Rolf Englund om EU-grundlagen ever closer union

Today, 30 May 2011, I claim to have invented the phrase
The Monnetanisation of Europe
Rolf Englund

Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund
- "ever closer union" -
som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU.
Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen.
Rolf Englund Barometerns website 7/6 2005

Merkels eget svar på vad som behöver göras är
mer samordning mellan Europas länder, mer samordnade skatter och mer samordnad arbetsrätt.
Arbetskraften är ännu inte tillräckligt rörlig mellan Europas länder
– Jag föreställer mig att Europakommissionen blir mer av en regering i framtiden,
sade Tysklands förbundskansler Angela Merkel, Ekot 25 januari kl 20:55

"Investerare misstar sig om de tror att ECB ska kunna lösa skuldkrisen i euroområdet så länge det saknas en politisk union"
Angela Merkel sade att euron introducerades som ett "visionärt steg, men grunden var inte tillräckligt förberedd".
Denna motsättning ska lösas med ökad ekonomisk integration, vilket blir uppdraget de kommande åren.
DI 10 januari 2012

Investerare misstar sig om de tror att ECB ska kunna lösa skuldkrisen i euroområdet så länge det saknas en politisk union i området. Det sa Tysklands förbundskansler Angela Merkel 9 januari, enligt Bloomberg News.

Låt mig än en gång konstatera att Europa inte har denna ”desire of its people for closer political cohesion” och att valutaunionen därför inte kan fås att fungera ens med en fiskal union.

Valutaunionen leder till att hela det europeiska integrationsprojektet, frihetens Europa, hotas.
De politiker och andra opinionsbildare som drev igenom eurosatsningen i slutet av nittiotalet
och har försvarat den utan hänsyn till verkligheten sedan dess bär på ett fruktansvärt ansvar.
Problemet är att de europeiska folken inte har någon möjlighet att utkräva detta ansvar.
Nils Lundgren, 26 december 2011

Det finns inga andra, politiskt acceptabla, partier att rösta på och inga andra tidningar att läsa.

Nils Lundgren, Calmfors och eurons tigande Ja-sägarna
Som vanligt finns inget intresse i svensk press av att utkräva ansvar av dessa politiker för det de har ställt till med,
skriver Nils Lundgren i anledning av Annika Ström Melins artikel om att "Populisterna avancerar".
Rolf Englund blogg 17 december 2011

Varken Greklands finanser eller ens euron är värda
det vågspel som en finanspolitisk union skulle betyda.
Risken är påtaglig att politiken håller på att skena ifrån sitt folkliga stöd.
Gunnar Wetterberg, Expressen, 23 dec 2011

In reality, Europe is on the path toward becoming a federal country
The European idea as we know it is in the process of dissolving into thin air.
The monumental postwar project of a peacefully unified continent where all member states hold hands in friendship collapsed overnight.
Roland Nelles, seit März 2011 Mitglied der Chefredaktion, Der Spiegel, 9 Dezember 2011

In the long hours of a bitter Brussels night Europe changed.
A major step was taken towards closer integration. It was not as a result of popular demand by Europe's people.
It came about because Europe's leaders believed their project had "never been in such danger".
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 9 December 2011

Last night most of Europe's governments gave up a chunk of their sovereignty.

In the future, tax and spending plans will be shown to European officials before national governments.

France and Germany have bulldozed Britain out of EU for the sake of a treaty that offers absolutely
no solution to the crisis at hand, or indeed any future crisis
Europe's blithering idiots and their flim-flam treaty
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, December 9th, 2011

10 år med euron – det ska firas
"videon ser ut som en Scientologikyrkereklam"
Teresa Kuchler, SvD Näringsliv, 1 december 2011, med video

Att videon ser ut som en Scientologikyrkereklam med överretuscherade, fettfria och helt asexuella karaktärer under fulanimerade blå himlar, och ackompanjeras av kriminellt usla Beethovenvariationer eller den slags håglöst synth-dunk som vanligtvis hörs på företagsstämmornas power point-presentationer från helvetet, har däremot inget med dålig tajming att göra. Så ser alla EU-producerade propagandafilmer ut.

Sarkozy efterlyser bättre disciplin inom EU
– I dag har rädslan återvänt, rädslan för att Frankrike inte längre styr över sitt öde, sa presidenten,
samtidigt som han underströk behovet av just Europeiskt samarbete för fredens skull och för överlevnad.
Ekot 2 december 2011

Frankrike tycks närma sig Tysklands hållning, men de två mäktiga står ännu inte på samma ruta. Talet i går kväll innehöll kanske därför inte dramatiska lösningar utan beskrev mer problemen.

Sarkozy, has said France and Germany must come together to ensure stability at the heart of Europe.
In a major speech in the port of Toulon, Mr Sarkozy said he and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel,
would meet on Monday to propose measures to ensure the future of Europe.
BBC, 1 December 2011

Euron: Förändrad europeisk maktbalans
Det europeiska par som styr Europa är inte jämlikt.
Paris har blivit beroende av det starkare Berlin.
Annika Ström Melin, 1 December 2011

The people who bullied Europe into adopting a common currency,
the people who are bullying both Europe and the United States into austerity aren’t technocrats.
They are, instead, deeply impractical romantics.
So why did those “technocrats” push so hard for the euro, disregarding many warnings from economists?
Partly it was the dream of European unification, which the Continent’s elite found so alluring that its members waved away practical objections.
Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 20, 2011

Tighter controls on the “Club Med” countries’ purse strings
But that’s not “fiscal union”.
The only way a single currency can work in the long term is by pooling a large share of total tax revenues and having intra-regional fiscal transfers, as in the US. Yet that will never happen in Western Europe.
Liam Halligan, DT 26 Nov 2011

ECB board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo urged euro-area politicians to take bold steps toward fiscal union to end the debt crisis,
“It is now a time for politicians to be bold and courageous” and “complete as soon as possible the great project begun 60 years ago towards ever closer union,” he said.
Bloomberg 25 November 2011

"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."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Financial Times, 4 December 2001

Conspiracies, Coups and Currencies
The inhabitants of Italy and Greece, who have just watched democratically elected governments toppled by pressure from
financiers, European Union bureaucrats and foreign heads of state, it evokes the cold reality of 21st-century politics.
Democracy may be nice in theory, but in a time of crisis it’s the technocrats who really get to call the shots.
National sovereignty is a pretty concept, but the survival of the European common currency comes first.
Ross Douthat, New York Times, November 19, 2011

“Fiscal union” advocates will also need, when the time comes, to send out the eurozone riot-police.
Voters get angry, and sometimes violent, when their own politicians let them down.
But when they feel controlled and humiliated by foreigners, they become totally enraged.
That, I’m afraid, is the undeniable lesson of history.
Liam Halligan, DT, 19 Nov 2011

"The challenge of our generation is to finish what we started in Europe, and that is to bring about, step by step, a political union,"
Merkel told the party congress in the east German city of Leipzig, CNBC 14 Nov 2011

The Roman empire divided irretrievably. Yet the dream of reunification never died.
It was apparent in the claims of popes and “holy Roman emperors”. It was carried by Napoleon’s eagles.
It is the aspiration embedded in the European Union.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, November 15, 2011

Confronted with turbulence in the provinces, the eurozone has sent in new governors.
Europe is putting in place these new governors in members that have descended to the status of clients.

Vem frågar folket när EU krisar?
Det skall vår EU-minister, Birgitta Ohlsson, svara på hos Ekot.
Lördag 3 december 2011 kl 12:55

- En liten krets EU-ledare fattar i rask takt beslut som rör framtiden för hundratals miljoner eu-medborgare.
EU-ländernas ekonomiska politik ska styras hårdare från Bryssel och förslag finns om att åter göra om EU:s grundlagar.
Men hänger medborgarna med? Har någon frågat vad vi tycker?
Och hur går det med demokratin när fler och fler tunga ekonomisk-politiska beslut flyttas upp på EU-nivå?

Det är ju det man har haft på känn hela tiden
Hur kan dom vara så dumma att dom inför en gemensam valuta. Det kommer ju inte att gå, frågade jag mig för länge sedan. Svaret var inte så svårt att komma fram till.
Den gemensamma valutan kan bara försvaras som en nödvändig byggsten i bygget som skall leda fram till ett nytt romerskt rike
Rolf Englund blog 14 november 2011

Sarkozy is causing a big stir after calling on November 8th for a two-speed Europe:
a “federal” core of the 17 members of the euro zone, with a looser “confederal” outer band of the ten non-euro members.
Charlemagne, The Economist Nov 10th 2011

He made the comments during a debate with students at the University of Strasbourg. The key passage is below

You cannot make a single currency without economic convergence and economic integration. It's impossible.

But on the contrary, one cannot plead for federalism and at the same time for the enlargement of Europe. It's impossible. There's a contradiction.

We are 27. We will obviously have to open up to the Balkans. We will be 32, 33 or 34.

I imagine that nobody thinks that federalism — total integration — is possible at 33, 34, 35 countries.

