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GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN
GLOBAL SYSTEMIC CRISIS EUROLAND 2012-2016
PERPETUATION OF A NEW GLOBAL POWER ON CONDITION OF DEMOCRATIZATION

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-62-is-avai...a9183.html

As anticipated by LEAP/E2020, the fear largely

fed by the City of London and Wall Street of a

Eurozone break-up over the Greek debt crisis

proved unfounded. Euroland has come out of this

violently conflictual episode with its "natural

allies" much reinforced. According to our team,

2012 will mark the starting point for the

perpetuation of a new global power, Euroland.

However, this development remains conditional on

the question of democratization that we analyze

in this issue, through the three sequences of

Euroland’s evolution 2012-2016. These five years

will lead Europeans to profoundly influence a

global geopolitical rebalancing whilst

domestically a radical new phase of European

integration is opening up in the coming months.

Moreover, this GEAB issue anticipates the US

Dollar’s progress as a dominant currency for

global commercial transactions. The 2012 to 2013

period will in fact bring great changes in this

area directly affecting global trade as the

relative power of the currencies involved. In

addition recommendations on currencies, gold,

Greece, Russia, the US economy and stock markets,

LEAP/E2020 offers a preview in this issue of the

next book to be published in March 2012 by

Anticipolis Editions entitled "2015 - The Great

fall of Western real estate" by Sylvain Périfel

and Philippe Schneider.



For this press release, LEAP/E2020 has chosen to

present its anticipations on the first of the

three Euroland sequences 2012-2016.



As previously announced, LEAP/E2020 is presenting

its anticipations for Europe over the 2012-2016

period in this issue. In the context of a global

systemic crisis, two strategic trends will mark

these five years for Europeans: on the one hand

the stabilization of Euroland as a new full

global power (1); and, on the other, the absolute

requirement for the European elite to raise the

democratic freeze which now weighs heavily on the

process of European integration. In this issue

our team analyzes why, starting from the second

half of 2012, conditions will be at their best

for Euroland to take on these two trends fully

(2). Of course, numerous economic, financial,

strategic and political challenges remain for

Europeans; but, with the global systemic crisis

entering its phase of reconstituting world

geopolitical balances, with Euroland, they have a

“new sovereign” able to positively influence the

course of events (3). Of course, this capacity is

conditional upon the democratic legitimization of

the whole of Euroland governance. From 2012 to

2016, three major sequences will characterize

Euroland’s stabilization as a full sovereign and

the lifting of the democratic freeze.



Before going into the European case in detail,

our team would like to remind readers that the

big difference today between the anticipation of

the United States’ development and Europe’s is

due to the fact that the United States has a

completely paralysed antiquated

politico-institutional system, whereas European

integration has a strong dynamic associated with

great institutional flexibility. The absence of

major reform in the United States since the

beginning of the crisis in 2008 compared with the

impressive series of European institutional leaps

and bounds since mid-2010 (developments

considered impossible by many just two years ago)

offers a striking illustration. In the American

case, the question of anticipation of events thus

forces to be able to identify the points of

rupture of a sclerotic system. In the European

case, it’s a question on the other hand of

targeting the course of events and evaluating

their pace of development (4). Which is much

simpler in fact when, like LEAP/E2020, one has a

good understanding of how Europe functions

institutionally, and has a good sense for public

opinion in the various Member States (5).



The last point of this preamble, the European

decision-making process will considerably improve

for Euroland since, from now on, only the

countries using the Euro will take the decisions.

Moreover, it’s a feature of these years of crisis

to have finally clarified an absurd situation

which saw countries outside the Eurozone, even

anti-Euro (like the United Kingdom), take part in

decisions on the Euro. But nevertheless, the very

nature of the European decision-making process,

implying negotiations and compromises, will

continue to show it as being chaotic and slow, as

opposed to national decision making. It will be

much less than before, but still there all the

same because it’s the very characteristic of the

functioning of European integration; ultimately

it is also one of its conditions of effectiveness,

in order that each State really applies what has

been decided.



