purposely to ignore that the latter can create political authority whereas the former cannot.

An ‘alliance of states’ can, of course, come to mutually beneficial arrangements against a common aggressor (e.g. in the context of a defensive military alliance), or in agreeing to common industry standards, or even effect a free trade zone. But, such an alliance of sovereign states can never legitimately create an overlord with the right to strike down a states’ sovereignty, since there is no collective, alliance-wide sovereignty from which to draw the necessary political authority to do so.

This is why the difference between a federation and an ‘alliance of states’ matters hugely. For while a federation replaces the sovereignty forfeited at the national or state level with a new-fangled sovereignty at the unitary, federal level, centralising power within an ‘alliance of states’ is, by definition, illegitimate, and lacks any sovereign body politic that can anoint it. Nor can any Euro Chamber of the European Parliament, itself lacking the power to legislate at will, legitimise the Budget Commissioner’s veto power over national Parliaments.

To put it slightly differently, small sovereign nations, e.g. Iceland, have choices to make within the broader constraints created for them by nature and by the rest of humanity. However limited these choices, Iceland’s body politic retains absolute authority to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they have reached within the nation’s exogenous constraints and to strike down every piece of legislation that it has decided upon in the past. In juxtaposition, the Eurozone’s finance ministers often return from Eurogroup meetings decrying the decisions that they have just signed up to, using the standard excuse that “it was the best we could negotiate within the Eurogroup”.

The euro crisis has expanded this lacuna at the centre of Europe hideously. An informal body, the Eurogroup, that keeps no minutes, abides by no written rules, and is answerable to precisely no one, is running the world’s largest macro-economy, with a Central Bank struggling to stay within vague rules that it creates as it goes along, and no body politic to provide the necessary bedrock of political legitimacy on which fiscal and monetary decisions may rest.

Will Dr Schäuble’s Plan remedy this indefensible system of governance? If anything, it would dress up the Eurogroup’s present ineffective macro-governance and political authoritarianism in a cloak of pseudo-legitimacy. The malignancies of the present ‘Alliance of States’ would be cast in stone and the dream of a democratic European federation would be pushed further into an uncertain future.

Dr Schäuble’s perilous strategy for implementing the Schäuble-Lamers Plan

Back in May, in the sidelines of yet another Eurogroup meeting, I had had the privilege of a fascinating conversation with Dr Schäuble. We talked extensively both about Greece and regarding the future of the Eurozone. Later on that day, the Eurogroup meeting’s agenda included an item on future institutional changes to bolster the Eurozone. In that conversation, it was abundantly clear that Dr Schäuble’s Plan was the axis around which the majority of finance ministers were revolving.

Though Grexit was not referred to directly in that Eurogroup meeting of nineteen ministers, plus the institutions’ leaders, veiled references were most certainly made to it. I heard a colleague say that member-states that cannot meet their commitments should not count on the Eurozone’s indivisibility, since reinforced discipline was of the essence. Some mentioned the importance of bestowing upon a permanent Eurogroup President the power to veto national budgets. Others discussed the need to convene a Euro Chamber of Parliamentarians to legitimise her or his authority. Echoes of Dr Schäuble’s Plan reverberated throughout the room.

Judging from that Eurogroup conversation, and from my discussions with Germany’s Finance Minister, Grexit features in Dr Schäuble’s Plan as a crucial move that would kickstart the process of its implementation. A controlled escalation of the long suffering Greeks’ pains, intensified by shut banks while ameliorated by some humanitarian aid, was foreshadowed as the harbinger of the New Eurozone. On the one hand, the fate of the prodigal Greeks would act as a morality tale for governments toying with the idea of challenging the existing ‘rules’ (e.g. Italy), or of resisting the transfer of national sovereignty over budgets to the Eurogroup (e.g. France). On the other hand, the prospect of (limited) fiscal transfers (e.g. a closer banking union and a common unemployment benefit pool) would offer the requisite carrot (that smaller nations craved).

