Tuesday 25 September 2012

Europe on the Brink of Bloody Revolution

The German edition of Der Spiegel opens the new week on Monday morning with a series of articles on the European situation, which make clear, as if that were still necessary, that Europe is still an absolute mess. You know, just in case you thought it was not. That Mario Draghi's latest unlimited whatever it is had somehow chased away the demons. 
First, Der Spiegel writes that the Greek deficit is twice as high as previously thought,, at €20 billion, according to a preliminary version of the long awaited troika report. The gap has to be closed for the next tranche of bailout money to be paid. 
Second, eurozone countries plan to let the ESM balloon to over €2 trillion ($2.6 trillion) . Remember that the German Constitutional Court limited Berlin's part to about €190 billion recently. Creative accounting to infinity and beyond. The efforts to keep the union together will blow it apart. 


Third, former German FInance Minister Steinbrueck works on a banking plan that would split up investment and retail activities for Germany's banks (including Deutsche), think Glass Steagall. He wants to ban commodities speculation. And he wants a bank-ESM, a fund paid for by banks that can be used to bail them out, rather than taxpayer money. 
There's lot more going on, and going wrong, in Europe, no matter what Draghi does, and no matter what plans José Manuel Barroso unveils. When I saw that the latter was seriously talking about establishing a European army, I couldn't help thinking: will it bring all those translators to the battlefield too?

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