Are the Americans to blame? The idea of manœuvres from the United States being behind the attacks on the euro last week is only partially true. There is some truth in the notion of a plot to undermine the strength and credibility of the European currency to jeopardise the very construction of a compact, economically viable Europe that can throw its political weight around the in the world, but this is not the whole story and it is too easy to blame foreigners for causing our own weaknesses. It's a way of playing the victim in order to cast the blame on others. It is justified and sensible to slam the abusive action, malevolence and mistakes of Standard & Poor's (see yesterday's column), but only if one admits that Europe is even more to blame.
I am not going to belabour Europe's responsibility for the crisis - the untruths and false facts and figures in Greece at first; most member states' governments taking a selfish or devil-may-care attitude to running up public debt; having to wait year after year before countries would agree to the economic arm of EMU and so on is no secret. It was these mistakes that made it possible for Standard & Poor's to generate the current unrest on the markets. And there is more to come - Europe is still discussing new legislation on budget discipline and nothing has yet been decided. In addition to the heavy responsibility to be laid at the doors of politicians, the world of finance and the economy is also to blame, largely due to the way it simply goes for as much profit as possible, no matter what the cost is for society at large or how this damages proper democratic functioning in the EU...
Will the EU have to split? In his commentary I quoted in yesterday's column, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said that most member states have ignored “the pledges they made in 1992 under the Maastricht Treaty and at the Amsterdam Council in 1997”. He says there are “two underlying causes for the current situation: an over-rapid increase in the number of member states and failing to make the necessary changes to adjust to the increase; and the virtually total absence of any structuring of the Eurozone”. He repeats what Jacques Delors has always said: “A single currency requires a coordinated business environment.” To correct the situation, Giscard d'Estaing says that a two-speed Europe is unavoidable: “The economic arm of the eurozone can only be decided upon and introduced by countries in the euro. Experience has shown over the past 20 years that any attempts by a body a third of whose members have decided not to join the euro and which do not pay a penny to help struggling countries to impose penalties on eurozone countries running up excessive deficits is doomed to failure (…) We must get it into our heads that over the next 40 years, there will be two European organisations: one managing the geographical European area and the other managing the eurozone, in order to promote the economic and then no doubt the political integration of the core of Europe. These will be two separate but non-antagonistic organisations managed according to different rules.” The work and powers of the body responsible for economic integration will be similar to what is planned under the new budget treaty currently on the negotiating table. As far as Giscard d'Estaing is concerned, a new treaty is not needed, because “an agreement expressing a convergence of views, like the Schengen agreement, does not require the negotiation of a treaty”.
The result of all this would be that the euro would be saved from “attacks from international speculators, which would very soon become a thing of the past”.
Is the new treaty needed? As we see, the substance of Giscard d'Estaing's ideas is largely what is being negotiated, with a few very important innovations: (a) there is no legal requirement for a new treaty (this argument is also made by a number of MEPs in their plenary session); (b) the division of Europe into two groups of countries needs to be made official.
I shall be returning to this second point.
(FR/transl.fl)