Setting aside any moral or philosophical objections to the idea of forging a better union through controlled boosts in the suffering of a constituent member-state, several broader questions pose themselves urgently:

- Are the means fit for the ends?
- Is the abrogation of the Eurozone’s constitutional indivisibility a safe means of securing its future as a realm of shared prosperity?
- Will the ritual sacrifice of a member-state help bring Europeans closer together?
- Does the argument that elections cannot change anything in indebted member-states inspire trust in Europe’s institutions?
- Or might it have the precise opposite effect, as fear and loathing become established parts of Europe’s intercourse?


Conclusion: Europe at a crossroads

The Eurozone’s faulty foundations revealed themselves first in Greece, before the crisis spread elsewhere. Five years later, Greece is again in the limelight as Germany’s sole surviving statesman from the era that forged the euro, Dr Wolfgang Schäuble, has a plan to refurbish Europe’s monetary union that involves jettisoning Greece on the excuse that the Greek government has no ‘credible’ reforms on offer.

The reality is that a Eurogroup sold to Dr Schäuble’s Plan, and strategy, never had any serious intention to strike a New Deal with Greece reflecting the common interests of creditors and of a nation whose income had been crushed, and whose society was fragmented, as a result of a terribly designed ‘Program’. Official Europe’s insistence that this failed ‘Program’ be adopted by our new government ‘or else’ was nothing but the trigger for the implementation of Dr Schäuble’s Plan.

It is quite telling that, the moment negotiations collapsed, our government’s argument that Greece’s debt had to be restructured as part of any viable agreement was, belatedly, acknowledged. The International Monetary Fund was the first institution to do so. Remarkably Dr Schäuble himself also acknowledged that debt relief was needed but hastened to add that it was politically “impossible”. What I am sure he really meant was that it was undesirable, to him, because his aim is to justify a Grexit that triggers the implementation of his Plan for Europe.

Perhaps it is true that, as a Greek and a protagonist in the past five months of negotiations, my assessment of the Schäuble-Lamers Plan, and of their chosen means, is too biased to matter in Germany.

Germany has been a loyal European ‘citizen’ and the German people, to their credit, have always yearned to embed their nation-state, to lose themselves in an important sense, within a united Europe. So, setting aside my views on the matter, the question is this:

What do you, dear reader, think of it? Is Dr Schäuble’s Plan consistent with your dream of a democratic Europe? Or will its implementation, beginning with the treatment of Greece as something between a pariah state and a sacrificial lamb, spark off a never-ending feedback between economic instability and the authoritarianism that feeds off it?

[1] “Elections can change nothing” and “It is the MoU or nothing”, were typical of the utterances that he greeted my first intervention at the Eurogroup with.

[2] Moreover, if the Greek state had been barred from borrowing by Dr Schäuble’s budget commissioner, Greek debt would still have piled up via the private banks – as it did in Ireland and Spain.

[Glen Radar]

Con todo, están ahí. (Y otras muchas infrastrucyuras.) Resulta que nuestras queridas élites hasta dejaron algo a la vista. En Grecia y en otros sitios ni siquiera eso. Se lo han pulido o está en las suizas. Todavía tendremos que celebrarlo. 

Edit: Mira por dónde...

Un grupo chino compra el aeropuerto de Ciudad Real por 10.000 euros
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/07/17/actualidad/1437130421_864179.html
El paquete subastado no incluye algunos elementos como la terminal o el aparcamiento.

Y ojo, que éste era privado, si no recuerdo mal. (10.000€, madre del amor hermoso!)

Siguiendo con los "mira por dónde...", rastreo un poco la noticia y...

En esta nota, si se hace clic en el enlace "poca información", llegamos a esta ficha, donde se lee el nombre del administrador (basta aguzar la vista un poco; si no, aquí la tienen más diáfana): José Manuel González Porro, secretario general de Mapfre. (Y no, no puede tratarse de otro González Porro, como puede verse aquí.)

Y aquí, una foto de la fantasbulosa sede.

Ahora es cuando tendría que colocar una jetilla de esas. Dudo entre ésta:  , esta otra:  y ésta:  . (Hay una cuarta en la que quizá muchos estén pensando, pero la comida era tan rica que no pienso echarla a perder...)

