Tag Archives: Angela Merkel

June 5, 2012 · 9:51 am

Marginalised Britain will one day count the cost of the lost Euro opportunity

First things first, amongst all those many others may I wish Prince Philip a speedy recovery. He has been a tower of strength over the last 60 years and has made a contribution beyond compare to the Queen herself and the monarchy as an institution.

Nevertheless, the Diamond Jubilee celebrations can only distance the rest of the world to a limited extent. While we have been enjoying our good fortune, the Eurozone leaders have been slowly forming a reaction to the sovereign debt crisis, specifically the banking crisis in Spain.

According to the Guardian today, the recently elected French socialist government represented in this instance by Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and the European Commission led by President Jose Manuel Barroso have just given strong backing for a new Eurozone ”banking union”. Crucially, 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.

This is heady stuff indeed, and good news for the European single currency. Finding a way through the crisis in the Eurozone countries is also good news for the UK. Probably the only thing on which I agree with David Cameron is that it is in Britain’s interests to have a stable Euro.

However, it is also very bad news for Britain. Yet again we are outside major European developments. This may not be harmful in the short-term, but will be damaging for the UK in the longer term. 

The European Council president, the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Central Bank and the head of the Eurogroup of 17 finance ministers have apparently been charged with drafting the proposals for a deeper Eurozone fiscal union, to be presented to an EU summit at the end of the month.

The European Commission and France are piling pressure on Germany to line up behind the proposal. Angela Merkel would need to take it to the German parliament for agreement.

The international financier George Soros is on record as saying: “The likelihood is that the euro will survive because a breakup would be devastating not only for the periphery but also forGermany.Germanyis likely to do what is necessary to preserve the Euro…”

Soros continued with these prophetic words, “”That would result in a Eurozone dominated by Germany in which the divergence between the creditor and debtor countries would continue to widen and the periphery would turn into permanently depressed areas in need of constant transfer of payments.”

Everything appears to be coming together -France and the European Commission working together, plus tentative but seemingly real acceptance of their proposals by the European Council, the European Central Bank and the Eurozone countries. Although it’s by no means all set to go, it does look as if the 17 Eurozone countries are coming closer together and accepting the need for a central Eurozone authority look at budgets and fiscal policies.

Britain as ever is not part of what promises to be the most important European project since the formation of the Common Market. Unfortunately 50 years or so later, we still don’t get it. Europe is where the future lies. If Britain has any hope of being more than a bit player outside our own shores, we have to be a leader in the European Union. Today that means being up there with France and Germany in the Euro. Very unfortunately we did not join, and this blog post explains just how serious a missed opportunity this will turn out to be.

To add salt to the wounds, if Britain had joined the Euro, there is little doubt we would have been at the top table with France and Germany. Yes, we would have suffered from the current crisis in the Eurozone countries, but thanks to dogmatic Tory Chancellor George Osborne and Prime Minister Cameron we are suffering a double dip recession anyway, even outside the single currency. The Euro was always a political as well as an economic project and the UK has comprehensively failed to grasp the political opportunity.

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May 21, 2012 · 3:05 pm

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

The week saw several high profile meetings between heads of state, starting with François Hollande’s first encounter with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then building up to the G8, held at Camp David.

In the Observer Andrew Rawnsley asked us to stop “being beastly to Germans”, as Noel Coward put it.  I can’t say I have much sympathy for Merkel, despite having to watch David Cameron celebrate as Chelsea beat her team Bayern Munich in the Champions League final on Saturday.  It is true though that, with Hollande as France’s new president, Merkel is looking very low on allies among her fellow heads of state.

As Rawnsley says in his article; ‘The American Democrat, British Conservative and French Socialist may not agree on much else, but on this, at least, they are together. It is one second to midnight in the eurozone because a recalcitrant and miserly Germany has refused to step up to its historic responsibility to do what is necessary to save the single currency. If the eurozone implodes, and carries away the global economy with it, the buck will stop in Berlin.’

I think it’s fair to say that that Germany does deserve a big helping of blame for the current state of the eurozone.  Germanyhas repeatedly failed to offer leadership that rises to the scale of the present crisis. When Germanyhas led, it has not always been in a well-judged direction. The austerity programme imposed on the Greeks as the price for continued membership of the euro was too draconian to be implemented in a democracy. The have duly revolted.

So now Obama, Hollande and Cameron get to lay the blame for the current situation at Merkel’s feet.  I can see their point but the idea that Cameron gets to lecture another European leader about a growth agenda is very galling.  Merkel has overseen a German economy that had remained very healthy through out the crisis, whilst Cameron’s government has led us in to further recession.

