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On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

## Re: [Eurasia] Fwd: SPIEGEL - An EU Protectorate

Released on 2001-03-13 18:00 GMT

Email-ID | 1769589
Date | 2010-02-10 15:21:12
From | marko.papic@stratfor.com
To | eurasia@stratfor.com

No, it is way too harsh of words used. Greece has to report progress to
Commission every 4 months, standard operating procedure for EU when it
puts oversight over someone. It is oversight, more than control. Greece
can do whatever the fuck it wants, but there are consequences... i.e. the
Commission says Athens is doing poorly and investors collapse Greece.
Peter Zeihan wrote:
according to this article, the EU already has de facto financial control
over greece?
seriously?
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Marko Papic" <marko.papic@stratfor.com>
To: "Econ List" <econ@stratfor.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 3:33:42 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: SPIEGEL - An EU Protectorate
An EU Protectorate
How Brussels Is Trying to Prevent a Collapse of the Euro
By Armin Mahler, Christian Reiermann, Wolfgang Reuter and Hans-Ju:rgen
Schlamp
The problems facing Greece are just the beginning. The countries
belonging to Europe's common currency zone are drifting further and
further apart, and national bankruptcies are a distinct possibility.
Brussels is faced with a number of choices, none of them good.
Men like Wilhelm No:lling, former member of the German Central Bank
Council, and Wilhelm Hankel, an economics professor critical of the
euro, have been out of the spotlight for years. In the 1990s, they
fought against the introduction of the common currency, even calling on
Germany's high court to prevent the creation of the euro zone. But none
of it worked.
Now both men are in demand again, and the old euro critics' beliefs are
more relevant than ever. Were the skeptics right back then, when they
said Europe wasn't ready for the euro zone? Were the differences too
great and the politicians too weak to ensure a strict and stable course?
"The euro should really be called the Icarus," Hankel suggested back
then. He predicted the currency would meet the same end as the hero of
Greek legend, who paid for his dream of flight with his life.
Is the euro's high flight over now too? The news these days is alarming.
It's causing a commotion on financial markets and intense discussion in
capitals across Europe, as well as in Frankfurt, seat of the European
Central Bank (ECB).
Brussels took a hard line with Athens last week. Greece must cut costs
drastically under close European Union supervision, a sacrifice of a
share of its sovereignty. Risk premiums for Greek government bonds have
risen drastically, and the country has to pay higher and higher charges.
The Possibility of State Bankruptcies
Accruing debt is becoming increasingly expensive for other countries in
the euro zone as well, among them Portugal and Spain. The southern
members of the euro zone are especially being eyed with mistrust.
Speculators are betting that bonds will continue to fall and that,
eventually, the countries won't be able to borrow any more money at all.
State bankruptcies are seen as a possibility.
"We've reached a point where it's possible to deal individual countries
a lethal blow by downgrading their credit and boycotting their
government bonds," No:lling warns.
Many are now wondering how the stronger euro-zone countries should react
-- whether it's possible to help the weaker ones without jeopardizing
themselves and the common currency. Furthermore, there is a risk that
euro-zone members will continue to grow apart economically, a trend that
could cause the monetary union to eventually collapse.
Doing nothing is not an option. In light of the national debt in Greece,
Portugal, Spain and Ireland, the euro zone is in danger of transforming
from a "common destiny to a common liability," No:lling says.
And so it won't be any ordinary meeting when finance ministers from the
16-euro zone countries meet for a regularly scheduled get-together in
Brussels next Monday. The European Commission plans to assign each
country homework to be completed in the coming years.
Cohesion and Stability
The Commission doesn't hold Greece solely responsible for the current
euro woes. Experts close to Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner
Joaquin Almunia say nearly every participating country is compromising
the cohesion and stability of the common currency.
"The combination of decreasing competitiveness and excessive
accumulation of national debt is alarming," the experts wrote in a
recent report, adding that if the member countries don't get their
problems under control, it will "jeopardize the cohesion of the monetary
union."
Differing economic development within the euro zone and a lack of
political coordination are to blame, they say. In the more than 10 years
since the euro was introduced, the Commission states, it has become
clear that simply controlling the development of member states' budgets
is not enough. What that means, more concretely, is that the stability
provisions stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty to regulate the common
currency aren't working, and member states need to better coordinate
their financial and economic policy measures.
That is precisely what euro skeptics have said from the beginning --
that a common currency can't work in the long run without a common
economic and financial policy. The member countries' governments ignored
these objections, unready to give up a further aspect of their national
sovereignty.
