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# The Global Intelligence Files

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## Re: [Eurasia] EU/ECON - Cracks showing in EU on economic issues

Released on 2012-08-24 05:00 GMT

Email-ID | 1672247
Date | 1970-01-01 01:00:00
From | marko.papic@stratfor.com
To | eurasia@stratfor.com, econ@stratfor.com

As with most NYTimes articles it doesn't say anything new and most cogent
things it does say we said 6 months ago.
But I think their mention of the post-1989 generation's blaze attitude
towards the EU project is a really key point. It's true really. Kids from
that generation simply don't understand what it means to have an
inter-continental war and therefore are very unlikely to take risks and
sacrifices to make the EU work. It is also why the EU was never going to
work in the first place...
By the way, anybody mention the last name of the French guy they
interviewed... how fitting.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bayless Parsley" <bayless.parsley@stratfor.com>
To: eurasia@stratfor.com, econ@stratfor.com
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2009 5:59:49 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: [Eurasia] EU/ECON - Cracks showing in EU on economic issues
Economy Shows Cracks in European Union
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/world/europe/09union.html?hp
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: June 8, 2009
BERLIN a** The European Union is an extraordinary experiment in shared
sovereignty, creating a zone of peace that now stretches from Britain to
the Balkans. The union of 27 countries is the worlda**s most formidable
economic bloc, incorporating 491 million people in an integrated market
that produces nearly a third more than the United States.
But the global economic crisis has made it clear that Europe remains less
than the sum of its parts.
The crisis has presented the European Union with its greatest challenge,
but even many committed Europeanists believe that the alliance is failing
the test. European leaders, their focus on domestic politics, disagree
sharply about what to do to combat the slump. They have feuded over how
much to stimulate the economy. They argue about whether the European
Central Bank should worry more about the deep recession or future
inflation. And they have rushed to protect jobs in their home markets at
the expense of those in others.
The latest European parliamentary elections on Sunday drove home the
point. Only 43 percent of Europeans voted a** a record low turnout,
despite the financial crisis and compulsory voting in some countries.
Far-right parties, opposed to the European Union and to immigrants from
poor member countries, recorded gains, as did the Greens. Those who did
vote weighed in largely on national issues.
With American leadership undercut by divisive foreign wars and its
economic model of market freedom and light regulation under great
challenge, Europe matters. The a**European modela** of significant
government involvement in the economy, close supervision of finance,
industry and labor, and generous state-run pensions and health-care, is
being praised in some circles as a freshly viable alternative to
Anglo-American-style capitalism.
But although the subprime mortgage crisis began in the United States,
Europe is arguably suffering more. The International Monetary Fund
estimates that European banks hold more bad assets than American ones and
have written down much less. Budget deficits are rising and unemployment,
especially among the young, is already at its highest in 10 years.
With the response hobbled by a fractious European Union, many economists
now expect the downturn to last longer here than across the Atlantic.
a**We are in a moment of a very severe crisis,a** said Joschka Fischer, a
Green Party politician and former German foreign minister. a**We have a
traumatic lack of leadership; we are caught right in the middle by the
flood.a**
The central tension in the union has always been between national
priorities and collective interests. Ceding national rights and powers a**
over currency, trade, customs duties a** has never been simple, even in
good times. In bad times, like now, national politics trump the common
interest. Leaders move to protect their own industries, workers and voters
at the expense of those elsewhere. Workers still seethe at the sacrifices
they feel they make on behalf of integration.
At the Goodyear Dunlop tire factory in Amiens, in northern France, Thierry
Fagot, 36, is losing the job he has held for 13 years. He sees competition
within the European Union as part of the reason.
a**I feel like I was fooled. I mean, we created Europe to protect us, and
for a long time it worked,a** he said, explaining that Europe provided a
market for the factorya**s tires and safety rules. a**Now, with the
competition of Eastern countries, I feel like Europe created this
situation where wea**re losing our jobs to another E.U. country. How can
this be for the greater good?a**
The European Union is not about to collapse amid such antagonisms. But
some of the continenta**s most devoted advocates are scaling down their
ambitions. Few speak any longer of a Europe that is a significant
political or military counterweight to the United States.
Mr. Fischer, the Green Party politician, is a committed European who
bemoans a**the post-a**89 generationa**sa** impassiveness to the ideals of
a European destiny, and the retreat, under the pressure of the crisis, to
nationalist goals and rhetoric.
a**Crises are always moments of truth because they relentlessly expose
both the strengths and weaknesses of all the players involved,a** said Mr.
Fischer, criticizing in particular the narrow, national vision of the
German government.
He said the European Central Bank, which sets a major borrowing rate for