With all this going on, apart from the Champions League Final, you can’t imagine that Cameron did much relaxing at Camp David, though he has been accused of “chillaxing” too much of weekend, and playing games on his iPad.  He has reacted by saying that he is driven, like Lady Thatcher, to achieve “massive radical and structural reforms”.  I think I prefer the idea of Cameron “chillaxing” than bringing about reforms similar to Tatcher.  I hear that a new version of Angry Birds has just come out, can someone please buy it for him?

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May 16, 2012 · 6:41 am

The Eurozone avoids recession after the UK has sunk into double dip

The first meeting between President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel ended with a show of unity, at least on the surface, and a joint view that Greece should stay in the Euro. Meanwhile, as IMF head Christine Lagarde adds her voice to those who think Greece may have to leave the single currency, the Eurozone remains in crisis. The result of the next round of elections in Greece will be crucial for both that country and the Euro itself.

It is important at what may turn out to be the crossroads for the Eurozone that those who make these decisions do not get caught up in the general air of panic. There is no doubt the atmosphere in Europe is febrile, while the Merkel/Hollande meeting is being described as sober.

Yesterday I argued that Europe’s leaders must take on board the results of a recent poll in Germany as well as the national elections in France and Greece which produced winning results for candidates opposing austerity. Fortunately it looks as if this may be sinking in. Horst Seehofer, head of Germany’s CSU Party, sister party to Merkel’s CDU, is now calling for some element of growth.

Yet the Eurozone crisis and the problems in Greece are taking place at the same time as the Eurozone is keeping its head above water as far as recession is concerned. It was announced yesterday that the Eurozone had avoided recession thanks, interestingly, to stronger than expected German growth. Even France, sometimes seen as a problem due to its 35 hour week and generous pensions, recorded neither growth nor contraction.

This is not, of course, the case in the UK. At the end of April we were informed that the British economy had again sunk into recession putting us into the unenviable double-dip category. David Cameron, of course, blamed the Eurozone crisis. This claim looks less than tenable in the light of the Eurozone’s ability to avoid recession itself. In fact, according to a recent Sunday Times/YouGov poll 32% of people blame the return of recession on the Tory-led coalition.

Cameron and Osborne have, in fact, been fortunate that the Eurozone crisis has taken attention away from the British economy. Our economy is not doing at all well, as those who have lost their jobs and the young people who cannot find employment will tell you. In addition, the Bank of England has today revised its forecast for growth downwards. We are, in fact, seeing a re-run of the decimation of our society last seen under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The British people are, however, cottoning on to this. The local elections on 3 May showed beyond a shadow of doubt that they preferred Labour under Ed Miliband to this Tory-led coalition. Labour is on the way up, the Tories are going down and the beleaguered Liberal-Democrats seem headed for electoral wipe-out.

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May 15, 2012 · 12:59 pm

Our political leaders must take note of the people of Europe

France’s new President Francois Hollande is meeting Germany’s tried and tested Angela Merkel probably at this very minute.

The Euro, which will no doubt form the centre-piece of their deliberations, was, and remains, a brave venture, a departure from the politics of nation states and superpowers, globalisation and international money markets. For the first time ever a monetary project sought to bring together 17 different countries – a bold vision indeed. In this sense the Euro is the logical conclusion of setting up the European Union. Once the EU had established a political agreement, the Euro began the process of economic co-operation.

In this sense it is right to call the Euro a political project. And this is the very reason why Europe’s leaders from Angela Merkel to the European Commission do not want the Euro to fail. While I do not agree that if Greece were to leave the Euro this would mean the disintegration of the EU, its departure would seriously undermine the bold vision for Europe.

Mrs Merkel and the European Commission see this clearly, maybe even thinking that if Greece goes the whole Euro project will fail. Their response – severe austerity – is, however, beginning to look as if it will not work in the longer term.

Austerity should not continue for the simple reason that the people of Europe who have been to the polls recently have not supported Mrs Merkel’s point of view. Sunday’s elections in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s largest Land, saw Merkel’s CDU vote slump by eight per cent to an all-time low of 26%. The centre-left SDP social democrats did well boosting its share of the vote by five per cent to 39%. The liberal FDP also gained support.

While there may have been local factors at play in this internal German election, the result comes on top of Francois Hollande’s victory on a platform which included growth as well as austerity. We should also not lose sight of the result of the election in Greece. The Greek people have suffered more than any others in the EU and they are clearly saying no to austerity. The fact that the Greek election results have not delivered a government should not blind us to what the results are saying, which is a clear no to austerity.