EU has repeatedly failed to put forward a convincing euro rescue.
Its latest and bravest attempt, at the end of last month, fell short of the mark—just like all the others.
That is because the Europeans are deeply at odds over what the crisis is really about, and riven by disagreement over what each country must contribute towards solving it
So long as the euro zone’s members cannot settle these arguments, or at least agree that their differences matter less than finding a solution,
the collective action needed to defend the euro will remain impossible.
The Economist, Special report, print, Nov 12th 2011

While the world waits for Europe to make up its mind, catastrophe is in the air. It could take many forms. A country might storm out of the euro—which the treaty forbids, but who could stop a determined government? European banks might suffer a fatal loss of confidence. Italy or Spain might become unable to borrow on decent terms. Or a government trying to impose austerity might be replaced by one that rejects it. Any of these could cause contagion and plunge the world economy into depression.

Economic crisis has shown up, once again, the democratic deficit at the heart of the European project as a whole.
The eurozone’s elected political class failed, for more than a decade, to tell voters what a common currency would cost.
No politician dared to explain to the Greeks or the Italians, let alone Germans, the truth.
The truth was that Italy and Greece were not competitive and were paying themselves more than they could afford.
The German people were not told that a currency union transfers political and economic cost from profligate states to prudent ones like their own.
Michael Ignatieff, FT, November 17, 2011

Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Dom lurade oss, helt enkelt.
Eller så visst dom inte vad dom gjorde.

Om inte den politiska makten i Europa europeiseras och den nuvarande konfederationen
övergår i en federation kommer eurozonen, och EU som helhet, att falla sönder
Eurozonen kommer att få uppträda som EU:s förtrupp,
eftersom EU som helhet varken kan eller vill påskynda en politisk förening.
Joschka Fischer, Kolumn DN 2011-10-31

Att EU går framåt betyder att politisk makt flyttas från medlemsländerna till Bryssel och detta kan inte genomföras på demokratisk väg. Folken (obs pluralen) är nämligen helt emot detta.
Men om man ställer till rejäla kriser, så kan varje nationell maktelit skrämma sitt folk till underkastelse.
De tvingas acceptera. EU-kommissionens tidigare ordförande, virrpannan Romano Prodi, var så omedveten att han skrev en kolumn i självaste Financial Times (20 maj 2010),
där han lugnt konstaterade att han och alla de andra som drev fram europrojektet naturligtvis visste att det skulle leda till en svår kris förr eller senare.
Jag citerar: ”When the euro was born everyone knew that sooner or later a crisis would occur. It was inevitable that, for such a bold and unprecedented project, in some countries (even the most virtuous ones), mistakes would be made and unforeseeable events occur.”
Och då kommer EU att gå framåt, dvs. tillskansa sig mera makt på medlemsstaternas bekostnad.
Detta var så magstarkt att t o m Annika Ström Melin på DN:s ledarsida tyckte det var omdömeslöst att säga det så rent ut.
Nils Lundgren blog 24 oktober 2011

Det kan vara hälsosamt för demokratin i EU att vid avgörande tillfällen fråga väljarna vad de tycker om färdriktningen
I flertalet länder har folket avgjort frågan om medlemskap – vilket borde vara regel.
Någon gång bör folket få säga sitt
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat DN 2 november 2011

The apparent alternative of disorderly default and break-up would almost certainly plunge Europe,
and very possibly the rest of the world too, into prolonged depression.
Whatever satisfaction those such as William Hague derive from being proved right about the folly of monetary union,
it cannot be in our economic interests to see the project end in catastrophe.
Ergo, they must support what in opposition would have been anathema – ever closer union.
Jeremy Warner, Daily Telegraph 25 Oct 2011

På frågan om det blir så svarade Fredrik Reinfeldt igår: Vet ej.
Ett nytt regelverk måste vara så konstruerat att det utesluter
att EU står som betalningsgarant för enskilda euroländer och att EU i praktiken blir en transfereringsunion.
Claes Arvidsson, ledarskribent SvD 24 oktober 2011

To eliminate the monetary independence of 17 sovereign countries and create a major new world currency is a pretty big undertaking.
It was arrogantly assumed that political will would overcome all problems.
Moreover, although there was political will aplenty, it wasn’t at all clear what was willed.
For no one was ever asked to sign up to the whole caboodle. What was on offer was always monetary union lite.
Roger Bootle, Daily Telegraph 16 October 2011

Yet the people of Europe were not prepared for full union. So the euro elites glossed over the issue – but pressed on regardless, believing that the essential logic of closer union would in the end prevail.

Indeed, a crisis might be the way, perhaps the only way, that the European dream could be realised. It would all be all right on the night.
But it hasn’t worked out this way at all. The euro was supposed to bring convergence. In fact, for many of its member countries, it has brought increased divergence.

På EU-nivån har beslut och beslutsfattare seglat iväg farligt långt från den allmänna opinionen,
och krisbekämpningen kan leda till mer överstatlighet än vad politikerna någonsin har bett om mandat för.
PJ Anders Linder, SvD 9 oktober 2011

Eurokrisen på 30 sekunder
Du skall införa euron om Du, nu, vill skapa ett Europas Förenta Stater.
Du skall inte införa ett Europas Förenta Stater för att rädda euron.
Rolf Englund blog 19 sept 2011

"Det gäller bara Grekland", Mycket fiffigt, Too clever by half,
men allt var fel från början
Rolf Englund blog 2011-07-22

Det var direkt plågsamt att lyssna på EU-kommissionens ordförande José Manuel Barroso i går morse.
Han framträdde i Europaparlamentet och höll sitt stora tal om den pågående krisen.
Har han tydligen helt förlorat kontakten med den politiska verkligheten i medlemsländerna?
Annika Ström Melin, DN, Signerat 29 sept 2011

Charles Gave beskriver situationen i Grekland som ett ”lågintensivt inbördeskrig”.
”Och det kommer att sprida sig till Frankrike, Portugal och Spanien och andra länder”
”Många känner sig lurade. Eurokraterna försökte genomföra en politisk kupp när euron infördes, i syfte att skapa en europeisk stat.
Men befolkningen i Europa vill inte ha en sådan stat. Nu ser vi motreaktionen”
DI 23 sept 2011

Writing in Handelsblatt, Frank Walter Steinmeier, the SPD parliamentary leader, said that the Bundestag’s approval of the EFSF will solve nothing.

The politicians will not get ahead of the crisis, unless they adopted a clear long-term strategy of where they are headed.
He is proposing a 10-year road map towards a political and fiscal union to accompany that current crisis management – similar to the Delors plan of the 1990s. Eurointelligence 4 October 2011

"ett litet steg mot en finanspolitisk union"
I juli kom EMU-politikerna överens om att öka nödlånsfonden EFSF mer flexibel. Till skillnad från nu ska fonden få stödköpa statsobligationer på andrahandsmarknaden.
I dagsläget har fonden en utlåningskapacitet på ungefär 250 miljarder euro, motsvarande 2.300 miljarder kronor. Fondens storlek ska växa till 440 miljarder euro.
Viktor Munkhammar, DI 2011-09-16

Few people, least of all this newspaper, want either vast intervention in financial markets
or a big shift of national sovereignty to Europe.
It is just that the alternatives are far worse.
The Economist editorial, Sept 17th 2011, print

Barroso has said in an interview that the EU's institutions need to be strengthened to stabilize the euro zone,
arguing that national governments can't be trusted to take determined action.
Meanwhile, former German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück says it's time to openly admit that Greece is practically bankrupt.
Der Spiegel, 30 Sept 2011

The Economist: This is not what they were promised when the euro was set up.
Completely true, and sadly irrelevant.
Rolf Englund blog 16 sept 2011

"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."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Financial Times, 4 December 2001
http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Europe/08-Euro.html

"We must now face the difficult task of moving forward towards a single economy, a single political entity...
For the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire we have the opportunity to unite Europe."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President, speech to European Parliament, 13th October 1999.
http://www.liebreich.com/LDC/HTML/Europe/08-Euro.html

A big step towards fiscal federalism in Europe
When the euro was born everyone knew that sooner or later a crisis would occur.
It was also clear that the stability and growth pact was – as I have said before – “stupid”
Romano Prodi FT May 20 2010

Den fördjupade ekonomiska integrationen har också en politisk dimension
som öppnat ett stort spelrum för allehanda populistiska sockerbagare som lockar med
den gamla världens söta illusion om nationell suveränitet.
Rolf Gustavsson, SvD 10 september 2011

Slutmålet är tydligt: Europas förenta stater.
I en intervju nyligen med tyska Der Spiegel slog Gerhard Schröder fast att det är dags att revidera Lissabonfördraget
”Situationen har förändrats. Den här krisen innebär en stor möjlighet att skapa en verklig politisk union i Europa.”
Att driva igenom ökad överstatlighet – utan att det är förankrat hos EU:s medborgare – kan få allvarliga konsekvenser.
Sydsvenskan, huvudledare 10 september 2011

Federalisterna kan hävda att detta är helt i linje med EU:s mål som från början varit att att skapa en allt fastare sammanslutning mellan de europeiska folken.

