The ECB pulled the plug on the Socrates administration in Portugal in spring, when the chief of the central bank ordered domestic banks to stop lending to Lisbon in order to force the prime minister into the arms of an EU-IMF bailout program he was reluctant to sign up to.I advise everyone to read the whole article; it's long, but quite revealing.
In March, Portuguese banks announced they would stop buying government bonds if Lisbon did not seek a bailout. Without the support of domestic banks, Socrates had no choice but to request an external lifeline.
Although the then ECB chief, Jean-Claude Trichet, later denied it, the head of the country's banking association, Antonio de Sousa, said that he had "clear instructions" from the ECB and the Bank of Portugal to turn off the tap. Socrates at this point was a dead man walking. A package of additional austerity measures proposed by the then-minority government was defeated when the conservative opposition that would subsequently push through still deeper austerity voted against it. The government immediately fell, the predictable outcome of what Frankfurt had ordered. …
Last Tuesday, upon Mario Monti's first visit to Brussels after being installed as premier, Barroso argued that the need to take economic decisions out of the hands of politicians is in fact the EU's raison d'être: "After the the Second World War, the countries that founded the European Community created supranational institutions, and now we have the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the ECB. Why? Precisely to have independent assessment and monitoring and also if possible independent enforcement mechanisms that are not subject to political maneuvering."
As shocking as the overthrow of a pair of elected governments in Rome and Athens has been, this gelding of democracy is the plan for the entirety of the eurozone, as Brussels made clear last Wednesday. …
Oh it’s worse then that. The EU technocrats are trying to dictate to SWITZERLAND what their internal tax policy should be an independent country not even part of their system, claiming they are an illegal low tax haven thus having an “unfair competative advantage” with multinational businesses, and thereatening it with dire consequences if it doesn’t toe the line.
I thought the whole Euro enterprise would crash and burn soon. It’s now clear to me that the elites on both sides of the Atlantic will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to prop up the system, regardless of cost or legality.