Now, let’s move on to the analysis of the three

major sequences which will characterise the

2012-2016 period. These three sequences have been

presented out of sequence to make them clearer;

but it’s obvious of course that they all overlap.



1st Sequence - 2012-2013: End of Euroland’s

consolidation of its budget-finance operations /

Launching of the first pro-active common

socio-economic policies / Acceleration of the

distinction between Euroland-EU

By mid-2012, as we have already indicated in

preceding GEAB issues, Euroland will be endowed

with a whole set of new national leaders (Spain,

Italy, Greece, France, Slovenia, Belgium,…) and

the following months there will be elections in

Germany. Euroland will thus be led by men and

women who, for the most part, came to power

after the start of the crisis.



Until the end of 2011 it wasn’t the case; quite

the contrary, most Eurozone leaders were

electoral products of the world before the

crisis. The fact that these leaders, mediocre

politicians in the main, and completely

unprepared for the collapse of the values/beliefs

which they held until 2008, were nevertheless

able to face relatively well the global crisis,

then the Greek crisis and its effects, against

the background of a violent attack on the

European single currency by City of London and

Wall Street, was proof of the dynamics of

European integration at work within Euroland. In

fact, our team considers that they were the

generation of politicians the least prepared to

“save European integration” since they were

generally not very interested in Europe and often

under the control of the banks and Washington. To

pick up from an analysis of Franck Biancheri’s

going back to 1989, “the babyboomer politicians

are likely to break the European project of which

they understand nothing, prior to the “Erasmus”

generations entering the fray”.



It will never be known what would have happened

if the global systemic crisis had exploded five

years later, but what is certain is that they

will have managed to avoid “breaking Europe”.

Even Nicolas Sarkozy, who we consider has been

the worst French president of the Fifth Republic

for France and Europe, as our readers know,

deserves credit on this subject for having had

the savvy to push ahead on the need for summits

for Euroland leaders only. What this episode

teaches us is that if even unprepared and

unreliable leaders knew how to find the answers

allowing the building of the bases for Euroland

in the middle of an historical crisis, it’s

reasonable to believe that more inspired and

better prepared leaders (at least due to the fact

that they will have lived through this crisis

before coming to power) will be able to fare at

least as well, if not better (6).



This analysis is reinforced by another

determining factor of the European

decision-making process: in the absence of the

system’s democratization, the technocrats are the

real masters of the game on the EU circuit

including Frankfurt, Brussels,… and national

capitals (7). They, since the creation of ECSC in

1951, wove the fabric of European integration.

They, who offered our disorientated leaders the

solutions of these last two years. They, who are

already preparing the initiatives for the next

few years. But to be able to take the leap of

European integration, they need the politicians.

And the politicians are only ready to take risks

in two cases: when they are afraid and when they

are visionaries (8). Fear was the incentive in

2010/2011. The vision of the future will be that

in 2012/2016.



Two elements determine this swing from reaction

to project, because it’s indeed that: fear

involves only reactions; the vision of the future is

typified by projects.



On one side, after the “bolt tightening” episode,

quite rightly demanded by the countries in

surplus (Germany, Netherlands, Finland,…) (9), we

saw the idea developing everywhere amongst the

Euroland elite that it was also necessary to

project oneself positively in the future

(recovery, common investments, Eurobonds,…).

Transition by the austerity phase was inevitable,

as we had anticipated since 2008/2009, because

Euroland integration requires common rules,

actually applied, and to stop the policies of

collective over-indebtedness promoted these last

decades by the bankers and the financial centres

of the City and Wall Street.



Greece is a textbook case. We comment further in

our recommendations in this issue but we are very

clear in this issue: to overcome the Greek

problem, it’s necessary to break the parasitic

ruling class which led this country to ruin.