The European Commission, Angela Merkel and the rest of Europe’s political leaders would do well to take on board that the many people in three EU member states have made their voices heard against strict austerity.

EU leaders are often quite rightly accused of being out of touch. The people have actually spoken over the past few months. The European Union – composed as it is of the world’s leading democracies – must take these voices on board. If they do not, the bold vision will flounder even further off course.

Meanwhile Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls hit the nail on the head regarding Britain’s role in the EU. According to today’s Guardian he told a Centre for European Reform seminar, “I don’t remember a time when British economic and political leaders in our country were less influential in debates which had more profound significance for jobs and growth in our economy.” Under the Tory-led coalition David Cameron and George Osborne are nowhere. The final irony is, if Greece were to leave the Euro, they would probably receive IMF money to which the UK had made a contribution. Standing aloof from the Euro does not let us off the hook in today’s integrated world.

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May 8, 2012 · 6:20 am

Austerity must go hand in hand with growth

It would be a grave error to allow the excitement of Francois Hollande’s historic victory on Sunday to overshadow the results of the Greek general election. It was, of course, Greece’s sovereign debt crisis which sparked the ensuing crisis in the Eurozone. Moreover, the Greek people never accepted the consequent austerity measures. Whatever your view of those who demonstrated on the streets of Athens, it was always clear they had widespread support.

The short premiership of Eurozone appointee Lucas Papademos did nothing to assuage the opposition to austerity. Now, given the chance to once again elect their government, the Greeks have said no to austerity. Having come second in the inconclusive poll on Sunday, the far-left Syriza Party are incredibly in talks to form a coalition. If they are not successful the baton will pass to the leader of Greece’s socialist party, PASOK, former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos.

Both the Greek and French result aptly demonstrate that austerity on its own without plans for growth, while never popular, is now losing whatever credibility it had for solving Europe’s economic problems. Put simply, the people will no longer put up with recession, unemployment and public expenditure cuts seemingly for no gain.

Now that two general election results have delivered this verdict along with local elections in Italy, another country under a Eurozone appointee, it is surely time to re-evaluate the austerity strategy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday it was of “utmost importance” that the programmes of austerity and economic reform as a condition of the €174 billion Greek bail-out package “continue to be implemented”. She also made clear that “The process is a difficult one, but, despite that, it should go on.”

Likewise the European Commission would do well to think again as they seem to be taking a pro-Merkel line. A spokeswoman said it was up to the Greek political parties to “work in an atmosphere of responsibility” and continue implementing structural and economic reforms.

The only realistic way out the austerity deadlock with the people on one side and powerful financial vested interests, not to mention the leading lights of the Eurozone, on the other is to seek a middle way. Just as Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has always said, austerity must go hand in hand with measures for growth. Austerity alone causes huge suffering – unemployment and poverty coupled with the absence of hope. The people of Europe need to believe there is a future and a relatively strong one at that. Angela Merkel’s regime is providing the exact opposite and the people are making their views known.

While I would never claim the British local election results were wholly based on opposition to austerity measures, they clearly showed that our electorate prefer Labour to the current coalition. On the basis of those results Labour would form a government. We are seeing the Tory-led coalition sinking deeper into the mire as Cameron and Clegg try to revive their flagging fortunes. We should, perhaps, add the UK to the list of those countries who have had enough of austerity and want to feel hope for their future.

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May 1, 2012 · 9:56 am

Cameron admits the UK is dependent on exports to the Eurozone

Wittingly or not, Prime Minister David Cameron admitted Britain is dependent on markets in the Eurozone for our exports on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday. In other words, the UK is inherently part of the economic system across the European Union, in spite of strenuous efforts to remain outside not only the single currency but the more recent fiscal pact designed to mitigate the current economic problems.

This is absolutely not a good place to be. To be outside deliberations on the European economy, yet affected in a fundamental way, but with no means of influencing what happens to the majority of your exports is utter folly. In the same way, not being party to economic decisions which will have a profound impact on the British people is somewhere a responsible government should never find itself.

But Cameron, Clegg et al are not responsible. Cameron’s hatred of Europe is not good for Britain. Moreover, Cameron has alienated German Chancellor Angela Merkel who should be a key ally. His recent suggestion that the governance of the Euro is not yet resolved has, apparently, angered her. Taken in conjunction with Merkel’s fury when the British Conservatives left the centre-right European People’s Party group in the European Parliament, this does not bode well. Diplomacy and influence are all about gaining friends, especially significant ones, not annoying them.

