The EU is 'deader' than Monty Python's parrot!

Well, I knew it was in a bad way but according to Mr. Ashoka Mody - who? - at The Coffee House it is actually dead and merely stumbling on in its final death throes.  Mr. Mody, I gather, is an Indian economics swot and from his article I would suggest that he knows where-of he writes!  Take this as an opener:

Ursula von der Leyen was an unloved choice to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the next president of the European Commission. She emerged from a ferociously contentious process as a last-minute compromise and she promptly fell into a storm of criticism. Even members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) shellacked her. In the thankless role of German defence minister, she was unable to overcome the handicaps imposed by Germany’s postwar pacifism and mindless fiscal stinginess, while a former defence minister blamed her for the “catastrophic” state of the German army. A member of the Bundestag mockingly said: “It’s good for the army that she’s going.” Von der Leyen’s ministry was tainted by charges of unseemly cronyism in the awarding of consulting contracts. Chancellor Angela Merkel, her former boss, even abstained from the final vote for the Commission president to placate her angry coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SDP), who were furious because their preferred candidate was passed over.

That bodes ill but it gets worse and to be fair the lady is not entirely to blame - with my emphases throughout:

Von der Leyen has rolled out a trillion-euro “European Green Deal,” to be paid for with funds from the EU’s next budget cycle, running from 2021 to 2027. “The blood will flow,” a senior EU official darkly pronounced after von der Leyen left the European Commission’s new year reception party. The previous EU budget, running from 2014 to 2020, clocked in at one trillion euro, just about one per cent of the EU’s GDP over this period. The next budget begins with a 94 billion euro hole in it following Britain’s departure from the EU. Yet the “net contributors”—the northern states—have ruled out opening their wallets any further; the “net recipients”—the southern and eastern member states—are fighting to retain their fiscal benefits. The knives are out as the effort begins to raise spending by, at best, a trivial one-tenth of one per cent of GDP.

And the stench from the corruption is over-powering:

Over 40 per cent of expenditures are for agricultural subsidies. In a shocking expose, the New York Times reported that the agricultural subsidies “underwrite oligarchs, mobsters, and far-right populists.” The corruption resides at the very top: “national leaders use the subsidies to enrich friends, political allies, and family members,” the paper reported. The European parliament is complicit. It summarily dismissed the latest effort to roll back some of the payments doled out.

Needless to say, the two 'leading' powers in Europe, Germany and France are hopelessly divided over their approach to China:

Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform warns that France and Germany are increasingly operating unilaterally, each pursuing its national interest. “Germany,” he points out, “did not consult its EU partners over its support for the Nord Stream 2 Russian gas pipeline, although it will increase the EU’s dependency on Russian energy and cause tensions with the US.” On the contentious involvement of Huawei in European networks, Grant notes that “in March 2019, Merkel kept the French in the dark before saying that she would allow Huawei to compete for contracts in parts of Germany’s 5G network; she ignored the French view that Huawei was a potential security threat and that there should be a common EU response to the Chinese company.”

'Mini-Macron' put his little booties into the attempt by Macedonia to join the EU whose entry was eagerly awaited by 'mutti' Merkel who was keen for greater influence in South East Europe. "Non", said mini-Macron, "Ils ne passeronts pas!"

Together Macron’s nixing of the North Macedonia accession process and extending his hand to Russia added to the tensions between France and the Visegrad countries—the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Macron has made it a habit to antagonise these countries. Right after he became president in May 2017, he pushed the European Commission to restrict the posting of Eastern European workers in France. 

And so it goes on and on downhill as it gathers speed and momentum.  The EU is the perfect example of a political edifice built on the dreams and aspirations of stupid, idealistic politicians with more aspiration than realism.  The end, or at least, a major correction, is imminent and I guess it will be exceedingly messy!

Ashoka Mody teaches at Princeton University. The paperback edition of his EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts is available in the U.S. and soon in the U.K.

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

Sounds like an all out fight to grab as much of other people's money as possible. Wasn't it one of those French thinkers who said 'the art of politics is taking money from one group of people and giving it to another'?

[Loz]

You could be talking about Blighty.

Handing out its 5G network to Hauewei and subsidizing farmers, fishermen, and all manner of land and sea country-bumpkins.
They've never had it so good.

Did you know that 80% of Brit farmers' revenue comes from subsidies? ...

https://fullfact.org/economy/farming-subsidies-uk/

Whenever I hear them whinging about climate change and the bloody weather supposedly wiping their incomes out on the BBC radio 4 farming prog in the mornings I'm reminded they're as inveterate at lying as the best pols.

In fact the whole Country-Bumpkin acreage land and sea is just one vast nationalised public sector productivity black hole and rip-off.

Time to get rid and take London and the home counties out of the Union and back into the single market.

SoD

[Pat]

What would be the point of being the single member of the single market?
Also what is the point of remaining in a customs union that excludes most of your customers?
And why would a resident of the home counties, such as I, prefer disputes be settled in a court comprised of individuals trained in a legal tradition entirely alien to the one we ourselves evolved?

[Loz]

What would be the point of being the single member of the single market?

As I said to Her Maj when she asked only for three reasons, "The prosperity of the UK, the unity of the UK, and peace in the UK".

Also what is the point of remaining in a customs union that excludes most of your customers?

70+ trade deals, not just oven ready but served and on the place mats, negotiated by a bloc with 500m peoples worth of buying power to access those exact customers.

And why would a resident of the home counties, such as I, prefer disputes be settled in a court comprised of individuals trained in a legal tradition entirely alien to the one we ourselves evolved?

You wouldn't have to. The European Court that implements the single market rules and regs was the home of British legal and technocratic efforts to extend and develop Margaret Thatcher's single market ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-40630322

"The ECJ has tended to support British efforts to extend the remit of the single market." - from the above link

And even if you leave the single market you'll still be subject to the European Court if you sell goods and services to the EU, only now there won't be British lawyers and technocrats massaging it "our" way ...

"Take Google for example, which was fined a record 2.4bn euro by the European Commission in June for abusing its dominance of the search engine market.

If Google wanted to appeal, it would have to make its case before the European Court of Justice." - from the above link

And in the end, if a grommet has 13% manufacturing tolerance or 13.5%, or if a bottle of wine has likewise for alcohol, it's no different if you run it past Common Law and Magna Carta vs the Code Napoleon because neither are relevant. It's simply a question of "Is it 13 or 13.5%".

SoD