However, Euroland hasn’t really the means to do

it to date, apart from really showing the Greeks

that nobody trusts their leaders any more. It’s

also dissuasive as regards other countries’

leaders, trying to keep power by debt.



Thus 2012 and 2013 will see the finalization of

the new rules for common budget, tax and economic

governance in Euroland. Common budgets control,

progress towards fiscal harmonization (10),

repatriation of the Euro financial markets to

Euroland (11), reinforced financial regulation, a

European credit rating agency, a financial

transactions tax, Eurobonds, introduction of a

maximum limit of exposure of government debt to

non-Euroland financial markets,…



For the teams coming to power in Euroland, these

developments are obvious; whereas they were

revolutionary for their predecessors. But, on

these bases, the two years to come will also see

the launching of several major common initiatives

intended to build the future: a common program of

public investment (common infrastructures in the

fields of transport, education (12), training,

health, science and technology,…).



Their financing will start one of the big debates

of these next two years because it will be

impossible, according to our team, to avoid

recourse to direct borrowing from citizens, thus

short-circuiting the banks and financing on the

financial markets. For an amount equivalent to

that of the MES, 500 billion Euros, half will cut

government debt dependence on the international

financial markets (via Eurobonds) and half will

finance major future projects. If the MES is an

embryo of European Monetary Fund, this major loan

will be the bedrock of a European Treasury. And

it will belong to the panoply of trans-European

social solidarity tools which will emerge by

2014, for gradually replacing the numerous

traditional EU structural funds (13).



Moreover, from the second half of 2012, Euroland

will see the French’s constructive return to the

European project. It’s a reality forgotten by

many since it’s been 17 years since it

disappeared from the European decision-making

process. Whether it be Jacques Chirac or Nicolas

Sarkozy, none of the French presidents since 1995

had a European streak (unlike their predecessors

- De Gaulle, Giscard and Mitterrand). Jacques

Chirac at least had the Gaullist backbone of the

refusal to be subservient, which enabled him to

resist the general recruitment for the invasion

of Iraq, in partnership with the German

chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Russian president

Vladimir Putin. Nicolas Sarkozy himself hasn’t

had any backbone, national or European. He will

have done nothing, only cross the political

landscape (14) driven by interests foreign to the

common good of the French and Europeans.



These declining or anecdotal trends have, of

course, been reinforced by the Anglo-Saxon

domination of the European agenda, pushing

expansion and the European Market to the

detriment of integration and European power. In

the end, that’s 17 years that France has ceased

making its intellectual contribution to the

advance of European integration (15). This

“French absence” at European level was only the

reflection of a growing disconnect between

Parisian power and the true country (16); a

situation which, according to LEAP/E2020, is

approaching its denouement with the overwhelming

rejection of the current president by the French.



Without too much of a wait, the next election of

François Hollande at France’s helm will allow the

bond between the true country (17) and French

leaders to be rebuilt, at least for a year or

two; sufficient time to revitalize the French

contribution at European level. The socialist

candidate’s personality also works in favour of

this development. He’s a politician for whom

Europe is a key component of his commitment,

along Mitterrand-Delors lines; and he has the

right profile for future Euroland leaders over

this 2012-2016 period: they will have to be good

team players because managing Euroland will be a

team business and not one for individuals. These

five years will more resemble an in-house stowing

of a space station’s various pieces of equipment

than a cavalry charge. Each epoch needs a certain

kind of leader: the Euroland of the next few

years needs European team members, reliable and

inventive, knowing where they want to go and

aware that they can’t get there on their own.

Beyond any partisan considerations, in his course

and the conduct of his campaign, our team thinks

that François Hollande has shown that he has these

qualities (18).