Gemensam finanspolitik inom eurozonen kräver att hela EU går i riktning mot att bli en federation, vilket inte är någon önskvärd, om ens farbar, väg.
Skillnaderna mellan EU-länderna är för påtagliga för att de skall kunna styras enligt en politisk agenda.
Men en europeisk valutafond borde kunna hålla EU och euron på det rätta ekonomiska spåret.
Sydsvenskan, ledare med rubriken "Eurons sak är vår", 9/3 2010

Euroland måste nu antingen bli en riktig federation, överstatligt och med Tyskland i spetsen, det land som vann kriget genom att förlora det.
Eller Euroland faller itu vilket vore detsamma som en renationalisering. Inget av alternativen är särskilt trevligt.
Richard Swartz, Kolumn DN 3 september 2011

Det går långsamt upp för allmänheten – också i Tyskland – att finanskrisen kan tillintetgöra hela det europeiska unionsprojektet,
eftersom den skoningslöst blottar svagheterna i eurozonen och dess konstruktion.
Dessa svagheter är politiska snarare än finansiella eller ekonomiska.
Joschka Fischer, Kolumn DN, 2 september 2011

Ja-sägarna sade ingenting i folkomröstningen om en Federation, som Joscha Fischer nu anser nödvändig
Rolf Englund blog 2 september 2011

Just as Germany yearns for the return of the deutschemark, peripheral nations look back longingly on the sometimes violent currency swings of pre-euro days as if it were a golden age.
However unsettling the exchange rate turbulence of those times was, at least national governments were still in control of their own destiny.
Now they’ve lost even the blessing of low and stable interest rates.
Jeremy Warner, DT, 14 Sep 2011<

In a remarkable speech Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann yesterday launched a debate in Germany on the eurozone’s future evolution
Financial Times Deutschland reports. He urged the government to quickly decide on whether it wanted to continue existing arrangements
or “big leap” towards a fiscal union /which/ would require a change of the German constitution and would be the result of a “long and difficult path”
Eurointelligence 14 September 2011

The European Union should appoint a new budget tsar with powers to dictate taxes and spending in euro zone countries
and who could ultimately adjudicate whether countries should be kicked out of the euro, the Dutch prime minister has arguedin the Financial Times
CNBC, 8 September 2011

“Countries that do not want to submit to this regime can choose to leave the euro zone,” Mr Rutte and Mr de Jager write. “In the future, the ultimate sanction can be to force countries to leave the euro.”

Reluctantly, Europe Inches Closer to a Fiscal Union
Europe appears to be inching closer to a more centralized fiscal union that would eventually turn the euro zone
into something resembling a United States of Europe.
New York Times 5 September 2011

Why austerity is only cure for the eurozone
This does not mean that fiscal policy in the eurozone should not gradually become more centralised.
It should, as long as this process is legitimised by a strong democratic mandate.
Wolfgang Schäuble, FT September 5, 2011

Charlemagne
The end of Monnet
The debt crisis is exposing problems in the basic design of the European Union
The Economist print 2 September 2011

The French president and the German chancellor in Paris yesterday
had interrupted their August to announce that, in future, there would be a eurozone government with an elected president.
Fiscal union - the coordination of tax and spending - has not yet arrived but it has moved a giant step closer.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 17 August 2011

Politikerna inom EU har inte vågat diskutera det fortsatta ekonomiska samarbetet med befolkningen.
Det kan hota eurons framtid
säger Niklas Bremberg, forskare i statsvetenskap vid Stockholms universitet
DN 9 augusti 2011

The eurozone is not a single nation state, yet it has some of the elements and institutions of a nation state.
Inside a nation state, transfers occur between rich and poor regions. In fact, this is one of the key reasons for having a national budget
But such transfers have never seemed remotely possible inside the European Union, because there is insufficient â€œcommunity spiritâ€ to make them politically feasible.
Gavyn Davies, FT blog July 20, 2011 11:30 am

Americans from all 50 states of the union feel part of a much bigger entity. Europeans from the member countries in general do not, or at least not to the same extent.

In the end, the only way of eliminating moral hazard would be to shift much more of the tax and spending decisions to a central EU budget â€“ a genuine national budget for a genuine nation state.

The eurozone is a very long way from that state of affairs. It is not a nation state.

A modest proposal
The eurozone can in theory still be saved, if two sets of conditions are fulfilled;
if the leaders of Germany, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands accept fiscal union and a common pooling of debt, and can persuade their parliaments and courts to ratify such a revolution.
Given that these sovereign diets will not efface themselves lightly, the wise course is to prepare for an orderly break-up of monetary union.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 17 July 2011

Om unionen ska överleva på sikt krävs en bättre demokratisk förankring än i dag
Alltför länge har EU framför allt varit ett samarbete mellan ländernas regeringar.
Ministrarna och regeringscheferna åker till Bryssel för att förhandla och lösa gemensamma problem.
Men var finns folket, de politiska diskussionerna och den fria press som granskar det som sker?
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat Dagens Nyheters ledarsida, 16 juli 2011

Habsburg, SvD och Det första världskriget
- Den Europatanke som var så självklar för efterkrigstidens stora europÃ©er känns tyvärr i dag, i skuldkrisens och migrationsdebattens EU, som alltför avlägsen och svårgripbar.
- Robert Schumann, Jean Monet och Otto von Habsburg var alla djupt märkta av det förra århundradets långa kedja av katastrofer. Det skriver SvD i en välskriven ledare av Gustaf Almkvist i dag den 16 juli 2011.
Rolf Englund blog

In Europe, politicians are dealing with the legacy of a utopian project
which requires a degree of solidarity that their peoples do not feel.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 12 July 2011

EU är ett fantastiskt och unikt experiment med demokrati på en helt ny nivå.
Aldrig tidigare har det funnits en demokratisk union mellan enskilda stater och medborgare på detta vis.
Därför är det också av mycket stor betydelse för det europeiska samarbetet, och alla dess medborgare, att demokratin är en demokrati fullt ut.
Europaparlamentariker Olle Schmidt (FP), 7 juli 2011

Vi i den liberala gruppen föreslår därför att det införs ytterligare en gemensam europeisk valkrets, förutom de 27 medlemsstaterna, där 25 extra ledamöter skulle väljas.

Det talas mycket om europeiskt samarbete. Men låt oss kalla saker vid deras rätta namn.
Den europeiska valutan och Europaparlamentet handlar om någonting annat. Drömmen är att fusionera.
Historiskt har demokratins institutioner byggts parallellt med nationalstaterna.
Det nya är att demokratin skall byggas vid sidan om, ovanför eller till och med i motsats till nationen.
Carl Hamilton i Aftonbladet 1999-06-10

I dessa globala tidevarv är det naturligtvis helt otidsenligt att påstå att nationalstaten skulle ha någon annan uppgift att fylla än att stilla upplösas och försvinna. Kort sagt, att fusioneras.

Den pågående Europavalrörelsen har varit en orgie i rosenröda fusioneringsdrömmar. Var och en får naturligtvis tro, hoppas och lova vad han eller hon vill. Men här finns en kolossal underskattning av de krafter som sätts i rörelse när de demokratiska styrelseformerna en dag ställs i motsats till nationella intressen.

Portugisiska och grekiska bönder vill helt enkelt inte att nogräknade tyskar och svenskar i demokratisk ordning reformerar, det vill säga lägger ned, deras jordbruk.

Man skulle förstås kunna se hela valet mer som ett slags skämt, ett â€practical jokeâ€ som de styrande spelar menigheten. Alla vet att de viktiga frågorna avgörs någon annanstans. Men vi kan i alla fall låtsas. Låt oss gå igenom hela ritualen med debatter, leende politiker, tv-utfrågningar, löften och torgmöten, men inte på riktigt, utan â€“ som levande charad.

Problemet är att de demokratiska bristerna inte kan avhjälpas genom att Europaparlamentet ges verklig beslutsmakt över riktiga frågor.

Antingen leker Europaparlamentet parlament, fast det inte är det. Eller leker Europa nation, fast det inte är det. Det senare är en farligare övning.

The approval of the European Union's key economic governance proposal, which is at the center of efforts to strengthen oversight of the 27-member group, is stalling due to disagreement between the Parliament and member states represented on the European Council.

Jean-Claude Trichet said European leaders have failed to grasp the importance of improving economic governance
The Parliament wants to introduce more automatic consequences against countries failing to address their deficits and debt.
Member states say they have negotiated as far as they can go and have submitted a proposal to Parliament for final approval.
Parliament refuses to accept the proposal as final.
WSJ 9 July 2011

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on Saturday said European leaders have failed to grasp the importance of improving economic governance, adding that growth remains insufficient and the unemployment rate unacceptable.

Man undrar vad EU:s grundare, som var fast beslutna att få ett slut på det Europa där stormakterna bekrigade varandra i allt blodigare krig, skulle säga om dagens EU.
Unionen håller på att bli ett slags monster som växer okontrollerat i alla riktningar.
EU håller på att bli ett överhetsprojekt där en liten privilegierad elit berikar sig själv.
Carl Rudbeck, Sydsvenskan 27 juni 2011

De som ursprungligen släppte in Grekland i unionen måste ta på sig en betydande del av skulden.

En annan del av skuldbördan måste axlas av de säkerligen som briljanta ansedda ekonomer - som konstruerade euron enligt principen att en storlek passar alla.

Det är förfärligt det som har hänt i många europeiska länder under de senaste åren. Folken sviker sina ledare. Etablissemanget kan inte längre räkna på blind lydnad från den råa hopen.
Svenskarna röstade emot euron och gav så sätt vårt lands politiska och ekonomiska eliter en rejäl örfil. Fransmän och holländare sade nej tack till EU-konstitutionen och försatte därmed hela unionen i en välbehövlig kris.
Carl Rudbeck, Timbros Smedjan 20/9 2005

For Europe's elite, the idea of a country leaving the euro is anathema. And that will push them towards shouldering Greece's debt.
But that will only really be possible if the eurozone takes a giant leap towards economic union, and that can only be underpinned by a major shift towards political union.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 5 July 2011

Such a step would fundamentally change the EU and presumably would have to be put to the people of the nation states in referenda.