The Cameron/Merkel stand-off could become even more unfortunate given the likely victory of Socialist Francois Hollande in the French presidential election on Sunday. Hollande has made it clear he will not go along with the austerity demanded by Angela Merkel and that he will not ratify any austerity deal put forward by Nicolas Sarkozy.

So where does this leave the UK?  Cameron appears to side with Merkel but she will not have much to do with him. France, potentially the EU’s second most important member state after Germany, is likely to elect a President calling for growth to lift Europe out of recession. Cameron, meanwhile, is fretting on the side-lines with nowhere to go.

A victory for Francois Hollande would, of course, be of huge benefit to Europe. We would at last have someone in a position of huge authority against full-on austerity making the case for growth. This would also give a massive boost to the Labour Party. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband have been arguing a similar case since the beginning of the crisis; they now will perhaps be heard rather better that they have so far. As Ed Balls said in the Guardian yesterday, “It is no good the prime minister telling us that the Eurozone crisis is going to last a long time. Cameron and George Osborne must accept their share of the blame”.

As, indeed they must. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times showed that 32% blame the return to recession on UK government policies, 29% on the Eurozone and global factors and only 17% on the last Labour government. Cameron and Osborne should take note of what happens in France on Sunday. The result may tell us a lot about the future direction of Europe and the UK.

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February 9, 2012 · 10:13 am

Ed Miliband should follow Merkel’s example and campaign for Hollande in the same way as she is for Sarkozy

The Presidential election in France to be held on 22 April with a further round on 5 May, if necessary, matters hugely to the rest of Europe. Were Francois Hollande to win, there would be one significant voice at the top table in Europe opposed to the current centre-right imposition of continent-wide austerity as the sole solution to the economic crisis. France would provide an alternative policy, and a humane one to boot, which is lacking at present.

Chancellor Merkel has astutely realised the importance of the French election from her point of view, and has already announced that she will campaign for her fellow conservative, Nicolas Sarkozy. Rather sensibly David Cameron, I suspect, realises that his support for M Sarkozy would be a vote loser rather than a winner.

The same does not apply to Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership team. Ed going to France to campaign for Francois Hollande could be combined with a real effort to secure the votes of the 300,000 French nationals living in the UK for M Hollande. Such bold moves would go a long way towards signalling a new era of European co-operation between parties on the centre-left. It may also lead to the emergence of a European centre-left agenda for jobs and growth.

The 60 proposals put forward by Holland in France represent a radical departure from 10 years of conservative government in that country. Hollande is committed to renegotiating the “fiscal pact”. While not rejecting budgetary discipline, the French socialists do not accept austerity without accompanying measures for growth.

What is more, Francois Hollande was selected as the Socialist Presidential candidate by three million socialists in an open primary, the first time such an experiment has been tried in France. This was not some internal political party stitch-up but a democratic election, and as such deserves recognition.

There is also the growing problem of the Front National in France. Its new leader, Marine le Pen, is a more formidable opponent than her openly racist and xenophobic father Jean-Marie. Although she objects to the term “far right”, make no mistake – that is exactly what she is.

It is a matter of huge concern that Le Pen’s opinion poll ratings have been going up, reaching the levels of those of President Nicolas Sarkozy. She even came top in one poll while another said that one in two of those questioned saw the Front National as “a party like the others”.

According to the BBC, commentator Agnes Poirier thinks Mme Le Pen may well “do better than her father in [the presidential elections of] April 2002, that is to say she is very likely to be present at the second round [of voting] and therefore likely to knock Nicolas Sarkozy out of the race… of the elections.”

Despite her softer image, Marine le Pen is the mirror image of her father. The Front National remains a hard, ultra-right party. During a speech in December 2010, Marine le Pen called the regular blocking of public streets for Muslim prayers in French cities an “occupation of parts of the territory”. Marine Le Pen now senses a political opportunity for “a more moderately presented, more middle class, more gently smiling form of extremism, rather than a snarling form of extremism”.

Campaigning in the French Presidential elections would provide Ed Miliband with the opportunity to stand up against racism and the far-right as well as supporting an economic policy with the interests of the people of Europe at its heart. The French campaign to choose their President matters more to us than that in the United States. The Labour leadership has the opportunity to make a bold stand which also has the merit of being the right thing to do.

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February 1, 2012 · 7:45 am

Marginalised Cameron tries to defend his EU U-turn

“A veto is not for life, it’s just for Christmas.” Congratulations to Ed Miliband on this perfect one-liner. David Cameron was indeed on the back foot in the House of Commons yesterday answering questions on  the Brussels summit.