In this context, he has to urgently reposition

his campaign speeches on the renegotiation of the

current European treaty into promising to

negotiate additions to it. It’s necessary to

reassure the German and Dutch partners in

particular; and it’s useful for Angela Merkel to

avoid making the major strategic error of

entering the campaign at Nicolas Sarkozy’s side

(19). For, on the one hand, this does nothing to

avoid the defeat of the latter (and even the

opposite); and, on the other, that will make the

first months of Franco-German co-operation after

the 6th May 2012 more difficult, even if it’s

urgent to open the driving core of Euroland to

other countries (Netherlands, Spain, Italy,…).



At the same time these two years will see the

acceleration of the difference between Euroland

and the EU. It is a phenomenon which will in fact

characterize the whole of the decade. Euroland

which functions to a large extent in the form of

informal networks will gradually have to equip

itself with some institutional bases. They will

be modest because nobody wants a repeat of the

bureaucracy which definitively ossified Brussels;

but modelled on the ECB, the MES, a secretariat

of Euroland governance will prove to be necessary

very quickly, then certain specific institutions

as well as a specific Euroland component within

the European Parliament (meetings reserved for

the European representatives of the Euroland

countries to discuss specific Euroland questions,

modelled on the Euroland summits).



This development will be all the more strong and

rapid that the United Kingdom will try to slow

down or block Euroland actions. There was such an

example of the counter-productive effect of the

British veto last December; it quite simply

obliged the others to move on without London.



In general, Eurolanders will seek to use the

existing EU institutions but distancing

non-Eurolanders from the decision-making

processes. Each time it’s impossible or too

complicated, a new institutional base will be

created. This development will be all the easier

as all the EU countries, except for the United

Kingdom, have a rationale for adhesion to the

Euro in fact (20). Most EU countries know that

they will be in Euroland by 2017; which greatly

facilitates Euroland progress for the years to come.



Thus, after about fifteen years of mistakes under

British and US influence, during which Europeans

were misled on enlargement projects without a

future (Turkey, Ukraine,…) (21) and illusory

economic-financial strategies (Lisbon treaty

strategy,…), the next few years will bear the

mark of the return to political and economic

integration, as was the case at the time of the

first EU renaissance in 1984-1992. According To

LEAP/E2020, 2012/2013 will thus mark the

beginning of the second EU renaissance.



Notes:



(1) That’s to say being able to call up all a

“sovereign’s” attributes: currency, budget,

economy, international policy and defence.



(2) By the way, we point out that LEAP/E2020’s

anticipations since 2006 /2007 on Euroland’s

emergence due to the global systemic crisis

proved to be right; just like our warnings

against the forecasts of those who saw, still

only a few months ago, the Eurozone breaking up

and the Euro disappearing. Remember that on this

subject our anticipations have always been

founded on rational and objective analyses,

respecting the principles of political

anticipation methodology, whatever the personal

opinions of our team members. It’s that, and only

that, which has enabled us, since 2006, to calmly

face the dominant thinking or the periods of mass

hysteria which always feels outraged by refusals

to think like everyone else. In a crisis period,

lucidity is essential to try to understand events

and their consequences. Yet lucidity is

incompatible with “ready to think”, whether

dictated by power or fear. By way of an anecdote,

CNBC ’s headline on 15/2/2012 on a better

Euroland economic performance than forecast by

the Anglo-Saxon “experts” was very revealing:

“Euroland GNP better than hoped for. What does

that mean?”. On the one hand, one can

legitimately wonder whether the first part of the

title shouldn’t have said “ Euroland GNP “not as

bad as hoped” to reflect these “experts’” real

state of mind ? And, on the other hand, the

question in the second part of the headline

sounds like a kind of confession: “and if one had

taken our desires for realities?”.



(3) This trend is reinforced by the massive

arrival during this decade of the generations

born after the signature of the Treaty of Rome,

the first generations for which Europe is a

natural socio-political area… unlike the

babyboomer generation, privileged pool of the Eurosceptics.



(4) Of which the Anglo-Saxon media which nourish

the world media goldfish bowl are incapable, in

particular because they generally look through

the British prism which is ideologically unable

to understand the continental process of European

integration as other than a threat to avert or

scorn. Two attitudes which aren’t very favourable

for generating lucidity over events.