Now politicians are facing a difficult decision: Should they continue as
they have, thus potentially undermining the euro's ability to function?
Or should they yield a portion of their national sovereignty to
Brussels?
Without common policies, the individual countries drift further and
further apart. Before the euro was introduced, exchange rate adjustments
served to dispel tensions. Now the common currency zone lacks the option
of adapting by revaluing currencies.
Watching with Alarm
EU officials are watching with alarm as the various euro-zone countries'
competitiveness diverges sharply. The differences are especially large
between countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, which are
characterized by current account surpluses, and countries with high
budget deficits. Along with Greece, this second category includes
especially Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
These countries' competitiveness has dropped steadily since the euro was
introduced. They lived on credit for years, seduced by the unusually low
interest rates within the euro zone, and imported far more than they
exported.
When demand collapsed in the wake of the global financial crisis,
governments jumped in to fill the gap, with serious consequences -- debt
skyrocketed. Spain's budget deficit was at 11 percent last year, while
Greece's was nearly 13 percent. Such high debt is simply not sustainable
in the long term.
In the past, the solution for these countries would have been to devalue
their currency, which in turn would make imports more expensive and
exports cheaper. Such a move would stimulate their national economies
and strengthen their competitiveness.
Now, however, these countries must submit to a drastic therapy regime at
the hands of the European Commission. They need to balance their
budgets, while simultaneously creating more competition on the labor and
goods markets.
The directives from Brussels translate into difficult sacrifices for the
citizens of the affected countries. Employees will have to scale back
wage demands for years, and civil servants will see their salaries cut.
Ireland has already embarked on this path; Greece and Spain will follow.
Is Germany to Blame?
The Commission has recommended that Spain, booming until recently,
radically restructure its economy. Spain must significantly shrink its
bloated construction sector and focus on economic sectors with higher
productivity.
France and Italy have been given homework assignments of their own. Both
countries are being asked to apply austerity packages and increase
labor-market flexibility. France must also get its significant welfare
and unemployment expenses under control.
Resentment is growing in the countries most directly affected. But that
frustration is not directed, as might be expected, toward the
Commission. Instead, it is increasingly surplus countries coming under
fire -- with Germany at the forefront.
Representatives from Spain and Portugal especially -- but also from
France -- hold Germany accountable for their current woes. They aren't
alone in that opinion either. "The Greek crisis has German roots," says
Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist at the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in Geneva. It was German wage dumping
that got the country's European neighbors in trouble, he says.
At Its Neighbors' Expense
EU officials don't phrase it quite so strongly, but they still accuse
Germany more than any other country of gaining advantages for itself at
its neighbors' expense, using its policy of low wages to make German
products increasingly attractive relative to those from other countries.
As a precautionary measure, officials at Berlin's Finance Ministry have
gathered arguments that Finance Minister Wolfgang Scha:uble can put
forward in the country's defense. Germany's position is that the
countries now in crisis are themselves at fault for their situation.
They lived beyond their means for years, the German government says,
financing their economic boom on credit. Now the financial crisis has
revealed their weaknesses.
Germany didn't have it easy with the euro in the beginning either,
continues the argument, because the country wasn't competitive compared
to other member countries -- but it regained its strength with a great
deal of trouble and effort, through reforms.
German officials point to the fact that the country made its labor
market more flexible through the Hartz package of welfare reforms and
say that state finances are more stable than before, despite the crisis.
They add that taking this same path would lead the currently troubled
countries out of the crisis. And, they continue, the federal government
is not responsible for lagging wage growth because, in Germany, salaries
and wages are negotiated between employers and unions rather than being
imposed by the government.
The German government also claims no responsibility for the country's
export surplus. German firms are competitive not because of government
policy, it says, but because of entrepreneurial decisions and the
preferences of customers around the world.
Create More Competition
When this debate flared up recently within the euro-zone countries,
Scha:uble received support from the top for his position. The southern
members of the euro zone shouldn't be ungrateful, warned ECB President
Jean-Claude Trichet. After all, he reasons, Germany funded the deficits
with its surpluses. Nonetheless, the Commission called on Germany to
make further changes as well. The country should boost domestic demand,
increase investment in infrastructure and create more competition in the
service sector.
The Commission believes the currency union can exist in the long term
only if member countries' governments implement reforms and coordinate
their economic policies. Scha:uble's experts agree. They are proposing
-- partly with an eye toward mollifying France -- a common German-French
initiative.