[muyuu]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/17/germany-greece-wolfgang-schauble-bailout

Why is Germany so tough on Greece? Look back 25 years
Dirk Laabs

To understand Wolfgang Schäuble’s demands in the bailout talks, look at what he inflicted on his own country when it reunified

Every drama needs a great baddie, and in the latest act of the Greek crisis Wolfgang Schäuble, the 72-year-old German finance minister, has emerged as the standout villain: critics see him as a ruthless technocrat who strong-armed an entire country and now plans to strip it of its assets. One part of the bailout deal in particular has scandalised many Europeans: the proposed creation of a fund designated to cherrypick €50bn (£35bn) worth of Greek public assets and privatise them to pay the country’s debts. But the key to understanding Germany’s strategy is that for Schäuble there is nothing new about any of this.

It was 25 years ago, during the summer of 1990, that Schäuble led the West German delegation negotiating the terms of the unification with formerly communist East Germany. A doctor of law, he was West Germany’s interior minister and one of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s closest advisers, the go-to guy whenever things got tricky.

The situation in the former GDR was not too dissimilar from that in Greece when Syriza swept to power: East Germans had just held their first free elections in history, only months after the Berlin Wall fell, and some of the delegates from East Berlin dreamed of a new political system, a “third way” between the west’s market economy and the east’s socialist system – while also having no idea how to pay the bills anymore.

The West Germans, on the other side of the table, had the momentum, the money and a plan: everything the state of East Germany owned was to be absorbed by the West German system and then quickly sold to private investors to recoup some of the money East Germany would need in the coming years. In other words: Schäuble and his team wanted collateral.

At that time almost every former communist company, shop or petrol station was owned by the Treuhand, or trust agency – an institution originally thought up by a handful of East German dissidents to stop state-run firms from being sold to West German banks and companies by corrupt communist cadres. The Treuhand’s mission: to turn all the big conglomerates, companies and tiny shops into private firms, so they could be part of a market economy.

Schäuble and his team didn’t care that the dissidents had planned to hand out shares of companies to the East Germans, issued by the Treuhand – a concept that incidentally led to the rise of the oligarchs in Russia. But they liked the idea of a trust fund because it operated outside the government: while technically overseen by the finance ministry, it was publicly perceived as an independent agency. Even before Germany merged into a single state in October 1990, the Treuhand was firmly in West German hands.

Their aim was to privatise as many companies as possible, as soon as possible – and if you were to ask most Germans about the Treuhand today they would say it achieved that objective. It didn’t do so in a way that was popular with the people of East Germany, where the Treuhand quickly became known as the ugly face of capitalism. It did a horrible job in explaining the transformation to shellshocked East Germans who felt overpowered by this strange new agency. To make matters worse, the Treuhand became a hotbed of corruption.

The agency took all the blame for the bleak situation in East Germany. Kohl and Schäuble’s party, the conservative CDU, was re-elected for years to come, while others paid the price: one of the Treuhand’s presidents, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, was shot and killed by leftwing terrorists. (Schäuble too became the victim of an attack that left him permanently in a wheelchair, only days after German reunification – but his paranoid attacker’s motives were unrelated to the political events)

But the reality of what the Treuhand did is different from the popular perception – and that should be a warning for both Schäuble and the rest of Europe. Selling East Germany’s assets for maximum profit turned out to be more difficult than imagined. Almost all assets of real value – the banks, the energy sector – had already been snapped up by West German companies. Within days of the introduction of the West German mark, the economy in the east completely broke down. Like Greece, it required a massive bailout programme organised by Schäuble’s government, but in secret: they set aside 100bn marks (£35bn) to keep the old East German economy afloat, a figure that became public only years later.

With prices for labour and supplies going through the roof, the already stressed East Germany economy went into freefall and the Treuhand had no chance to sell many of its businesses. After a couple of months it started to close down entire companies, firing thousands of workers. In the end the Treuhand didn’t make any money for the German government at all: it took in a mere €34bn for all the companies in the east combined, losing €105bn.