(5) For information, nearly a year before the

French and Dutch referenda on the European

Constitution, in the context of the splitting of

responsibilities between national and European

institutions, we anticipated that the “No” votes

would carry the day in the two countries (when

all the surveys gave victory to the “Yes” votes).



(6) In previous GEAB issues we have already

evoked the comparison with the Euro-missile

crisis, which in less than three years led the

European Community, after a change of leaders,

from an existential crisis to the first

renaissance of the Community project (1984-1992).



(7) It is so true that they are able to replace

failing politicians in government posts like

Mario Monti in Italy or Lucas Papademos in

Greece… and with an unquestionable success for

the moment in the case of Mario Monti. This

situation thus leads citizens to cast a very

critical eye over their national political

classes, pushing them to reform themselves in the

next few years. Source: Independent, 15/02/2012



(8) The two cases are exclusive since a visionary

politician has little chance of letting himself

be trapped in a frightening situation; whereas

the frightened politician is the one who has

exactly no idea how to get out of a trap.



(9) Countries which Nicolas Sarkozy’s France

clung to, so as not to appear as belonging to the other camp



(10) Once the Greek situation has been

stabilized, Ireland and its tax dumping will be

the centre of Euroland’s attention.



(11) The City has led a two year “blitzkrieg” in

vain to try and break the Eurozone. From now on

Euroland will increase the pressure each year to

reduce the already declining power of the City.

And David Cameron, like the British Eurosceptics

financed by the hedge funds, won’t be able to do

much by the way, whatever they think only 34

kilometres separate Dover from Calais.



(12) In particular, a vast programme, successor

to Erasmus, simultaneously training the European

elite, of a sufficient number and quality; and to

offer the European dimension to hundreds of

thousands of young people each year, is a very

practical form of democratizing access to Europe.



(13) A few years ago our team ironically

explained to the high level officials in Brussels

that if they didn’t set up trans-Euroland

solidarity policies to face asymmetrical shocks,

then it would be necessary for them to invest

heavily in European riot police to control citizens’ anger.



(14) We remind that we have been anticipating

since November 2010, in GEAB N°49, that Nicolas

Sarkozy wouldn’t be reelected in 2012.



(15) The episodes of the poor European

constitution project and the adoption of the

Treaty of Lisbon without a referendum are two other illustrations.



(16) A president re-elected by default in 2002

when Jacques Chirac faced with Jean-Marie le Pen;

and deception over the “goods”, identified too

late after his election, with Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.



(17) One of the axes of his policy exactly aims

at decentralizing, “de-parisianising” French

power. Source: Débats 2012, 27/01/2012



(18) He will have five years to prove that he can be François EurHollande.



(19) An error largely interpreted as such in Germany.



(20) Including Denmark which is waiting for the

right moment for a referendum on the subject

(source: Euronews, 23/01/2012). The Czech case is

very simple: with Vaclav Klaus no longer

president, the Czech Republic will join the

remainder of the European countries to prepare

for Euro entry. It will be a phenomenon similar

to the 2007 replacement of the Polish Kaczynski

twins, pro-American and anti-European, by current

the Prime Minister Donald Tusk, leading to a 180°

turn in European policy. A final remark on the

Klaus case: his party like his re-election to the

presidency in 2008, via the vote of members of

the Czech parliament, faced multiple accusations

of corruption. Its “representativeness” of Czech

public opinion is measured with these kind of

“details”. In 2013, the president will finally be

elected by universal suffrage. Source: Rue89, 09/02/2011



(21) This drift of the original European project

prevented citizens from concentrating on the

question of the governance/democratization tandem

since Europe was always a movable feast. Thus,

even at young generation level, the official

promotion of this Europe without borders

prevented the emergence of new initiatives to try

and influence their future. Our team can note

that currently, and at very high speed, this situation

is changing radically.
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