the 16 nations that use the euro as a common currency, has done well. But
the European Commission, the uniona**s main executive body, a**played a
zero role in the present crisis, and this was a transnational crisis, so
the role of the commission should have been just the opposite.a**
Instead, European leaders are concentrating on passing the long-delayed
Lisbon Treaty, to create a European president and foreign minister and
simplify decision-making. But the treaty has little to say about economic
matters.
The strains are evident in the way countries have worked to bail out their
own banks and rescue national factories of global automobile companies,
when a broader European policy would be more logical. But they are also
visible in the inability to agree on a policy toward Afghanistan or on a
joint energy policy to reduce European dependence on Russian natural gas.
Germany and France together are the traditional motor of the European
Union, but relations between them are cold, with both the French
president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel,
putting national interests first, whether the issue is social benefits or
saving jobs in the faltering car industry.
Divisions are also evident between northern Europe and southern Europe,
with more fiscally responsible countries like Germany only reluctantly
promising to help floundering economies like those of Spain and Greece.
Solidarity, meant to be the great principle of the European Union, is
fraying as well on East-West lines, with the countries that use the euro
reluctant to jeopardize the stability of the currency by rescuing European
Union members outside the so-called eurozone, like Bulgaria and Romania.
Few want to consider what happens to Ukraine, a nonmember, where many
European banks, especially German and Austrian ones, are heavily invested.
And the promise of a Europe a**without bordersa** has been undermined by a
reaction in hard times against immigrants from around the region who are
seen as competing for jobs.
Before the European parliamentary elections, Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel
issued a joint letter. a**We want,a** they wrote, a**a strong Europe that
protects us, we reject a bureaucratic Europe that mechanically applies
nitpicking rules.a**
But they disagree sharply on the role of public spending and the European
Central Bank. Mr. Sarkozy favors more stimulus and giving the central bank
the flexibility to buy bonds or public sector loans to help revive
lending. Ms. Merkel, in contrast, has attacked rising budget deficits and
publicly criticized the central bank for reducing interest rates too much
and risking future inflation.
They agree, however, on protecting jobs in their home markets. While Mr.
Sarkozy has been criticized for providing billions to protect French car
companies, Ms. Merkel, with a national election in September, has just
done an expensive deal for Opel, the European branch of General Motors,
almost entirely based on saving German jobs.
Since the French rejected a European constitution he helped to draft in
2005, said former President ValA(c)ry Giscard da**Estaing of France,
national leaders have dominated those who favor a stronger union.
a**Ita**s retrograde,a** he said in an interview. a**In a short-term
crisis, you may have national intervention to protect people, but ita**s
not a policy, ita**s just a reaction,a** he said, putting the single
market at risk. a**The trend must be to see the European market as a
whole.a**
In Calais, France, the Schaeffler Chain Drive System factory,
German-owned, makes parts for Opel. A third of the workers were laid off a
month ago, including Dany Valcke, 53. He was a foreman, but now, as he
says, a**time is all Ia**ve got,a** and he doubts he will ever find
another factory job.
a**Europe is a good thing, it allows our countries to have a stronger
voice in the world, and it brought peace,a** Mr. Valcke said. a**But
economically, ita**s not so good. Many have lost their jobs to European
countries where the work force is cheaper. They are part of Europe, but if
you want Europe, you cana**t have these two competing systems.a**
The European Union a**didna**t try hard enough to help its people through
the crisis. It probably doesna**t even have the power for this,a** he
said. Then he asked, a bit plaintively: a**Sometimes I wonder what ita**s
for, if not for this? I find the U.S. government response to the crisis
much more appropriate.a**
In Romania, on the other side of the union, the workers are suffering,
too. But they take some comfort in being part of a larger, richer bloc
than their old, Soviet one, and in general blame local leaders for their
problems.
Cristina Lincu, 32, went to find work in Spain in 2001. Now she is back
home, with her husband and baby son. The crisis hit their small Madrid
grocery hard, but it also reduced property prices in Romania, so they came
back and bought land for a house. In a way, she gained from the crisis,
Ms. Lincu said, but she is concerned about her fellow Romanians in Spain.
There, a**the vast majority of immigrant workers were doing low-paid or
not very dignified jobs, but now even Spaniards want those jobs,a** she
said.
As for the European Union, she is grateful. a**Ita**s a wonder they
admitted us in the first place,a** she said, laughing. a**We have such a
big corruption problem here.a**
As for the future, opinions are divided, but few predict that the European
experiment is over. The Lisbon Treaty is expected to pass eventually,
strengthening the uniona**s powers. And todaya**s leaders, however
divided, may learn to grapple with economic challenges collectively, even
as they learned to avoid the military conflicts of an earlier age.
a**It will be tough, wea**ll have setbacks, history will beat us up,
wea**ll have painful years, but I think crisis creates leaders, the right
leaders,a** Mr. Fischer said. a**Ia**m not pessimistic.a**