In reality, the Treuhand became not just a tool for privatisation but a quasi-socialist holding company. It lost billions of marks because it went on paying the wages of many workers in the east and kept some unviable factories alive – a positive aspect usually drowned out in the vilifications of the agency. Because Kohl and, during the summer of 1990, Schäuble weren’t Chicago economists keen on radical experiments but politicians who wanted to be re-elected, they pumped millions into a failing economy. This is where parallels with Greece end: there were political limits to the austerity a government could impose on its own people.

The lesson Schäuble learned – and which is likely to influence his decision-making now – is that if you act the pure-hearted neoliberal you can still get away with decisions that don’t make perfect economic sense. If Schäuble is acting tough with Greece right now, it is because his electorate wants him to act that way; it’s not just that he doesn’t care about the Greek people, he wants people to believe he doesn’t care, because he sees the political advantage in it.

But Schäuble should have learned from history that the Treuhand gamble had catastrophic psychological consequences. Even though the agency was run by Germans, who spoke German, still it was seen by many in the east as an occupying force.

Schäuble’s idea of foreign countries controlling Greek assets and moving them abroad is an even more humiliating concept for any country. Schäuble comes across as a tough and sober accountant. In fact he is just an ordinary politician repeating old mistakes.

[muyuu]

A mí tus posts me llevan sonando a propaganda bastante tiempo, pero no pasa nada.

Las votaciones y las decisiones en el seno de la UE dejan muchísimo que desear. Allá cada cual con lo que se quiera creer. Al fin y al cabo yo desde aquí no voy a cambiar nada.

Muy bien, pero yo te contraargumento y tu a mí no. Simplemente, "dejan mucho que desear" y asunto zanjado por tu parte.

Es que llevamos ya muchas páginas repitiendo argumentos circulares y me da la sensación de estar perdiendo el tiempo.

Cuando algo no "computa", simplemente se ignora, y se mueven los postes. Luego en un par de días otra vez lo mismo.

El tema de la representación democrática en Europa ya está muy manido y daría para mucho.

Schaeuble ha escrito propuestas de parte de la UE. Él, personalmente. En calidad deee... ? Ministro de Finanzas de Alemania. No hay registro de las conversaciones. Ni siquiera a desclasificar en 20 años ni en 50 años. Simplemente no lo hay. Y ya está.

Si no comprendemos que los mecanismos en España ya son de por sí escasamente democráticos, incluso en Alemania, lo de la UE para qué hablar.

Ahora la respuesta que me esperaría es que si Syriza, que si culpismos y penitencias y bla bla bla. Que si los anglos, el sinedrín, las conspiraciones judeomasónicas. Así no vamos a ningún lado.

Los procedimientos de la UE son absolutamente bananeros por mucho gran bloque económico que sea. Eso nos afecta de muchas formas. Aunque comprendo la preocupación por parar el avance de Podemos en España, pero no se puede perder la objetividad por eso. Más anti-Podemos que yo aquí no hay nadie. Tampoco me gusta Farage pero la UE se empeña en dar validez y relevancia a su discurso.

Salu2

[CHOSEN]

No hay registro de las conversaciones. Ni siquiera a desclasificar en 20 años ni en 50 años. Simplemente no lo hay. Y ya está.

Entonces me estas asegurando que EEUU no lo ha podido espiar ¿?
Al fin!!! el contraespionaje europeo funciona 
Se certifica la sala libre de microfonos, papeles y bolígrafos.

[ironic mode -off]


Espero que con lo de Grecia no se entre también en la dinámica -demostradamente falsa- que se entró con el TTIP.
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/documents-and-events/
Que ya somos mayorcitos.

Están siendo los procedimientos más democráticos jamás vistos en la historia de la humanidad.
Otra cosa es que algunos no aceptéis los resultados y lo querais vestir de "izquierda del pueblo" en un salto mortal que todavía sigo sin entender.

¿No te parece increíble que europarlamentarios (adultos) voten sobre algo desconocido?
 

