02-26-2012, 02:46 AM
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.
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.