Logiken i det hela rör sig i federativ riktning... Sch! säger Kohl åt mig när jag tar upp det.
Göran Persson

Skuldkrisen är i första hand en ekonomisk kris. Därför bör inte EU springa iväg med stora, komplicerade ändringar av regler, institutioner eller av EU-fördraget.
Inte heller är euroobligationer eller utvidgade möjligheter för ECB att ge finansiellt stöd en lösning.
Det sade statsminister Fredrik Reinfeldt vid en presskonferens på tisdagen efter att ha träffat EU-ordföranden Herman Van Rompuy.
SvD nyhetsplats, 22 november 2011

The introduction of a Eurobond will require a broader and deeper economic government that extends well beyond the notion of a fiscal union.
But it might not happen. The crisis is moving too fast. We may well find that the Germans, the Dutch and the Finns are not ready for this.
Their political leaders have certainly not prepared the ground for such a momentous decision.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT 13 November 2011

Eurobonds are out of the question as Germany is against them and
they would require a change in treaties that would take years to approve.
Nouriel Roubini, FT 10 November 2011

För egen del tror jag att ännu starkare europeisk medicin då krävs än den som nu är aktuell:
samordnad budgetpolitik, mer ambitiös strukturpolitik, gemensam finansinspektion, bankakut och euroobligationer

De europeiska politikerna och deras väljare är dock inte beredda att gå så långt – i alla fall inte ännu.
Klas Eklund, kolumn SvD 2 oktober 2011

Föreställningen om euro-obligationer – ett slags XXL-lån där alla (läs: Tyskland) går i borgen för varandra
är kanske ekonomiskt förnuftigt, men riskerar att bli till en politisk härdsmälta som kan väcka alla våra slumrande nationella fiendebilder till liv.
Richard Swartz, DN 17 september 2011

It was hilarious (lustigt) to watch a rally in peripheral bonds yesterdays as a consequence of a statement by Jose Manuel Barroso who said the European Commission would soon make proposals for eurobonds.

Barroso said yesterday that the Commission will present options, but that this will not bring an end to the eurozone crisis. This means the Commission is not going to propose an all-encompassing eurobond, but some partial bond, which may be nice to have, but will not bring down borrowing costs for sovereigns.

(The misunderstanding lies in the word eurobond. People have used it from anything from a common infrastructure bond to Treasury securities that would encompass most of Europe’s sovereign debt).

EU-kommissionens ordförande José Manuel Barroso bekräftade på onsdagen att han är i färd med att lägga fram ett förslag om så kallade euro-obligationer

"Vissa av dessa (euro-obligationer) skulle kunna börja användas inom ramarna för gällande EU-regler, andra kräver fördragsförändringar", sade Barroso inför EU-parlamentet i Strasbourg enligt Reuters.

Even a joint bond might not save the euro
Two months ago, it was said the worst things that could happen were that the crisis would extend to Italy and Spain; and the economic recovery would stall.
Now the crisis has extended to Italy and Spain, and growth in the eurozone economy has slowed.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT August 28 2011

Bundesbank questions legality of EU bail-outs
Germany's Bundesbank has issued a blistering critique of EU bail-out policies,
warning that the eurozone is drifting towards a debt union without "democratic legitimacy" or treaty backing.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 22 August 2011

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy stuck his neck out twice
Mr. Van Rompuy’s view rests on an argument more often heard from Anglo-Saxon euroskeptics than from senior eurocrats:
that European leaders were mistaken to launch the single currency without first bringing their diverse economies closer together.
Wall Street Journal 22 August 2011

“We could only have euro bonds the day when there is truly a real budgetary convergence, the day when everyone is running a balanced budget or pratically a balanced budget.
That’s when we could have a euro bond. But not before,” he said.

Mr. Van Rompuy went on to argue that his opposition is not just a political judgment.

“We can’t make…the same mistake that some have made with the launching of the single currency. We launched a common currency but we forgot about having a common economic policy. Now we will launch euro bonds without having a much stricter and much more unified fiscal policy. We can’t make the same mistake,” he said.

For the man set to become the first euro-zone president, that’s a rather striking view.

Monetary union without fiscal union will not work, screamed the economists back then, and they were right.
Indeed, the euro is the main culprit in the current calamity.
It allowed the profligates to live like the Germans and to borrow like Italy, Greece and the others. For suddenly their debt was no longer denominated in melting liras and drachmas, but in cosy and reliable euros.
And down went interest rates for the big spenders.
Josef Joffe, The Times, 22 August 2011

The poisoned fruits of the euro now smell to high heaven. All the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) face insolvency, and the rest of euroland is paying with yet another rescue package or a towering credit-cum-guarantee shelter.

These are known by such opaque acronyms as EFSF or ESM, with the E standing for “Europe” and the S for “stability”.

Irland växte snabbt under 90-talet. Med euron tillkom en låg ränta som blåste upp en jättelik fastighetsbubbla
Irland

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attempted to shut the door on common euro-area bonds, saying that she won’t let financial markets dictate policy.
“At this time -- we’re in a dramatic crisis -- euro bonds are precisely the wrong answer,” “They lead us into a debt union, not a stability union.”
Bloomberg 22 August 2011

Joint euro bonds would require European Union treaty changes that would “take years” and might run afoul of Germany’s constitution, Merkel said.

While common borrowing might arrive at some point in the “distant future,” bringing in euro bonds at this time would further undermine economic stability and so they “are not the answer right now.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel saying that so-called euro bonds would be an option only in the distant future,
while her finance minister said that common debt would make it easier for governments to avoid pursuing responsible fiscal policies.
New York Times 21 August 2011

“It will not be possible to solve the current crisis with euro bonds,” Mrs. Merkel told ZDF television.

The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said it would take too long for countries in the euro zone to amend the treaty on monetary union, which would probably be required to allow the bonds.
“We have to solve the crisis within the existing treaty,” he told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

The European Commission said it may present draft legislation on euro bonds
when completing a report on the feasibility of common debt sales.
“The report will, if appropriate, be accompanied by legislative proposals,” EU Economic and Monetary Affairs
Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a written response to a European Parliament question. “
Bloomberg 19 August 2011

Problemet med euroobligationer är att de inte innehåller några incitament för problemländerna att sanera sina statsfinanser.
I stället formaliserar de det förhållande som under mer än ett decennium gjort att de kunnat låna pengar till en betydligt lägre ränta än vad deras egentliga kreditvärdighet borde ha tillåtit.
Det var därför viktigt att euroobligationer avfärdades vid det tysk-franska toppmötet.
DN-ledare 18 augusti 2011

Europe's economy slides towards disaster
The EU leaders’ rhetoric in Paris makes it clear that they are not facing up to the existential crisis.
Jeremy Warner, Daily Telegraph 17 Aug 2011

President Sarkozy said:
"Eurobonds can be imagined one day but at the end of the European integration process, not at the beginning."
BBC 17 August 2011

Chancellor Merkel was far more cautious. Key members of her coalition have made it clear their outright opposition to eurobonds.
The coalition could even break up over the issue. Deutsche Bank has called eurobonds "poison pills".

Merkel and Sarkozy rejected an expansion of the 440 billion-euro ($633 billion) rescue fund and
rebuffed calls for joint euro borrowing to end the debt crisis
Bloomberg 17 August 2011

The euro bonds debate reflects what is perhaps the central existential question facing Europeans:
how much more central government and integration are they willing to accept to save the euro?
New York Times, 15 august 2011

Euro bonds are a deeply controversial idea among both economists and ordinary Europeans. Critics said they would not solve the financial crisis and might create unbearable political tension instead. Voters in stronger countries would balk at assuming the obligations of less prudent members. Some critics argued that euro bonds would unfairly raise borrowing costs for countries like Germany, and, rather than protecting the euro, could lead to the breakup of the currency union.

“Euro bonds could trigger very strong anti-European movements,” said Clemens Fuest, a professor at Oxford. “It would be very hard to sell in Germany.”

How much more central government and integration are they willing to accept to save the euro?
Det är det frågan om eurobonds handlar om
Rolf Englund blog 16 augusti 2011

George Osborne, George Soros, some eurozone leaders
and many economists (if you think their views are still worth hearing)
argue that the eurozone's salvation requires the adoption of a fiscal policy of "all for one, and one for all".
Robert Peston, BBC Business editor, 15 August 2011

So, although Mr Schaeuble is viewed as an opponent of the euro bond idea, that is not a "no, nay, never" from Germany.

It is a conditional yes.

Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne said some kind of fiscal union may now be needed
CNBC 14 Aug 2011

Asked if the only answer for the euro zone was some form of fiscal union, he told BBC radio: "The short answer is yes."

Germany and France are ruling out common eurozone bonds
to solve the bloc’s current debt crisis, in spite of renewed pressure ahead of a meeting of chancellor Angela Merkel and president Nicholas Sarkozy on Tuesday.
FT 15 August 2011

Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, made clear in an interview with Der Spiegel, that Berlin remains opposed to such a policy.