PD: Ya es oficial. Tras un segundo email tengo nueva novia rusa  la semana que viene le envío 500€ pero no me importa, porque me han notificado por carta desde Nigeria que me van a ingresar unos dineros de una herencia perdida.
[ironic mode -off]

Internet es maravillosa.

[lectorhinfluyente1984]

PD: Ya es oficial. Tras un segundo email tengo nueva novia rusa  la semana que viene le envío 500€ pero no me importa, porque me han notificado por carta desde Nigeria que me van a ingresar unos dineros de una herencia perdida.

 

¡Andrés, somos ricos, Andrés...!

[breades]

Si no comprendemos que los mecanismos en España ya son de por sí escasamente democráticos, incluso en Alemania, lo de la UE para qué hablar.

Fíjate que hasta el mismo Presidente del Consejo Europeo (máximo organismo de la UE) Donald Tusk lo ha reconocido. Y varios foreros han aplaudido lo que ha dicho al respecto de las negociaciones del fin de semana pasado por el tercer rescate a Grecia, pero han pasado por alto el detalle. Literalmente ha dicho:

'En Europa tenemos demasiado Rousseau y Voltaire y no lo suficiente Monstequieu'. Es mi impresión también cuando escucho a intelectuales hoy".

http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2015/07/17/55a80017ca4741eb4d8b4599.html

Mostesquieu decía que:

Cuando los poderes legislativo y ejecutivo se hallan reunidos en una misma persona o corporación, entonces no hay libertad, porque es de temer que el monarca o el senado hagan leyes tiránicas para ejecutarlas del mismo modo.

 

[saturno]

PD: Ya es oficial. Tras un segundo email tengo nueva novia rusa  la semana que viene le envío 500€ pero no me importa, porque me han notificado por carta desde Nigeria que me van a ingresar unos dineros de una herencia perdida.

 

¡Andrés, somos ricos, Andrés...!

Carta del director de la sucursal de Chosen:


"
"Nos es grato informarle que su petición de préstamo por 500 euros ha sido aceptada.
La documentación suministrada por su novia rusa y su aval nigeriano cumple con todos los requisitos del Banco de España OBE nº 1234 del 4 de mayo 2005, la Directiva Europea sobre créditos internacionales del 18 de diciembre 2003, así como las normas de las OCDE y otros tratados internacionales. Visa y Master Card confirman ser capaces de tramitar su herencia.

Asimismo nos congratulamos informarle que nuestro departamento de estudios de riesgo, tras un exhaustivo examen de la documentación suministrada, ratifica que el riesgo de esta operación es nulo

A la vista de sus movimientos de cuenta, con unos ingresos recurrentes de 700 euros, a los que conviene sustraer las cuotas de seguridad social si es Ud, autónomo, le recomiendo sucribir un préstamo de consumo de 50.000 para hacer frente a los trámites en Nigeria y algún un viaje a Moscú.
Gracias a su banco, podrá utilizar los 500 solicitados para pagar los gastos de correos.

Adjuntamos el contrato de crédito de consumo así como el catálogo de nuestra agencia de viajes (Viajes AeroJubiletas VidaCasa)

Asimismo, considerando que una boda es para toda la vida, y que necesitará cambiar de alquiler a vivienda en propiedad, le adjuntamos nuestro catálogo de pisos en venta en el barrio. Sin más trámites, podemos ya comunicarle que se puede beneficiar de las condiciones del crédito reestructurable "Greco", hasta a 80 años con carencia de devolución de hasta 50 años. ¡Simplemente lo pagarán sus hijos!
También disponemos de créditos de estudios, de moto, de coche y de vacaciones trimestrales en condiciones similares.

Adjuntamos toda la documentación necesaria para celebrar su feliz compromiso : sólo requiere copia del DNI y su firma. ¡Con su banco, la vida es fácil! Dado que cumple todas las condiciones, no es necesario tomar cita, puede dejar la documentación en el cajero o el buzón de la sucursal.

Estaremos por supuesto encantados de atenderle si desea concerdernos su tiempo. Tenemos máquina de café.
"



(Quién es responsable de qué, ¿exactamente ?)