| Topic: | Re:Inflation now on the up | |
| Posted by: | Fraser Pearce | |
| Date/Time: | 18/10/16 10:36:00 |
| “Why were the Germans keen on the euro, as a part of the European project and to suport trade across the block.” - Not quite. The French threatened to block German unification unless Germany agreed to a single European currency (there was also the German CDU Party finance issue). In for a pfennig, in for a Euro, the Germans relented – on the proviso the euro would be run along the lines of the Deutschmark. --- “Perhaps naievly that did not foresee the impact of financial crises.....but part of the problem is that the Germans dont want a weak euro so have constantly limited the ECB's scope for action.” - The Bundesbank was even more anti-single currency than the Bank of England, pointing out what would later happen to the likes of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece - plus the eventual need for debt mutualisation, economic, financial and fiscal union to fix such problems. As a fudge, the British therefore suggested retaining national currencies and making them all legal tender within the core EU countries (i.e. the Franc, Lira, Sterling, Deutschmark, etc, all being legal tender across as many as 13 countries). In Brussels, however, financial crises were viewed as an opportunity to help drive ‘ever closer union’.* *…Thus spake Romano Prodi, then head of the European Commission: “I am sure the Euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.” Since then, the EU’s been quite open in its plans to create a new EU where economic, financial, fiscal and political power reside in Brussels. In 2013, a working draft of the next treaty was drawn up by the Spinelli Group. In summer 2015, the EU’s Five Presidents' Report was published – outlining the plan for completing economic and monetary union, plus political union - by 2025 “at the latest”. This plan was re-confirmed in September 2015 in the Commission President’s state of the union report. By Spring next year, we can expect more detail in a white paper. …Strangely, such proposals barely got a mention in UK referendum debate, and were instead overshadowed by strawmen such as the “£350 million” issue. |