The reason – Cameron is trying to look both ways and utterly failing. Britain is a member of the European Union but opted out of, not vetoed, changes to the Lisbon Treaty in December last year. (Thanks to Labour MP Chris Bryant for this succinct wording).

Unable to sustain his threat to prevent the 26 EU member states that signed up to the “fiscal pact” in December from using the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to uphold their agreement, David Cameron was forced into an embarrassing U-turn. He now accepts that the “fiscal pact” countries can use the European institutions to make sure the treaty changes are upheld.  

Cameron is, however, trying to detract from the mess he has made of this whole saga by telling us he will jump on the 25 (the Czech Republic now appears to have joined the UK) if they do anything which harms the EU single market. If this happens, Cameron will attempt to take measures against the treaty signers.

This is yet another example of Cameron nonsense. No issues concerning the single market are related to the changes to the Lisbon Treaty put forward in December. They are separate matters.

Cameron is again coming up with smoke and mirrors just as he did over the repatriation of powers idea. It goes like this: Cameron, himself an arch-Eurosceptic, needs to keep his feral Eurosceptic backbenchers on board, not least because they were instrumental in securing his leadership of the Conservative Party. However, David Cameron is now the Prime Minister of Great Britain and has duties and obligations in the European Union, not to mention the need to maintain relationships with key EU players. Moreover, Conservative policy is to stay in the EU.

So Cameron is really in a bit of a fix. He cannot fulfil his obligations to all sides. So he’s doing a bit of both and being mightily unsuccessful in the process. The Eurosceptics are still not happy while Jack Straw echoed the feelings of many when he said yesterday that “outside the (EU) door is not a good place to be.”

Never underestimate the extent of  the UK’s marginalisation in the EU under David Cameron’s leadership. Taking the British Conservative MEPs out of the centre-right European People’s Party Group in the European Parliament massively annoyed Angela Merkel. The opt-out, not veto, in Brussels on December 9 caused French President Sarkozy to refuse to shake Cameron’s hand. Merkel and Sarkozy, always an intriguing double act, are growing ever closer with Merkel pledged to support Sarkozy’s presidential election campaign, according to the Financial Times.

 Being a member of an important organisation but not fully committed to it strikes me as a completely ridiculous position. Would David Cameron and William Hague take the same view on NATO? 

We are in the EU, and have been for nearly 40 years. While it is by no means perfect, Britain is surely better in the European Union than lost in the twilight zone outside, especially since the UK could take a leading role if our leaders wished to do so.

Other European countries see working together as a real advantage and many not yet in the EU are very keen to join.

The British idea that we are better off alone is a myth from a past imperial age. Yet even then, Britain itself was never really alone. Since the 18th century we had a world-wide empire to back us up. Now that is no longer there, our only tenable world role is to be a major player in the EU.

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January 27, 2012 · 9:01 am

Cameron’s pot has the temerity to call the Eurozone’s kettle black

David Cameron is one of those people who never fail to take the biscuit, and his attack on Angela Merkel in Davos yesterday was a massive one covered with lashings of chocolate.

Cameron had the temerity at the World Economic Forum to tell Eurozone leaders how to run their affairs, affairs Cameron has made sure he has had nothing whatsoever to do with.

The non-Eurozone British Prime Minister, according to the Evening Standard warned that Europe was at a “perilous moment” and attacked its leaders for “tinkering here and there” rather than showing the bold leadership needed to save the Euro. You may be forgiven for forgetting that this is the same British Prime Minister who flounced out of the European Summit in Brussels on December 9 and has resolutely refused to engage with his opposite numbers – the national leaders across Europe – preferring splendid marginalisation instead.

Just to rub it in, David Cameron with breath-taking lack of subtlety blew his own trumpet telling Angela Merkel and the others world leaders that Britain – i.e. his Tory-led coalition – is doing it right.

Are they really? There are now 2.69 million unemployed in the UK, up 118,000 in the three months to November and still rising. The IMF revised its growth projection for the UK downwards due to lower than expected output in the production and construction sectors.  And, to cap it all UK government debt is now over a trillion pounds – 64.2% of GDP.

Britain is so obviously in as bad, if not worse, state than the Eurozone. The facts speak from themselves.

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December 7, 2011 · 4:30 pm

European Youth Forum Campaign

The current crop of European political leaders are in danger of forgetting where they came from – except perhaps David Cameron who hails from the small British cohort of the very rich and extremely privileged.

The European Youth Forum has produced this postcard promoting their new campaign entitled “Where are youth going?” highlighting the plight of young people in the Europe of today

There are similar postcards for Angelea Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi.  

You can find out more on the European Youth Forum website http://www. whereareyouthgoing.eu

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