“I rule out eurobonds for as long as member states conduct their own financial policies and we need different rates of interest in order that there are possible incentives and sanctions to enforce fiscal solidity,” he said.

In a SPIEGEL interview, billionaire investor George Soros criticizes Germany's lack of leadership in the euro zone,
arguing that Berlin must dictate to Europe the solution to the currency crisis.
He also argues in favor of the creation of euro bonds as a way out of the turbulence.
www.spiegel.de

The introduction of the euro was supposed to reinforce convergence; in fact it created divergences, with widely differing levels of indebtedness and competitiveness. If heavily indebted countries have to pay heavy risk premiums, their debt becomes unsustainable. That is now happening. The solution is obvious: deficit countries must be allowed to refinance their debt on the same terms as surplus countries.

This is best accomplished through eurobonds, which would be jointly guaranteed by all the member states.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet in Paris on Tuesday and make proposals on how to strengthen the euro zone's economic governance

Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel won't go as far as European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet, who in the spring said the euro zone should be equipped with a finance minister, people familiar with the matter said. They will also repeat their opposition to creating sovereign Eurobonds because the issuer would have to be a federal political constituency, and the time for that isn't ripe

European leaders will face an ever starker choice between a break-up of the euro zone and a closer fiscal union. Saving the euro will require a far bigger rescue fund than the zone has currently been prepared to accept.

A more robust idea from an economic perspective would be the ability to issue Eurobonds collectively backed by all the zone’s members.

That would be a huge political decision, not something European voters should see introduced through the back door: but a commitment to do it would provide a clear end to this saga.

Again, it is politically hard; but Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy are running out of options.

Slithering to the wrong kind of union
This time the consequence would be to threaten the collapse of the most successful project of economic integration in the history of mankind.
Otmar Issing, Financial Times, August 8, 2011

If you want to know how the EFSF could implode all of a sudden,
Eurointelligence 29 July 2011

Reuters quoted unnamed eurozone officials as saying that Italy may not be able to participate in the next Greek tranche in September, due to the rise in its own borrowing costs, which are now close to the peak last week ahead of the summit. The German-Italian spreads are now at the second highest level we have ever recorded. During a conference call of euro zone finance officials on Thursday, the Italian official said Italy might have to use the "step-out" option, which you can trigger if your own financing costs exceed those of the Greek loans. When a country steps out of the arrangement, other countries will have to make up its share, which in the case of Italy is a whopping 18%.

(The danger of the construction of the EFSF consists of a domino effect: Spain’s and Italy’s guarantees are not worth anything, which leaves the German and French guarantees as the economic core of the EFSF. But with the rise in France’s effective share come doubts about the country’s own triple-A rating. The entire system is as stable as the quality of the next country’s guarantee. This is why we believe that the EFSF/ESM is unsustainable. The only way out of this domino effect will be a joint and several guarantee, in other words a eurozone bond.)

The prospect of a break-up of the eurozone, either “apocalyptic or controlled”.

The author personally very much wants the euro to succeed. But he believes this would require a genuine federalist programme.

In contrast to other French pundits, he is precise about what he means by economic government, namely an institution concerned with eurozone-wide demand management and, unlike the ECB, with growth and not just price stability.

He is also quite precise on which taxes should be transferred to a federal fiscal authority.

How much closer a union?
Deeper “transfer union” and issuing joint Eurobonds
Charlemagne, The Economist print July 30th 2011

“I am a federalist,” Mr Sarkozy told his colleagues. In joining the euro, countries had to surrender some sovereignty. That such views should be expressed by a former Gaullist, at a time when the EU is unpopular, was perhaps a surprise.

All this leads to talk of a deeper “transfer union” and of issuing joint Eurobonds. Mrs Merkel says this is a matter for future generations: Eurobonds would need both a new EU treaty and a new German constitution. But she may be forced to discuss it quite soon.

Are citizens ready to give up more sovereignty to save the euro? Nobody has asked them.

The more leaders try to fix the euro’s flaws the more they risk exposing a flaw in the European Union itself: a project of European integration that lacks a strong democratic mandate.

For Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, this is all a big step towards the creation of a â€œEuropean Monetary Fundâ€ and, indeed, of a European "economic government".
Charlemagne, The Economist, July 21st 2011

He said there would soon be more proposals to integrate economic policies of the 17 euro area states. He relished the idea of creating a two-speed Europe; agreement at 17 was hard enough, he said; striking a deal with 27 leaders would have been nigh impossible

Daniel Hannan about illelgal eurobonds
Such a scheme will be expensive: it´ss hard to see it costing less than a trillion euros.
Most serious of all, it will be illegal.
Article 125 of the European Treaty could hardly be clearer:
"The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State."
Rolf Englund blog 21 juli 2011

Eurobonds are the only answer to Europe´ss crisis
Mario Monti, former European commissioner, Financial Times 20 July 2011

Some are now openly advocating political union as the solution to the crisis.
The former EU Commissioner Emma Bonino was refreshingly candid when I met her in Rome last week.
She believes that a United States of Europe is the answer. She accepted that political union would have to be put to the voters.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 18 July 2011

Bildt´s Nikolaus Blome asks all European (Eurobond-)Dreamers to wake up
In a lengthy comment Bild´ss deputy Editor-in-chief Nikolaus Blome asks those who dream of great leaps forward in European integration to wake up.
â€œEach one of these proposals for more Europe that would bring about more EU integration in the old style require a treaty changeâ€
Hier lesen

Eurobonds som garanteras av alla medlemsländer
I förlängningen ligger en gemensam finanspolitik och politisk union.
Ska eurozonen räddas måste samtidigt konkurrenskraften i Sydeuropa höjas.
Tomas Lundin, SvD Näringsliv 18 juli 2011

Förmodligen blir det den europeiska krisfonden, EFSF, som går in och köper grekiska statspapper till marknadsvärde, alltså långt under utgivningskurs. Har man väl tagit det steget är det inte långt till att eurozonen ger ut Eurobonds som garanteras av alla medlemsländer.

Starka länder som Tyskland som har högsta kreditbetyg skulle troligen få betala ett högre pris för sin upplåning i framtiden vilket förklarar en del av Tysklands motstånd.

Ska eurozonen räddas måste samtidigt konkurrenskraften i Sydeuropa höjas.
I annat fall är miljardstödet bara ett plåster på såret. Fallande världsmarknadsandelar, sjunkande produktivitet och arbetskraftskostnader som i åratal har stigit snabbare än snittet i Eurozonen kännetecknar inte bara Grekland utan delvis också Italien och Portugal.

Att detta inte går ihop med en valuta som man delar med Tyskland eller Nederländerna vet alla.

Five years ago, I was among those who argued that the probability of a collapse of the eurozone was close to zero.
Last year, I wrote it was no longer trivial, but small.
I now would put the odds of a break-up of the eurozone at 50:50.
As I argued last week, a eurozone bond is the only solution to the crisis.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times 18 July 2011

The endgame for Europe is approaching â€” and much faster than anyone expected
Italy´ss bond market turbulence means the EU faces an immediate decision:
political union or scrap the euro
Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, July 13 2011

Soon the euro zone may well have to expand the EFSF and allow it to issue jointly guaranteed â€œEurobondsâ€.
It is not a pleasant option. But the alternative could be the end of the euro.
The Economist print editorial, July 14th 2011

Short-term help may have to come from the ECB buying Italian bonds (difficult politically because the next head of the ECB will be Mario Draghi, the boss of Italy´ss central bank). Soon though the euro zone may well have to expand the EFSF and allow it to issue jointly guaranteed â€œEurobondsâ€.

That is a huge political leapâ€”especially for Mrs Merkel. Germany is firmly opposed to any solution that could imply open-ended transfers to feckless southerners; so are several other northern European countries, not least because guaranteeing others may raise their own borrowing costs.

For Euro Zone, It's Euro Bonds or Else
Markets in Europe are being hit hard by fears that the debt crisis will spread to Italy,
which is regarded as too big to rescue. German media commentators say the time has come to
stop the piecemeal bailout efforts and to make the member states share liability for their debt
- via euro bonds
Der Spiegel 12 Juli 2011

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:
"The next approaching crisis -- in Italy this time -- shows that the euro states' rescue strategy isn't working. In fact, it shows that one can't even call it a strategy, strictly speaking. Buying time, whatever the cost -- not much more than that has happened in the one-and-a-half years since the Greek crisis erupted."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:
"The case of Italy will show whether Europe is truly prepared to defend the euro. It's not enough to call for a few austerity packages or an increase in the rescue fund to â‚¬1.5 trillion. If the pressure on the country increases, Europe will have to break what has until now been a taboo: to pool the organization of borrowing and debt -- in a fiscal union with euro bonds. Alternatively, the EU must solve the problem on its periphery so fast, sustainably and decisively that the attacks on its core will cease."

EU genomför fördragsändring i smyg
- Räddningsfonden (European Stability Mechanism, ESM) kräver en mindre ändring av EU:s fördrag.
Toppmötet i midsommarhelgen noterar att den fördragsändringen nu är färdig. Det skrev Mats Hallgren i SvD Näringsliv
Rolf Englund blog 30 juni 2011

Those who argue that â€œpolitical unionâ€ is the solution to the current crisis seem to believe that Europe´ss problem is institutional.
The real problem is political and cultural.
There is not a strong enough common political identity in Europe to support the single currency.
That is why German, Dutch and Finnish voters are revolting against the idea of bailing out Greece again â€“ while Greeks riot against what they see as a new colonialism imposed from Brussels and Frankfurt.
Gideon Rachman, 20 June 2011

A list of the main creditors to Greece is now topped by the European Central Bank, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), and the IMF. Especially in the case of the ECB, what were initially termed liquidity support operations have rapidly turned into semi-permanent transfers of resources from one economy to another.

