My unpublished (100,000 word) book “The Financial Jigsaw”, is being serialised here weekly in 100 Issues by Peter J Underwood, author
Last week we continued to explore the EU’s main theme of finally ending up with a federal superstate as part of the globalists’ agenda and looked at some of the push-backs that the EU is experiencing: here is the link to last week: Issue 32
In this final Issue on Europe is summarised some of the main problems facing the European project any of which could cause its demise. There are already many observations of the lacklustre performance of the European economies and Brexit is yet another thorn in their flesh. I came across this article on ZH which summarises what the EU is facing: It opens with: ” Though the end of the European Union is inevitable, the proponents of a further integrated or federal superstate are busy making a last effort to achieve their goal. The opposition against the project is mounting with every day. Europe is suffering from economic stagnation, and is facing a demographic calamity.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-21/european-project-comes-end
CHAPTER 6
The European Union
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein [who might have been commenting on Brexit]
“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred; and always stronger than internationalism”.
George Orwell
Structural failings within the EU
Youth unemployment in the Eurozone is devastating, approaching 60% of employable youth in some countries like Greece, and is spiralling higher; economic stress is rising, government revenue is shrinking and it will not be long until something goes horribly wrong although nobody can say when a crisis will reoccur.
Thus there remain three major problems within the Eurozone that, without fixing, will lead to a re-awakening of the Eurozone crisis:
- Lack of a constitutional and monetary union.
- Lack of centralized fiscal and monetary policy controls.
- Lack of centralized leadership.
The lack of a centralized constitutional and monetary union has led to several years of inaction in the process of unification of the Eurozone. While it was a “grand experiment” to run the Eurozone under a single currency the underlying structure to make it effective long term was never achieved.
The U.S.A. is a monetary union under which all state governments act under the central authority of the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve central bank. The problem for the Europe is that there are 28 (27 by 2019) leaders and no followers. This is why fiscal reforms remain elusive and each and every promise made by the individual governments to the ECB and IMF for assistance eventually fails.
The required public support for the EU is dependent on its economic success which validates its political stance in the world. Economic success relies on competition between states and regions which engenders technological progress and economic growth.
The failure of the ‘Lisbon Agenda’s aim, launched in March 2000, to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” has highlighted the weakness of the EU’s centralized structure. It was the decentralised nature of early Europe that invigorated their economies generating enterprise and prosperity across most of the continent.
The economic failure of the EU to date is inviting more centralisation in response, which is quite the opposite of what is needed, resulting in yet more harmonization and integration of national policies.
In his “State of the Union” address to the European Parliament in September 2012, the then European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, called for a more powers for the EU Commission.
The dangers of a centralised approach are also prevalent in the relationship between the 17 current Eurozone members and the remaining 11 non-Eurozone states. The former group attempt to continue with greater integration but yield more negative economic consequences which will deter the latter from future participation in the euro.
Europe’s cultural richness exists because of its diversity, and is the root and branch of its finest achievements having been accomplished through competition between these disparate peoples, institutions and cities.
The EU evolves to become a vassal state of the United States of America
However, there is another angle to the European sovereign debt crisis which might possibly be used to eventually terminate the sovereignty of its EU members. Although individual countries retain significant sovereignty away from the current EU structure, there are indications that the EU is beholden to the American Empire and works in concert with it when confronted by mutual threats such as that demonstrated by the illegal and hostile action taken, on Washington’s orders by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Austria against the airliner carrying Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, on 4th July 2013.
Flying back to Bolivia from Moscow, Morales’ plane was denied air space and refuelling permission by French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese governments and was forced to land in Austria where the presidential plane was searched for ‘Edward Snowden’.
It was the American’s intention to capture Snowden in defiance of international law and to make an example of reformers like Morales showing that the American hegemony is not to be challenged. The Europeans allowed this extraordinary breach of diplomacy and international law despite the fact that Washington has been spying on their governments, diplomats, and citizens for years.
