Via Translation from the Italian website L’Anti Diplomatico, former EU Commissioner and and signatory of the Manifesto of European solidarity, Frits Bolkestein proclaims the “Monetary Union has Failed“.
In his conference “Europe Without €” held in Rome on Saturday 12 April, Fred Bolkestein, a former commissioner of the European Union and signatory of the Manifesto of European solidarity quotes former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in his address to the European Parliament in 1991:
“EU policy is the essential counterpart to monetary union.” The political union had to precede the formation of the single currency and a real central bank.
The opposite happened. Maastricht policies to create a monetary union have not had an effect integral politics, but the opposite effect as we see today.
Economic cultures are different and there is no solidarity. The French view is that imbalances of payments and budgets should be adjusted and jointly funded by the surplus countries to finance the deficit countries. It is a vision not sustainable in the long run.
According to Bolkestein, Eurobonds will only dilute the responsibility and “veil” problems. The Germans, moreover, do not want transfers and Eurobonds. Moreover, as history teaches, transfers from rich regions to poor regions do not work.
Monetary union has failed, concludes Bolkestein, and the countries in deficit situation can not solve their problems by themselves. Indeed, this is an additional cause of suffering. Alternatives do not exist and “we have to think about a second step: the exit from the euro.”
That the monetary union has failed is certainly not news to Mish readers. But it is both new and news for a former commissioner of the European Union to recognize that simple statement of fact and give a “Europe Without €“conference on it.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
