by
Ramin Mazaheri
Part
5 - Can we combine the Eurogroup with a parliament? Not in real
life….
What is
clear is that the Eurogroup operates with even more power than the US
Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan because there is absolutely
zero citizen accountability. Right now, the Troika steers the 19
national budgets the way they want, with Germany their public
Rottweiler.
But now you
say that you want Eurogroup citizen accountability? You mean,
regarding the crucial questions of national budgets and are they in
line with the rules/sound economic thinking?
Ok then, a
“leviathan” in Varoufakis’ words (or perhaps just a “Eurozone
Finance Minister”), must be created to accept or reject the 19
national budgets. But you can’t just have an executive branch –
you need a legislative branch as well. What is this, a state of
emergency, where laws get made by decree and cops are the judges? Of
course that’s unacceptable in the freedom-loving West, don’t be
fatuous….
So there are
3 minimum conditions for this Eurozone Parliament:
1) The
Eurozone Parliament can hire or fire the new “Eurozone Finance
Minister”. 2) It must approve the final contents of every national
budget. 3) The Parliament’s powers are clearly defined by a
Eurozone Constitution.
This would
move the Eurogroup from the current cabal system to 18th century
bourgeois democracy; from the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment, but
well short of the Industrial, Socialist and Digital Revolutions.
Regardless
of how ultimately reactionary such an “improvement” would be,
Varoufakis acknowledges that all of this speculation is a political
impossibility:
“It is
crystal clear that at least two of these conditions will not be met.
Neither the German government nor the Parisian elites would
countenance allowing the euro chamber to hire or fire the leviathan.
Nor would they dare embark upon the writing of a euro constitution.”
This means
it would take a true revolution in ideology and practice to even get
these paltry bourgeois powers added to the Eurozone. And why would
The People make a true revolution…and then be content with
something so pathetically inadequate and unmodern?
In keeping
with a historical theme I elaborated in the previous article of this
7-part series, France’s historic effort for an anti-austerity
Eurozone, France in 2017 remains far more progressive than their
slightly-more dominant neighbor to the east: Macron wants a finance
minister, parliament and budget for the Eurozone…but he’s not
going to get it. Merkel has only expressed tepid proposal for a
Eurozone Budget Minister, and two things appear likely: he or she
will be German, and Germany will insist that the post holds much less
power than the other 18 Eurozone members would prefer. After all, why
would Germany want to change the status quo? As that article
discussed, Germany has been a rabidly anti-communist, pro-American,
economically-imperialist country ever since the US decided shortly
after WWII that West Germany was to be reindustrialized in order to
become their main client state in Europe.
What does
have a lot of support from France and Germany is a “European
Monetary Fund”, which would simply codify the current bailout fund.
Democracy
can wait, but safeguarding bank bailouts cannot, LOL….
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