If this is not an example of extreme sovereign hypocrisy, I don’t know what is. John Pilger of The Guardian newspaper had this to say on Thursday 4 July 2013 [my emboldening]: “Historians seem to agree that the rise of fascism in Europe might have been averted had the liberal or left political class understood the true nature of its enemy. The parallels today are very different, but the Damocles sword over Snowden, like the casual abduction of Bolivia’s president, ought to stir us into recognising the true nature of the enemy.
Snowden’s revelations are not merely about privacy or civil liberty or even mass spying. They are about the unmentionable: that the democratic facades of the US now barely conceal a systematic gangsterism historically identified with, if not necessarily the same as, fascism. On Tuesday, a US drone killed 16 people in North Waziristan, “where many of the world’s most dangerous militants live”, said the few paragraphs I read. That by far the world’s most dangerous militants had hurled the drones was not a consideration. President Obama personally sends them every Tuesday.”
Europe’s intractable problem
In conclusion, this piece of the jigsaw is crucial in order to assemble a complete picture. The problem for Europe is that, without a centralized political leadership and the ability to issue its own debt with strong fiscal and monetary policy and a viable central bank with a “printing press” to support it, the survivability of the EU project in the long term is doomed. It is only while the USA props up the euro with trillions of dollars (the Eurodollar) that it has survived thus far.
It is possible that smaller countries will want to withdraw from the euro due to the general pressures of ‘austerity’ requirements or Germany will decide to stop bailing out the periphery at its own expense. The question then becomes: “who is going to make good on all the debt held, and guaranteed by the ECB – the Americans?”
The next Chapter brings together all the jigsaw pieces we have collected so far in conjunction with the ‘Market’ jigsaw pieces, for these are many, fitting all around the edges of the picture in both shape and colour adding a unique dynamic to our static picture so far. But the story of the Britain and the EU has not ended here because we now have an ongoing, fluid situation in Brexit.
The continuing saga of Brexit
On the 23rd June 2016 the British public voted for Britain to exit from the European Union under a referendum which resulted in a majority 17,410,742 (51.9%) of the people agreeing to Britain leaving the EU.
On 29th March 2017 the British government invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty formally calling for Britain to leave the EU and which is ever referred to as “Brexit“. There is now a two year period for HM government (HMG) to negotiate the terms of leaving the EU which is controversial, complex and fraught with unknown risks.
It had been assumed by the EU bureaucrats that this article would never have been invoked and thus Brexit is a unique and first-time event which is causing confusion throughout both Britain as a sovereign state and the 27 remaining countries in the European Union. This saga will probably extend well beyond the two years allowed and it is expected that a transitional arrangement will be agreed allowing negotiations to continue long after the formal deadline.
The three major items being addressed are; the cost/price of the final exit account to accrue to HMG; the status of EU citizens resident and working in Britain as well as British subjects living in the EU states; and settlement of the Northern Ireland border with Eire which represents the only land border between the EU and Britain. It is this last issue which is causing all the problems and will probably result in a rejection by parliament of Mrs May’s proposals in January 2019.
To be continued next Saturday
It appears you are an advocate of assembling all the parts of Europe (the jigsaw) into a rigid European Region (part of a World Government?). I know what Satan and his Minions want (God told us) and I hope Trump and the Yellow Vests etc screw up The Plan for a thousand years and the Deep State rots in jail.
Quite the opposite Robert, I advocate for a break-up of the EU and am a libertarian at heart. The Jigsaw is the world economy and I would never be for a NWO. I am further against this continuing globalism – I favour small government.
Sorry, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Thanks for the reply and now I have to read your article with my head screwed on.
You seem to go both ways (central control vs local control) depending on the problem and the best solution to the problem. Central control works great with wise benevolent rulers; unfortunately, that is rarely ever the case with TPTB and definitely not the case in the EU and with the Deep State in the US. Viva La Trump, the Yellow Vests, Brexit, and the Counter-Revolutions in Hungary, Italy, Austria, Poland etc.