Nouriel Roubini has called this â€œfiscal union by stealthâ€.
Perhaps it is politically more feasible than a more open approach, because it is not sufficiently understood by the public,
Gavyn Davies, FT blog June 19, 2011

Ingredients of a European political union
The European Council will probably step back from the brink at its meeting on June 23-24, agreeing a new loan for Greece.
The alternative is a messy, disorderly Greek default in July.
And then they will have to do it again for Ireland, and for Portugal.
By 2014, the vast majority of Greek, Irish and Portuguese debt will be guaranteed by the other member states. What then?
Wolfgang Münchau, FT, June 5 2011

Genom finanskrisen håller EU på att få den förstärkta ekonomiska samordning som politikerna avvisade vid toppmötet i Maastricht för tjugo år sedan.
Dagens generation politiska ledare kan tvingas ta sådana steg â€“ för att rädda den gemensamma valutan.
Den förstärkta politiska sammanhållningen kan komma bakvägen, trots att ingen verkar vilja ha den.
Rolf Gustavsson, SvD 5 juni 2011

Exorcising Lehman Ghost
Hours before Moody´ss raised Greece´ss default risk to 50 percent
the ECB president gazed at the symbol of unity used by the Holy Roman Empire´ss founder and 30 of his successors.
The next day, Trichet called for â€œhistorical perspectiveâ€ when addressing the turmoil afflicting Europe´ss common currency.
Bloomberg 8 July 2011

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel flirts with solutions to the Greek crisis that rating companies say would amount to a default, Trichet says leaders can´st repeat the mistakes made by U.S. officials when they let Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. fail.
â€œNo credit event, no selective default, no default,â€ he said at a press conference in Frankfurt yesterday.

Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor, BBC, om Trichet:
In his vision, the crisis in the eurozone is an opportunity for a great leap forward towards ever closer union
Rolf Englund blog 3 juni 2011

He also favors giving the European Union powers to veto the budget measures of countries
Trichet said governments should consider setting up a finance ministry for the 17-nation euro region
â€œWould it be too bold, in the economic field, with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?â€
Trichet said in a speech today in Aachen, Germany.
Bloomberg 2 june 2011

He also favors giving the European Union powers to veto the budget measures of countries that go â€œharmfully astray,â€ though that would require a change to EU Treaties.

He said today that while any single finance ministry would â€œnot necessarilyâ€ administer â€œa large federal budget,â€ it would â€œexert direct responsibilities in at least three domains.â€

These would include â€œfirst, the surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policiesâ€ and â€œdirect responsibilitiesâ€ for countries in fiscal distress, he said.

It would also carry out â€œall the typical responsibilities of the executive branches as regards the union´ss integrated financial sector, so as to accompany the full integration of financial services, and third, the representation of the union confederation in international financial institutions.â€

Makten i Europa
Presentation av Demokratirådets rapport SNS 2011
Göran Persson och Birgitta Ohlsson kommenterar
SNS Tisdagen den 31 maj klockan 09.00-12.00. Jakobsbergsgatan 18

Ursprungligen fanns ett fåtal politikområden där EU hade inflytande â€“ idag är nästan alla områden föremål för någon form av lagstiftning eller samordning inom unionen. Penning-, asyl- och försvarspolitik är exempel på kompetens som lagts till listan av EU:s traditionella frågor som som handel och jordbruk.

Den europeiska byråkrati som Menasse imponeras av och som Enzensberger gisslar i EU-kommissionen har under senare år blivit allt mer förvaltande och allt mindre av den pådrivande motor som hyllas i retoriken.
Detta försvårar lösningen på den problematik som både Menasse och Enzensberger brottas med, nämligen den europeiska demokratiska kontrollen.
Rolf Gustavsson, SvD 21 maj 2011

Den tyske författaren Hans Magnus Enzensberger i en essä om Bryssel som ett mjukt monster som omyndiggör Europa i den postdemokratiska tidsåldern. Enzensberger är inte imponerad. Han är förskräckt över kommissionen som en bastard. Framdelen som ett lejon, bakdelen som en orm och mittpartiet som en get.

I det tysta fortsätter den europeiska integrationen.
Och under det senaste året har det gått fort. För närvarande slutförhandlas ett helt paket av lagar och andra bestämmelser
som sammantaget liknar ett skelett för gemensam ekonomisk politik i EU.
Allt ska vara klappat och klart i juni.
Samtidigt som den europeiska populismen går framåt tas det alltså ett par ordentliga kliv framåt på väg mot en politiskt alltmer sammansvetsad union.
Gapet mellan retoriken och det som sker i verkligheten vidgas â€“ vilket utgör ett växande problem.
DN-ledare 9 maj 2011

Europe´ss political elites are afraid to tell a truth that economic historians have known forever: that a monetary union without a political union is simply not viable. This is not a debt crisis. This is a political crisis.
The eurozone will soon face the choice between an unimaginable step forward to political union or an equally unimaginable step back.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, May 8 2011

Sources with information about the government's actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that
Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone
Der Spiegel Onlina 6/5 2011

Martin Wolf argues that the eurozone faces a choice between permanent pro-cyclical adjustments, a break-up; or closer union
FT 3/5 2011

The answer to this question is illuminating: membership of a currency union makes a country fiscally fragile. This is inherent in the construction: members are neither sovereign states nor components of a federation.
The big challenge for the eurozone is to resolve this contradiction.

The eurozone is inherently fragile. Moreover, because of the financial connections inside the union, the fragility of one is the fragility of all. What can the eurozone do about this? I see three alternatives: accept fragility; become more homogeneous; or move towards a far closer union.

The eurozone must move forward, or go backwards. I assume it will choose the first option. But that is a political choice.

Either people and politicians believe they share a common destiny, or they do not.

Martin Wolf sätter EMU och folkstyret på sin spets - Skall vi uppge vår suveränitet och bli likt provinser i det forna romar-riket.
Rolf Englund blog 4/5 2011

Auftritt der Anti-Euro-Krieger
Finnlands RechtsauÃŸen Timo Soini hat mit seinen "Wahren Finnen" 19 Prozent geholt und drängt in die Regierung.
Der Erfolg ist kein Zufall, überall zwischen Nordkap und Palermo sind Scharfmacher auf dem Vormarsch.
Ihr Feindbild: der Euro, die EU, der Islam.
Der Spiegel, 18/4 2011

In a front page editorial with the title â€žWarning shot from the North-Eastâ€œ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung´ss Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger warns against stigmatizing the True Finns as populist rightists.
â€œWhoever tries to put those parties which capitalize from this disgruntlement in the same corner as demagogues should remember that even the federal government (of Germany) said until recently that
the interdiction to bail out other countries was nonnegotiable.â€
Eurointelligence 19/4 2011

Peter Ehrlich, in FT Deutschland, sees the rise of a European Tea Party, as the establishment has completely decoupled from ordinary citizens.
There is a sense now that what started as a financial crisis is now turning into a political crisis.
Eurointelligence 19/4 2011

"This scenario posits that sooner or later, the cement that has held European countries together for decades cracks and the progression towards ever-closer union comes to a spectacular halt,"

The risk is roughly one in seven that Europe's ongoing debt crisis will push member nations to abandon the shared currency,
raising the spectre of the "effective end of the euro area,"
The Economist Intelligence Unit has warned
Daily Telegraph 4 Apr 2011

SPIEGEL Interview with Ex-ECB Chief Economist Issing
Issing: Before the euro was introduced, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl said: The monetary union will not function without a political union.
But a political union of Europe doesn't exist, and it won't happen in the foreseeable future.
That's why we need mechanisms that force the member states to pursue solid financial policies. These mechanisms are missing, and even the most recent decisions reached in Brussels can do little to change this.
Otmar Issing, Der Spiegel 23/3 2011

The Fundamental Problem with Efforts to Save the Euro
European politicians are still pursuing a path to integration that citizens have long since abandoned.
For former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the idea of "maintaining an economic and monetary union in the long term without a political union" was an "absurd notion."
Michael Sauga, Der Spiegel 03/30/2011

Whenever something goes wrong in the gears of the community, European politicians call for more integration. They see the crisis as an opportunity and, in doing so, are adhering to the traditional Brussels motto that Europe functions like a bicycle: if it doesn't move forward, it falls over.

/Men varje 5-åring vet ju att det är mycket lätt att få stopp på cykeln utan att ramla. Man bromsar och sätter ner foten. Likadant är det med EU. Man skall bromsa och sätta ned foten. Rolf Englund i Nya Wermlands-Tidningen 2002-03-01/

Udo Di Fabio, a judge on Germany's Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, speaks of "conceptual limits that can in fact only be exceeded by taking a spirited step in the direction of the federal state."

As a result, the center of power in Brussels is distancing itself from the needs and perceptions of its base.

European politicians are still pursuing a path to integration that citizens have long since abandoned.

