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alp227

(31,961 posts)
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 05:52 PM Jun 2012

'Federal Europe' plan to end debt crisis

Source: The Guardian

Europe's leaders appear to be edging towards an ambitious and controversial new blueprint for a federalised eurozone after Paris and Brussels threw their weight behind Spain's pleas for an EU rescue of its beleaguered banks.

At the start of three weeks likely to be crucial to the survival of the euro, the new French government and the European commission voiced strong backing for a new eurozone "banking union" to save the single currency.

The plan could see vast national debt and banking liabilities pooled – and then backed by the financial strength of Germany – in return for eurozone governments surrendering sovereignty over their budgets and fiscal policies to a central eurozone authority.

Spain's banking crisis, together with extreme volatility in Greece ahead of the rerun general election on 17 June and the French parliamentary poll on the same day, are compounding the febrile atmosphere and worrying the markets.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/04/eu-weighs-federal-europe-plan

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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
2. Will the eu nations get to vote on this?
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 06:11 PM
Jun 2012

I'm not sure this will go over - given the street feels very differently about who is responsible.

Johnyawl

(3,205 posts)
3. they're going to surrender their sovereignty?
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 06:28 PM
Jun 2012

The plan could see vast national debt and banking liabilities pooled – and then backed by the financial strength of Germany – in return for eurozone governments surrendering sovereignty over their budgets and fiscal policies to a central eurozone authority.


Really, Europe? A central eurozone authority? What will constitute a "Central eurozone authority"? How will it's members be chosen/picked/selected/elected?

This is not a good idea.
 

banned from Kos

(4,017 posts)
6. No one is forcing the PIGS into this. They are free to leave the EU anytime.
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 07:09 PM
Jun 2012

And if they do the economic consequences will be worse.

CJCRANE

(18,184 posts)
7. The United Banks of Europe...
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 07:13 PM
Jun 2012

There's something missing in the new federal concept of Europe...

Democracy.

hughee99

(16,113 posts)
8. It will be much easier to impose austerity on countries
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 07:18 PM
Jun 2012

once control of "budgets and fiscal policy" is taken out of the hands of national politicians.

AndyTiedye

(23,500 posts)
11. It Might Go the Other Way
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 08:03 PM
Jun 2012

Socialists won elections in France and Greece, there isn't much sentiment for austerity in most other European countries either.
Germany and the Netherlands would likely find themselves outvoted.

hughee99

(16,113 posts)
16. Provided its left to popular vote...
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 09:28 PM
Jun 2012

If Germany is going to be the financial backer for a system that they have no control over, it's not going to turn out well. If Germany is going to be the financial backer for a system they control, it's not going to turn out well either.

TBF

(31,922 posts)
14. Yes, activists seem to be preparing in Europe -
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 09:25 PM
Jun 2012

and we ought to be preparing here as well. Interesting how "bail-outs" and "unions" are only for rich folk now.

SEP (UK) public meetings
Defend the Greek working class
For the United Socialist States of Europe
1 June 2012

Greek workers are suffering the greatest decline in living standards since the Nazi occupation. Unemployment is above 20 percent and 50 percent for youth. Wages have been slashed by up to 50 percent and pensions, education and health care decimated.

What is being enforced in Greece by the troika—the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank—is a social counterrevolution. For the international financial aristocracy, Greece is a testing ground for measures that are to be rolled out across Europe, as the economic crisis spins out of control and the world is plunged into a depression worse than the 1930s.

Europe’s workers must rally to the defence of their Greek brothers and sisters ...

More here: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/adve-j01.shtml

PSPS

(13,512 posts)
12. This was the plan all along -- a "united states of europe."
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 08:06 PM
Jun 2012

They didn't go all in at the inception of the Eurozone because it would never have been accepted at the time. I don't see the likelihood of it being done now any better than it was then. So the only chance to pull this off would be to force it down the throats of the citizenry. A second defenestration will likely ensue as Europeans are less propagandized than those in the US.

pampango

(24,692 posts)
13. Guardian - Eurozone crisis: United States of Europe may be the only way to save euro
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 09:00 PM
Jun 2012

It is a measure of the speed at which the politics of the euro crisis is changing. Only a fortnight ago all the attention was being lavished on France's new president, François Hollande, being sworn in in Paris as Monsieur Growth and rushing off on his first assignment to challenge Europe's Frau Austerity, Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The USE – United States of Europe – is back. For the eurozone, at least. Such "political union", surrendering fundamental powers to Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, has always been several steps too far for the French to consider.

But Berlin is signalling that if it is to carry the can for what it sees as the failures of others there will need to be incremental but major integrationist moves towards a banking, fiscal, and ultimately political union in the eurozone.

It is a divisive and contested notion which Merkel did not always favour. In the heat of the crisis, however, she now appears to see no alternative. In the third year of muddling through, the choices facing Europe's leaders are getting starker – the death of the euro or the birth of a new European federation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/04/eurozone-crisis-united-states-europe

Sounds like June will be a very interesting month in Europe. Seems like a choice between further integration and a break up of the Eurozone and probably the EU is a decision to be made on the continent.

 

Pab Sungenis

(9,612 posts)
15. This is how we did it in the U.S.
Mon Jun 4, 2012, 09:28 PM
Jun 2012

Under the Articles of Confederation, we more closely resembled today's EU than today's USA. This move would transform Europe into a Federal system like we adopted under the Constitution.

It would take a lot more than just a handshake agreement, however. It would take a whole new Constitution.

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