Posted on 05/20/2012 10:20:31 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The European Union needs to become more integrated with a common finance policy and a central government, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Wednesday (16 May).
"I would be for the further development of the European Commission into a government. I am for the election of a European president, he said at an event in Aachen, reports Reuters.
"I am in favor of being more courageous on Europe," said Schäuble, who is one of the German government's most pro-European ministers.
He said this is a long-term response to the current eurozone crisis, which many have said has been exacerbated by the fact that the EU lacked the tools—such as a central transfer system—to effectively deal with it.
"We certainly won't manage it in this legislative period," said Schäuble, referring to the creation of a finance ministry, but noted that for a currency union, a part of finance policy needs to be harmonized.
That should be the "lesson" learned from the current crisis. …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
Thanks Olog-hai.
Leftists always double down on government. The only way to fix socialism when it inevitably fails is to further concentrate power in the masterminds. A Euro superstate with more power concentrated in fewer hands is a far, far more likely outcome than the dissolution of the EU.
And when is Herr Schäuble going to ask the German people whether they think this is a good idea or not?
They probably won’t have anything to do with it, but then in the 30s they did vote for that mustaschioed man so who knows... History has shown that Europeans have a fondness for authoritarian rulers.
The people of Germany despise the notion, to be sure. But this shows the power of the elites even now.
Yes, but we are seeing the elites being more and more pressed. In election after election extremist parties are making progress. So far - with the exception of Greece, naturally - the upper limits for the extreme left and the extreme/nationalist right are about 20% in national elections, but that limit may soon be breached.
I won’t grieve for our “elite” politicians, but I am afraid that the backlash against them and their megalomaniac EU-creation will flush away democracy and free market economy in many countries, just like in the 30s.
In the near future, I predict Germany will return to their own curreency, and will tell the EU to go pound sand.
From your keyboard to God’s ears.
From your keyboard to God’s ears.
The EU is basically Germany’s baby. The intent there is not to relinquish it. The euro was patterned after the Deutsche mark, and the ECB after the Bundesbank. They probably have a way to make the “writ large” version of their monetary system work, but not until after the rest of the EU asks for it after the pain of the “beneficial crisis” becomes too much for them.
It does appear that the Germans realized, during reunification, that they had taken socialism as far as it could go. A little too far. They did their austerity.
Jetzt fordern sie Disziplin!
yitbos
They still haven’t given up the “social market economy”, and are still positing that as the alternative to the “Anglo-Saxon economic model” that didn’t actually fail but was abandoned by the libs in the US and Britain. They really weren’t that austere.
Sometimes, it is really funny comparing, Olog-hai’s version of the super smart and nefarious german politicans, with the german view of them as tumb, provincial administrators who blunder from one crisis to another.
Maybe if you listened to the words of these politicians, you’d come off with a different view of them. The CDU in particular have confessed to having a particular passion for a united Europe. Their continent-wide influence cannot be denied at this point.
Strange thing, that one of the wealthiest and most populous countries in europe has some influence in the political theatre of the EU.
For the most part Germany is just the most visible part of a block of nations with more or less the same agendas (BeNeLux, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and recently Poland and the baltic nations) and still they need one of the other big 4(UK, Spain, Italy or most likely France) to achieve the influence they currently possess.
There is more than one view of europe inside the CDU/CSU there is Schäuble, who is affected by Kohl, and the more sceptical faction of Seehofer or even more extreme Bosbach, Steinbach et al.
And inbetween is Merkel and her clique of secretaries who see the EU as a necessity to be able to compete with USA, China, India, Russia and Brazil in the future
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