Last week, the political developments in Germany shifted dramatically in the wrong direction.
The Bundesbank, the parliament, the small business community and influential academics have all come out openly against an extension of the various support mechanisms.
German society as a whole is in open revolt against the eurozone.
The only reason to accept such a loss of sovereignty would be the prize of an ever closer economic union.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT, February 27 2011

Dangers lurk in Franco-German plans for a more tightly integrated euro zone
The Economist print Feb 10th 2011

On the face of it, the pact is about bolstering the economic bit of Europe´ss economic and monetary union (see Charlemagne).

But the pact does little to resolve the euro´ss current sovereign-debt crisis.
First Greece and then Ireland have been bailed out. Portugal may be next. Yet though this may buy time, it fails to recognise that Greece and maybe the other two as well are insolvent (see article).

The pact also includes ideas that are not just unhelpful, but also damaging. One is to impose constitutional amendments to enforce balanced budgets, which are too rigid in a system without a big federal budget.

This should also worry EU countries outside the euro, including Britain, Poland and Sweden.

/Datalagrings/direktivet, som har baxats fram av medlemsländernas regeringar och röstats igenom
i Europaparlamentet (där svenska väljare utser 18 ledamöter av 736), kan formellt inte stoppas av våra folkvalda.
Paulina Neuding,chefredaktör för magasinet Neo, kolumn SvD ledarsida 26/3 2011

Den svenska riksdagen har alltså ingen rätt att avslå EU-direktiv, varken med hänvisning till svensk grundlag, Europakonventionen, eller mänskliga rättigheter i största allmänhet. Att riksdagen röstade nej till datalagringsdirektivet räknas som ett brott mot EU:s fördrag och innebär att vi blir skyldiga att betala en straffavgift.

Ronald Reagans ofta citerade â€Det är staten som är problemetâ€, har alldeles särskilt kommit att gälla bygget av en europeisk superstat.
Att borgerligheten drev på för ett medlemskap för fredens, demokratins och frihandelns skull är inte skäl att okritiskt älska en politisk koloss som i allt större utsträckning ägnar sig åt annat.
Paulina Neuding chefredaktör för Neo, SvD 19/12 2010

The tragedy of the Euromess is that the creation of the euro was supposed to be the finest moment in a grand and noble undertaking: the generations-long effort to bring peace, democracy and shared prosperity to a once and frequently war-torn continent.
But the architects of the euro, caught up in their project´ss sweep and romance, chose to ignore the mundane difficulties a shared currency would predictably encounter
Instead, they engaged in magical thinking, acting as if the nobility of their mission transcended such concerns.
Paul Krugman, New York Times, January 12, 2011

When the single European currency was first proposed, an obvious question was whether it would work as well as the dollar does here in America. And the answer, clearly, was no â€” for exactly the reasons the Ireland-Nevada comparison illustrates. Europe isn´st fiscally integrated: German taxpayers don´st automatically pick up part of the tab for Greek pensions or Irish bank bailouts. And while Europeans have the legal right to move freely in search of jobs, in practice imperfect cultural integration â€” above all, the lack of a common language â€” makes workers less geographically mobile than their American counterparts.

America, we know, has a currency union that works, and we know why it works: because it coincides with a nation â€” a nation with a big central government, a common language and a shared culture. Europe has none of these things, which from the beginning made the prospects of a single currency dubious.

These observations aren´st new: everything I´sve just said was well known by 1992, when the Maastricht Treaty set the euro project in motion. So why did the project proceed? Because the idea of the euro had gripped the imagination of European elites. Except in Britain, where Gordon Brown persuaded Tony Blair not to join, political leaders throughout Europe were caught up in the romance of the project, to such an extent that anyone who expressed skepticism was considered outside the mainstream.

A failed euro wouldn´st send Europe back to the days of minefields and barbed wire â€” but it would represent a possibly irreversible blow to hopes of true European federation.

Move forward decisively on the path toward â€œfederalizationâ€ of economic and fiscal policies.
In my view, this is the right course
The European Council should lead this effort toward federalization and a single global voice,
including proposing the requisite changes in the European treaties,
even when it may be expected that some countries of the Union may not wish to join this development.
Felipe GonzÃ¡lez New York Times 7/1 2011

The financial crisis has exposed the crisis of governance at the heart of the European project.

Logically, this federalization should be completed with a common foreign and security policy, for which the current treaty provides sufficient authority.

I am convinced that sharing sovereignty through a federal structure is not objectionable to most Europeans.

Felipe GonzÃ¡lez is a former prime minister of Spain and a founding member of the 21st Century Council sponsored by the Nicolas Berggruen Institute.

Mr Issing said proposals that Emu should be expanded into a â€œtransfer unionâ€ â€“ the transfer of funds from Germany and other financially strong states to weaker, highly indebted states â€“ were wrong.
â€œThis would wholly change Emu´ss character,â€ he said.
FT 11/1 2011

He observed that some European politicians were advocating a bold leap towards political union as a solution to the crisis, but said: â€œI can only warn against the objective of trying to create political union through the back door of the common currency.

It´ss simply stunning that this revolution in the European political system is about to take place under the guise of a â€œlimited treaty changeâ€
that European officials say will not require the votes of member states. It´ss hard to believe that anyone truly thinks this is minor;
more likely the EU officials are just frightened that the peoples of Europe will not accept the new regime. Better to impose it before the people can oppose it.
John Carney, Senior Editor, CNBC.com, 20 Dec 2010

How can Germany or France agree lightly to plans that amount to
an EU debt union, with a common treasury, tax system, and budget policy,
the stuff of civil wars and revolutions over the ages?
To do so is to dismantle the ancient nation states of Europe in all but name.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 12 Dec 2010

The flaw was this: productive activity always tends to migrate to centres of economic success and prosperity.
Martin Jacomb, FT December 19 2010

A step closer to Eurobond-age
Rolf Englund, Financial Times, Letters to the editor, December 9 2010

Sir, European sovereign bonds, called E-bonds, would end the crisis, according to Jean-Claude Juncker and Giulio Tremonti (Comment, December 6). In fact it would be a step, hard to reverse, on the road to something that many would call a fiscal union federal superstate. There we would end up in a state of European bondage.

Google translates bondage to a Swedish word that in English is "serfdom" (livegenskap).

So maybe we are on The Road to Serfdom, after all.

The political foundations for union were never laid. Governments kept building higher and higher regardless.
History and ordinary prudence dictated that the union might be broad and shallow (a free-trade area)
or else narrow and deep (an evolving political union, confined to countries willing to be led there.

Den ekonomiska politiken i EU måste utvecklas och det kan bara ske gradvis.
Den nationella budgeten är ett slags kärna i alla medlemsstaters självbestämmande och demokrati.
DN-ledare 26/9 2010

Sven-Otto Littorin oroade sig för tecken på ökad federalism inom EU
SvD-ledare 12/3 2003

Av idÃ©n om ett politiskt och ekonomiskt alltmer sammansvetsat Europa har blivit
idÃ©n om ett alltmer utvidgat Europa, vilket inte nödvändigtvis är samma idÃ©
även om båda idÃ©erna för närvarande samsas under namnet EU
Göran Rosenberg, kolumn DN 24 augusti 2010

Det gigantiska krispaketet och EU-kommissionär Olli Rehns kommande förslag om skärpt budgetkontroll innebär att det tas ytterligare några ordentliga kliv på väg mot den â€allt fastare sammanslutning mellan de europeiska folkenâ€, som det så vackert heter i EU:s fördrag ända från Rom (1957) till Lissabon (2009).
Annika Ström Melin DN Signerat 2010-05-11

Taking on the 'wolf pack'
President Van Rompuy said:
"We can't have a monetary union at the end without some form of economic and political union,
and that is our big task for the coming weeks and the coming months."
BBC 10 maj 2010
Full text

It is worth being specific about what much deeper political union would mean.
Charlemagnes notebook, The Econmist Dec 28th 2009

There can be no more pretence that monetary union respects the premise
on which it was sold to European citizens, Germans in particular.
Financial Times editorial May 10 2010 20:41

There is a real chance that a euro member´ss failure to pay its debts will land neighbours or the ECB with losses that can only amount to fiscal transfers or money-printing. Strict surveillance and ECB independence was meant to make it impossible to end up in this situation; both have been undermined.

Inte heller Fredrik Reinfeldt tycker om den franska formuleringen, men han kan köpa bättre kontroll och koordinering, så länge det inte innebär att EU:s fördrag måste skrivas om.

- Det är bara bra om vi använder de ordningsvakter som finns i det europeiska systemet, säger han

Om alla 27 EU-länderna ställer sig bakom, kommer Herman Van Rompuy att få i uppdrag att leda en grupp som till slutet av året ska föreslå åtgärder för att budgetdisciplinen ska förbättras.

The accord masks a bitter struggle between Germany and a French-led bloc over the future shape of Europe.
For all the rhetoric, Berlin has refused to cross the Rubicon towards an EU fiscal union, shattering long-held assumptions about the inevitable march of the EU project.
By bringing in the IMF, it ensures that each sovereign state remains responsible for its own debts.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 25 March 2010

Diskussionen om Grekland handlar inte bara om pengar, utan ytterst om fördjupat samarbete.
Euroländerna har i dag gemensam valuta, gemensam penningpolitik och gemensam centralbank. Men varje land sköter själv sina statsfinanser och sin ekonomiska politik. Greklands kris visar på riskerna med det
Men om euroländerna ska ge stöd åt den medlem som råkat i knipa kommer det oundvikligen att följas av krav på inflytande över medlemsländernas ekonomiska politik och budgetar.
Henrik Brors, DN 25/3 2010

Kommer krisen i Grekland att leda till slutet för valutasamarbetet i EU?
Nej, det mesta pekar för närvarande åt rakt motsatt håll.
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat DN 2010-05-04

Många euromoståndare i Sverige varnade för den politiska union som Issing förespråkade.
Statsminister Göran Perssons utdragna eurovånda handlade också om valutunionens konstruktion.
Går det att ha gemensam valuta utan att också ha gemensam ekonomisk politik?
Den frågan vände och vred Persson på under flera års tid.
Det borde vid det här laget vara klart att svaret är nej.
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat DN 2010-02-17

Europe stumbles upon closer union
The giant currency union has bound 16 European Union states into a monetary bloc. The member countries, however, remain sovereign states with control over their own taxes and spending.
If it organises a rescue of Greece, the EU will cross a political Rubicon, heading towards a more complete union.
Financial Times editorial, February 12 2010

But even for advocates of closer integration in Europe, this is a mistake. The EU suffers from a lack of popular legitimacy. The manner in which the Lisbon treaty was passed was unedifying, giving the impression that the EU is a stitch-up by a small elite.
If Europe, or just the Eurozone, is to become more deeply joined, it should be a deliberate and honest process, not an accidental and covert one.

Fervent federalists (and a few Eurosceptics) have rushed to claim that the euro´ss long-term survival requires a United States of Europe, with a big central budget.
A United States of Europe is not going to happen, because neither EU governments nor voters want it.
The bigger failing is that several (mostly Mediterranean) members have suffered a huge loss of competitiveness against Germany and other northern countries.
The Economist Sept 23rd 2010

Retain the possibility of sovereign default, and work out an orderly procedure for restructuring a euro member´ss debts if they become insupportable
â€”as may still happen for Greece or even Ireland.
If a euro-zone member can default, the chances are good that investors will impose tougher discipline on any country with excessive debts.

Too many governments believed that, once in the euro, they could worry less about competitiveness. Actually, they should have worried more, because they have lost for ever the let-out of devaluation.

Sceptical commentators in places such as America and Britain have long underestimated the political will within the euro zone to defend the single currency, which was always as much a political as an economic project.
Both Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel said at the Brussels summit that the current economic crisis had generated support across the EU for much closer co-ordination of economic policies within the union. Both talked about moving towards an â€œeconomic governmentâ€ for Europe.
Charlemagne, The Economist Feb 11th 2010

I dag väntas Sverige fällas i EU:s domstol för att regeringen ännu inte infört EU:s så kallade datalagringsdirektiv i svensk lag.
Ekot 4 februari 2010

EU-direktivet ålägger teleoperatörerna att lagra uppgifter om e-posttrafik och telefonsamtal, alltså vem vi ringer och vem vi e-postar till.

It is worth being specific about what much deeper political union would mean.
Those proposing a political federation of 27 EU member countries basically mean a union with much more majority voting, ie a union in which countries can be outnumbered and voted down even on issues that touch on the core political and social contracts between authorities and citizens: issues from taxation to foreign policy.
That is the meaning of all those commentaries from supporters of deeper European integration blaming Copenhagen on the catastrophe of inter-governmental negotiations, in which all countries have a veto.
Charlemagnes notebook, The Econmist Dec 28th 2009

I think there are big problems of democratic legitimacy to be thought through here. Ask pro-integrationists about Europe's lack of connection with voters, and their response is more Europe: pan-European political parties, pan-European publicly funded media, pan-European referendums on new treaties (ideally that are binding if a majority of all EU voters say yes) and candidates standing for pan-European constituencies in the European Parliament. This is a long argument for another day, but I just do not believe you can legislate a European demos into existence.

Logiken i det hela rör sig i federativ riktning... Sch! säger Kohl åt mig när jag tar upp det.
Göran Persson

Rösta inte på partierna som lägger sig platt
Vi måste förhindra att EU-författningen kuppas igenom
Rolf Englund, Barometern 31/3 2004

I can think of only two reasons, why the loss of Lisbon should excite such anger and determination.
First, it doesn´st matter what the treaty does. It is just unacceptable for one small country to thwart the will of the political leaderships of the big countries.
The second reason could be that the treaty is crucial because it is the next stage in the drive for political union, which began with the Single European Act and continued with Maastricht and the creation of the Euro. Lisbon, in itself, is a disappointingly small step towards political union.
But - if it is stopped - the whole process is stopped. And that is unacceptable.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times June 24, 2008

At Tuesday's press conference in Strasbourg, the Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was asked what the European Union would be after the new reform treaty has been negotiated and agreed.
His answer: Europe is an empire, a non-imperial one, must be said.
But still, an empire.
EUX.TV 10/7 2007

If you want to understand what is happening to the European Union´ss constitution, the EU flag is a good place to start.
European leaders will agree to delete references to the flag in the constitution.
Everybody knows the flags will keep flying.
The words in the constitution will change.
But the substance will remain the same.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times June 12 2007

The European Project has been about building a European super-state - Ruth Lea
Europe's ``ever closer union'' is turning into an ever more divided one - Bloomberg
Det är målsättningen om "ever closer union" som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU - Rolf Englund

From the Treaty of Paris (1951), which set up the European Coal and Steel Community, and the Treaty of Rome (March 1957), which set up the European Economic Community, to the Constitutional Treaty (signed in 2004), the EU has been working towards the "ever closer union of the peoples of Europe".
The European Project, from the very start, has been about building a European super-state â€“ though cleverly masked as an economic exercise.
A looser and more open Europe is surely the way forward for the 21st century.
Ruth Lea, Daily Telegraph 20/11 2006

Ruth Lea is the director of the Centre for Policy Studies and a non-executive of Arbuthnot Banking Group

There are real public concerns about the scope and pace of enlargement. Moreover, these concerns are likely to be intensified with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, both very poor countries, in January 2007.

Under the current Treaty of Nice, the EU cannot have more than 27 members. The maximum figure will be reached /have been reached/ with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria.

In February 2005, French President Chirac inserted a clause into the French Constitution, subjecting every new candidate for EU membership to a referendum of the French electorate. The implication is that any enlargement beyond the current EU plus Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia (whose entry negotiations were in the pipeline before the amendment was pushed through) can be rejected by the French electorate.

Apart from Croatia, the other candidate countries comprise the Republic of Macedonia and, most controversially of all, Turkey. Potential candidate countries are the West Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.

The solution to both these challenges is to replace the monolithic 20th century EU model with a new 21st century "Ã la carte Europe", where individual states can negotiate different relationships with the EU, deciding which is the most appropriate.

There are many possible catalysts for this desirable, arguably necessary, change. I suggest two.

The first is if the UK were to open negotiations for a changed relationship with the EU to one basically of free trade, opting out of political union and thus ceasing to be a member of the EU as currently structured.

The second would be the formal recognition that some candidate countries, notably Turkey, cannot be full members of the present monolithic EU.

What was meant to be Europe's ``ever closer union'' is turning into an ever more divided one.
As the European Union marks its 50th birthday this week, it faces a growing backlash against the federal visions of its post-World War II founders, who gave Europe a common market, a currency, a flag and an anthem.
March 19, 2007 (Bloomberg)

The high point of European unity was in 1991, when European leaders met in Maastricht, the Netherlands, to sketch the road map to a single currency.
The federalists, though, haven't given up. They are pinning their hopes on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first stint in the bloc's six-month rotating presidency, to salvage at least part of the constitution, which 18 countries have ratified. A few want to go even further: Belgium's prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, is calling for a United States of Europe with its own taxes and army. Merkel's first step, at the March 25 festivities, is to win a consensus for a declaration on the EU's future.

The Germans have already made one concession, jettisoning the word ``constitution.''
The new, less provocative term: ``institutional settlement.''

Det folken har sagt nej till är, efter vad jag förstår, att EU skall utvecklas till en stat.

Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund - "ever closer union" som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU.

Man måste vara blind om man inte ser att EU skaffar sig statens alla institutioner och symboler, flagga, mynt, president, parlament, domstol, försvar - och - som man nu försökte - en grundlag.

Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen.

Angela Merkel:
“The new treaty will not include state-like nomenclature or symbols,”
“Many of our partners feel these stand for the European superstate.

References to the EU’s blue flag with gold stars, its anthem – Beethoven’s Ode to Joy – and its motto, “United in diversity”, would be axed from the text, although all those symbols would remain in practice.

A provision stipulating the “primacy of EU law” is also expected to be excluded on the basis that it is already a fact that European law takes precedence over national law.

But the biggest innovations contained in the constitution will be retained – including a new EU president, foreign minister, slimmed-down Commission and an extension of qualified majority voting.

Barometern-OT må ha varit mycket skeptisk till tanken att med politiska beslut skapa en gemensam europeisk valuta â€“ euron.
Men på det rent politiska planet ser tidningen en europeisk federalism som den framtid som ger störst frihet och möjligheter för Europas medborgare.
Replik på Rolf Englund
Barometern 8/6 2005

nejtillemu.com

"ever closer union"