From today’s Open Europe news summary:
German Finance Minister: “In one way or another, we’ll change the EU Treaties”; UK criticises for calling for swift euro crisis resolution while threatening to veto further integration DPA reports that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has said he wants quick EU Treaty changes to establish a specific eurozone Commissioner – potentially as “powerful” as the Commissioner in charge of competition – with the mandate to send national budgets back to national parliaments, if not within the eurozone’s fiscal rules. He also wants a specific Eurozone parliament, an off-shoot of the European Parliament. Handelsblattreports that Angela Merkel will demand an EU treaty change as quid pro quo for bailing out Greece, with proposals floated as early as at this week’s EU summit. Schäuble is quoted saying that “in one way or another, we’ll change the European Treaties.”Schäuble also said of the UK that “one can’t, on the one hand, demand a quick resolution to the eurozone crisis and on the other, torpedo each step which aligns fiscal policies within the eurozone.” The article adds that Germany may seek an intergovernmental Treaty, however it reports that this may be problematic following the latest German Constitutional Court judgement.
Separately Der Spiegel reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, allegedly frustrated by the UK government’s unwillingness to compromise, has come to terms with the fact that there “will no longer be a path back to the centre of the [EU] for the British.” Handelsblatt FAZ Spiegel Mail Express
This explains in very clear terms the two differing sides. The Euro-elite, represented here by Merkel and Schauble, believe that the EU can and should have veto power over national budgets. This is the same as loss of sovereignty, which I doubt the Greeks or anyone else would ever accept and which is unenforceable in any event. What will the EU do when Greece fails to pass a budget acceptable to the EU or fails to implement it? Will the EU invade Greece? Perhaps it will throw Greece out of the EU. Just listen to Schauble himself, who says in the above report that “one way or another, we’ll change the European Treaties.” Coercion is the Euro-federalists’ last option, which illustrates the inherent contradiction of what the EU has become. It started as a supposedly voluntary organization of sovereign members who cooperate on matters of mutual interest. But, since the very beginning of what is now the EU and which started as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950, the Euro-federalists have dreamed and schemed to establish a new sovereign organization to supplant the nation-state. They thought they had succeeded with the launching of the euro, which would be the tool for running the continent according to their wishes. But the euro has merely exposed the unresolvable problems with the Euro-federalists’ dreams. The euro has been plundered by its members, as was predicted by Austrian economists and which is explained by Professor Philipp Bagus in Tragedy of the Euro. Rather than admit that the euro was misconstructed, the Euro-federalists insist on changing the European Treaties “by any means”. This is ominous. Patrick Barron
