EU and Democracy

my whole point is that the EU has gone down totally the wrong road by letting all and sundry in.

it is fast becoming a farce and needs some serious reorganisation and modernisation, i think what has happened in france and holland is that the ppl are saying enough is enough!!

 

Definitely.

And now the governments are declaring crisis and downfall for the whole union thing just because two members refused to accept a treaty of treaties...

 

Isn't it nice to have governments who react wisely to events, rather than with panicky knee-jerk reactions... :roll:

 

Now its Germany's turn

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/mone ... y.htmlEuro is strangling our industry, says German minister
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Filed: 03/06/2005)


Germany's economy minister, Wolfgang Clement, yesterday lashed out at the single currency, claiming that the perverse effects of monetary union were strangling German industry.


Wolfgang Clement blames eurozone system for German economic slump
"We're exporting stability within monetary union, and for the good of monetary union. We're paying for that, and it has to be said that the price is not negligible since we're losing comparative advantage of lower real interest rates," he said.

"The European-wide interest rate does not take enough account for my taste of Germany's contribution to the rest of Europe," he said, adding to concerns that Berlin is losing patience with the euro.

Mr Clement said Germany was being punished for its success in cutting costs and capping prices since the topsy-turvy result under EMU was ever higher interest rates (once adjusted for inflation) - a penalty rather than a reward.

Unemployment has been hovering around the five million mark, the highest since the war.

But Mr Clement said that Germany's gruelling deflation had served as a "fitness workout", transforming its companies into super-lean machines. "Our export sector today is Europe's rising tiger," he said.

His attack on the eurozone system echoed the wording of an internal finance ministry document leaked to the German media this week arguing that EMU was driving high inflation economies into further over-heating while at the same driving Germany deeper into slump.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, yesterday dismissed reports that top German officials had held talks on an eventual break-up of the eurozone. "It's completely absurd," he said.

The euro recovered slightly against the dollar yesterday weeks of sharp decline, but fell close to its lowest level ever against gold.

If the currency markets were quiescent awaiting key payroll data from the US today, the eurozone continued to suffer damaging fall-out from the rejection of the EU constitution by France and Holland.

Italy's Lega Nord, part of the ruling coalition, is now openly discussing a possible return to the Italian lira.

Andrea Gibelli, chief of the party's parliamentary group, said the moment had come for a powerful uprising against the euro after French and Dutch voters had "smashed the bureaucratic, technocratic, bankers' Europe".

 

I think there has been a collective 'foul' from the people of Holland.

 

I am surely not an expert on economics, but I wouldn't rate such comments too high.
There is an electoral campaign starting in Germany and of course the economic problems cannot possibly be the fault of wrong policy in Germany, it must be the consequence of Brussels, the Euro....

The same can be observed in France too, when elections are aproaching, suddenly every problem is the fault of EU bureaucratics, or the Euro....but never our own leaders.... :angry:

I am everything but a "Euro-fanatic", and am opposed to EU policy in a lot of questions, but if the EU/Euro is so flawed as some depict it, why does no country think of leaving the Union??

 

There's surely some truth in that....

 

They dont want to be accused of starting the stampede?

:smok: