A few pointers that lead to a positive interpretation. Should efforts to define economic governance rules for the eurozone result in an agreement, historians of tomorrow will place this current period among the most effective and productive on the long path to European construction. Not because the single currency has been saved, but from a much wider perspective, that takes account of the way of life of Europeans, the progress of civil society and the reduction in injustices and abuses. How and why? Because analyses in most member states have highlighted the scale of the failings and accumulated injustices almost everywhere: the way the political class behaves; the scale of the waste of pubic money; the sometimes unbelievable extent of tax fraud, and so on.
Having to restore budgetary balance has forced a great many member states to do some soul-searching, the result of which should be positive for all. Of course, those who have been profiting from the waste and abuses will not easily give up their ill-gotten gains, and at the same time we are seeing attempts at adjustment and efforts to prevent them. Sometimes right and wrong are shared by the two sides. I believe, however, that overall things are developing constructively, especially in the real interest of young people, even though they are the ones who protest most loudly. The proliferation of public debt is, above all, damaging for future generations, to whom we leave the responsibility of dealing with debts they did not accumulate.
For this reason, the highlighting of past abuses, and the desire to eradicate them, also has its positive side.
In full glare. As the days go by, more European reaction to the simultaneous downgrading of the credit rating of nine eurozone countries seems excessive and misplaced. There are three heavyweight ratings agencies in the world of finance: one of them took away France's triple A and relegated Italy to the second division, the two others did not follow its lead. Why has only this one opinion been taken into consideration and got the media jumping? And a second question: the triple A rating of the United States was downgraded earlier: why, then, did this not unleash a veritable storm, either among the public or in financial circles? The whole business is just what it was right from the start, a dual-purpose manoeuvre: (a) to prevent the euro from becoming a reserve currency as highly regarded as the dollar; (b) to allow speculators to continue to get rich. Every hike in the interest rates required for the purchase of treasury bonds of most EU countries swells the wallets of operators and makes the countries concerned and their people poorer. More and more people are saying it and studies prove it. However, it has to be shouted from the rooftops and speculation must be opposed ever more vigorously, whether it comes from New York, London, or elsewhere.
Short addition on Hungary. A point made on the Hungarian problem in yesterday's column was perhaps too succinct. I was seeking to highlight the historic reasons for the unease of the Magyar population, whether residing in Hungary or elsewhere, with their repercussions on present-day political life. After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the Treaty of Trianon of June 1920 shared out the territory of this empire among the various countries of the region, radically reducing the size of the new Hungary. The result is that 2.5 ethnic Hungarians currently live outside the borders of Hungary, especially in Romania (1.4 million) and Slovakia, but also in Serbia, Ukraine, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia.
Present-day Hungary is not calling for any land return but has, in principle, granted voting rights to Hungarians living abroad. Through this reference, I was seeking merely to point out what underlies the current issues that are being discussed in the European institutions. Obviously, the government in Budapest must abide by EU rules, the European Commission must take strenuous action against any breach and the many MEPs are correct in calling for not only legal observance of these rules but also the Hungarian constitution to be in line with the fundamental values of the Community treaty (as Guy Verhofstadt has done, see yesterday's newsletter). A reminder of the historic context also has its use, however.
(FR/transl.rt)