Posted on 11/16/2011 6:08:23 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Gathered around Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, a small group of unelected EU officials have been assigned the task of governing the eurozone and removing leaders who fail to toe the line, writes the British conservative weekly The Spectator.
Fraser Nelson
The Old Opera House in Frankfurt – once Germany’s most beautiful postwar ruin and now its most stunning recreation – has become a symbol of European rebirth. And it was here, last month, that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy met the EU’s bureaucratic elite in what would, in another era, be described as a putsch. They had grown tired of eurozone summits, with leaders flying here and there but getting nowhere. A smaller group needed to be formed, who would wield power firmly but informally. That evening, as they gathered to hear Claudio Abbado conduct the Mozart Orchestra of Bologna, a new EU hit squad was born.
As Silvio Berlusconi has now found out, this so-called Frankfurt Group means business. Only a few months ago, it would have been unthinkable that the head of one European government would try to destabilise or depose another. Now, two EU leaders have fallen in a week. As Sarkozy knows from recent experience, to enforce regime change one need only give a helping hand to the rebels.
The group cannot be accused of being secretive. At the G20 summit in Cannes, its officials walked around with lapel badges saying ‘Groupe de Francfort (GdF)’ and met four times. Britain was not included but the Foreign Office’s officials spoke as if they were in on the act. As one official put it: ‘We’re on our way to moving out Berlusconi.’
Such a statement may once have been seen as outrageous, but by last weekend it was undeniable that an operation to remove Berlusconi had begun. When Merkel and Sarkozy were asked if they had confidence in him, they rolled their eyes and gave each other wry smiles. The European Central Bank, which is also part of the Frankfurt Group, gave only minimal support to Italy – leaving the bond markets to do their worst to Berlusconi. The International Monetary Fund, whose new leader was also at the Opera house that night, made it clear that it would be sending its auditors to Rome on a regular basis to inspect the books. All this combined to send an unmistakable Old Europe message: we have ways of making you quit.
When that night in Frankfurt’s Alte Oper on 19 October was booked, no one was intending to form a new hit squad. The plan was to have just an ordinary taxpayer-funded extravaganza, a shindig to mark Jean-Claude Trichet’s retirement from the European Central Bank. Helmut Schmidt, the 92-year-old former chancellor of Germany who is now seen as a godfather of the European project, told the assembled dignitaries that ‘a crisis in the ability to act of the EU’s political bodies’ was ‘a much bigger danger for the future of Europe than over-indebtedness’. It was time to get tough.
Read full article in The Spectator...
UKIP Nigel Farage - How dare you tell the Italian and Greek people what to do !!! Nov 2011
As Silvio Berlusconi has now found out, this so-called Frankfurt Group means business. Only a few months ago, it would have been unthinkable that the head of one European government would try to destabilise or depose another. Now, two EU leaders have fallen in a week.
yitbos
Oh my, this isn’t sounding good, at all.
Why do I think Obama has his hand in this... ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT !
"...a declaration which Merkel made last year: ‘We must re-establish the primacy of politics over the market.’ Politicians have tried to do this, with little success, for generations. But it’s far easier now that the eurozone has created a giant apparatus whereby the strings of power can be pulled by a handful of people. The euro bailout fund, with its supposed €1 trillion of firepower, has just 15 staff. It might now be possible to wield immense power over a continent of nation states by assembling a few like-minded people in the back room of a Frankfurt opera house. And all in the name of European unity."
"Democracy is viewed with caution — even distaste — by the Frankfurt Group, as are the markets. Juncker’s own views on pesky voters are famous since he phrased the problem of government thus: ‘We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.’ "
From the "Comments Section":
"When the EU vision stated that it would avoid bloodshed and another great war, what it meant was , Germany would take over Europe without firing a bullet."
My Wife and I were talking about all the high profile people/leaders killed or replaced this year.
Berlusconi
Papandreou
Gaddafi
Mubarak
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Osama Bin Laden
Papandreou, Berlusconi: exit the politicians...
"... From now on, bureaucrats will be managed by technocrats..."
"... the stuff of dreams..."
At only a few days interval, the Greek and Italian prime ministers were replaced by Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti, two economists with experience of the European institutions and entrusted with enforcing measures demanded by the EU to combat the eurozone crisis.
yitbos
More than a couple of heads will have to roll... or the entire EU might roll down into a deeper pile of xyz
And 2012 will be better.
Hence the third reich style salute she’s making.
Well, we still have 6 weeks of 2011. If they succeed ousting Assad, that leaves
Israel & Turkey without a regime change around the Mediterranean Sea.
Does Tunisia count ? :)
Tunisia already had its regime change. Algeria and Morocco have not, neither has France, or the Balkan states on the Adriatic, Cyprus, Lebanon, the pseudo-state Gaza, Spain, or Malta. ;’)
Thank you, I can go away now, with more education than I came with. :o)
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