Both countries' governments should work toward better coordination, the
German financial experts say. Merely monitoring deficits has turned out
to be inadequate. In the future, they suggest, euro-zone governments
should also focus on combating differing inflation rates and step in
early when capital bubbles develop.
France, no doubt, would gladly accept such a proposal. Paris, after all,
has long called for Europe-wide financial governance. Until now it was
Germany that opposed the idea.
The euro-zone governments have started to rethink their positions, but
will action necessarily follow? The past never lacked in good intentions
either, but political calculation always won out in the end. How else
would Greece have managed to become a member of the common currency
zone? Why else would Brussels stand by for so long without taking
action? It was far from secret that Greece had been cooking its books
for years.
Financial Trickery
Back in the fall of 2004, Eurostat, the EU body in charge of statistics,
calculated that Greece's officially announced debts of between 1.4
percent and 2.0 percent of gross domestic product between 2000 and 2003
were incorrect. In reality, the amount was nearly three times as high,
falling between 3.7 percent and 4.6 percent. The statisticians surmised
that Athens had whitewashed its finances in previous years, too. Greece,
in fact, would never have met the conditions for membership in the
common currency without such trickery.
But the country was not immediately banned from the euro zone, nor were
other sanctions imposed. Instead, member countries discussed how the
statistics could be improved and made more accurate. Not much emerged
from all the talk.
Outgoing European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Gu:nter
Verheugen remembers all too well that, for a long time, the problem with
Greece was simply not something that was talked about. He finds it hard
to believe that this "disproportionate regard" for Greece had nothing to
do with that fact that conservative allies of European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso governed in Athens for five years.
Not until last fall's elections brought Greece's socialist opposition to
power did new data arrive from Athens -- and new questions and
accusations from Brussels.
The Greek parliament and government are now virtually stripped of power.
They're not allowed to decide on any new expenditures without EU
approval. Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou is required to
report every four weeks on progress made in budget restructuring.
An EU Protectorate
Brussels, not Athens, now controls whether and how the austerity program
takes effect. If "detailed and ongoing inspection" shows that the actual
results fall short of those predicted, Almunia says, then Brussels'
watchdogs will demand additional measures. There were even calls at the
European Parliament last week to send a special EU representative with
extensive authority to Greece. The small country has become little more
than an EU protectorate.
The EU Commission and the euro-zone leaders hope these compulsory
measures will steady markets. They also hope Greek unions and
associations, from farmers to taxi drivers, won't mobilize against the
reduction in the country's standard of living that will accompany these
new measures.
German Finance Minister Scha:uble and German Federal Bank President Axel
Weber rule out giving aid to the struggling country. Indeed, EU treaties
strictly forbid any such aid. The message is that Greece must help
itself.
As a precautionary measure, though, both German officials, along with
their colleagues in other EU countries, are keeping open the possibility
of lending a hand anyway. The EU can't afford for a member state to go
bankrupt, either politically or economically.
Out of the Question
The experts always debate the same possibilities. The first would be a
common euro-zone bond, which would be placed at Greece's disposal. The
advantages for Greece are obvious -- the country would receive funds
more cheaply than it currently does because the euro zone as a whole
wouldn't have to pay as high a risk premium as Greece alone does. The
disadvantage is that countries with good credit, like Germany, would
have to pay higher interest rates. Consequently, the German government
insists that such a loan is out of the question.
An alternative would be bilateral financial aid. Solvent countries, such
as Germany, would take out loans on the financial market at good rates
and pass these on to Greece. But euro-zone governments are also
reluctant to take this path.
The last option is the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which could
use its resources to help Greece out of its credit crunch. It would
likely impose much stricter conditions on its aid money than the EU
would. But the IMF's involvement would also mean a loss of face for the
entire euro zone and a triumph for the Washington-based institution,
which was always skeptical of the euro.
If Greece doesn't stabilize in the coming weeks, the euro-zone's leaders
will be left facing a choice between a rock and a hard place, with the
third option being even worse.
Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein
--
Marko Papic
STRATFOR
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
700 Lavaca Street, Suite 900
Austin, TX 78701 - U.S.A
TEL: + 1-512-744-4094
FAX: + 1-512-744-4334
marko.papic@stratfor.com
www.stratfor.com
--
Marko Papic
STRATFOR
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
700 Lavaca Street, Suite 900
Austin, TX 78701 - U.S.A
TEL: + 1-512-744-4094
FAX: + 1-512-744-4334
marko.papic@stratfor.com
www.stratfor.com