The blog reawakens, briefly at least.
I have been awake all the time. As I am now in receipt of pension rights from at least four countries (Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland), my financial situation is not so grim as it was, but is not exactly robust either. Survival without fear of eviction though is now possible.
I have been awake throughout the period to events and the like, but generally the overall picture hadn't changed much and when you think that you have said it all ....
You know, like the neighbour who is always moaning, you switch off.
So anyway if I had been asleep last week, what happened (almost inevitably) in the European Parliament elections should have woken me up. As it is, it just led to a violent series of head shaking, comments along the line of "taking aim at the wrong target", and speeding up of my long-term plans to take out German nationality, if only to protect my own interests (as limited as the latter might be).
To be said, the European Parliament seems to be a pretty powerless organisation with all the bite of a toothless pussy cat (how many people know exactly what it does? Apart from being an expensive talking shop for many of Europe's loony fringe?).
Anyway if you live in Germany, better still if you are a politician in Germany, you may not know that there is much to worry about out there. You have an election several months after the national parliament elections, you get pretty much the same result.
The anti-EU AfD (the German equivalent of the UKIP/EXP) have been complaining ever since they first emerged that Germany was wasting tons of money bailing out Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and the like (note how many different politicians in Europe had it in for Romania last week - the new European whipping boys? More on them later). And Germany should get back to being Germany and stop worrying about other countries and look after Germany usw.
They increased their vote to 7%. In a meaningless election a protest vote has to come from somewhere. They are economically a clone of the ultra-"free market" FDP without the European commitment. Merkel has dismissed them as simply another neo-Fascist nationalist party (the NPD in pin-stripe suits) and will not deal with them. They have denied that they are owt of the sort (see also the UKIP/EXP). For those taking note of German politics incidentally, after their mediocre performance in the last German national government, the FDP have lost most of their (fleeting) support. Down to a hardcore 3.4% of the vote last week.
Anyway from here everything seems normal, so we can sail along a sea that has one or two eddies, but little turbulence ....
Maybe they didn't notice the near flood conditions elsewhere in Europe. And the tides that accompanied them?
And yesterday was a remarkably good day for those who think that the European Commission is simply a tool of the "new German Empire". There was the snippet that I picked up from a spokesman for the European Commission on a German news bulletin yesterday. Namely that the "Sparkurs" would continue. I cannot, as a translator, find a good translation for the word "Sparkurs" (literally "savings course"), but on www.linguee.de this morning I found the suggestion "Austerity policy". The European Commission (who have plenty of professional translators available) would probably offer an alternative translation, but the phrase rather sums it up.
Most of Europe: we are drowning, help us!
The European Commission: (yawn), huh, what? Never mind, let's go back to sleep.
Some parts of Europe (France, the UK, Hungary - notably): Stuff you, then, We will do without you!
Digression at this point. As you probably know I am decisively pro-EU, decisively pro-Euro. And my opinions on the economic (and worse in some cases) thinking of the UKIP/EXP and Front National are well known. And for those who want to throw the word "independent" around as if it means summat try this - my definition of "independence" requires me to be free of the influence of the gamblers on the "financial markets". Free of people deciding what my little money is worth. Free of the fear of losing your job (and the dignity and self-respect that it involves) if some gamblers lose billions on worthless derivatives (see the "Wizard of Id" cartoons for May 21st and 22nd while we are here).
And free of the robbery involved whenever I cross "a national border" (why should I offer at least of 10% of any money I need there, which I worked hard to earn, and never had much of, as a free gift to already wealthy banks? On the buying and selling principle and "exchange costs"? Taxation (and fraudulent taxation - I have no say in the matter!) essentially. How does that benefit me, and how does it make me independent???? In other words "independence" here is circumstance-specific, it is not generic!
End of digression.
The point here though is that the policies and thinking of the EU need to change. To meet the needs of the people. To provide full employment, to improve living standards. Which does not, Mr Farage and Herr Lucke, mean quitting the EU and giving carte blanche to the international banks and finance houses so that they can gamble us into another 2008. Responsible long-term investment not irresponsible speculation - certainly!
For that we need growth, not austerity. For that we need to stop believing that we are heading down the road to prosperity the way we are going, and come up with policies (similar to those in place in many European countries in the 1950s and 1960s) which will raise living standards and give people hope.
And for the people who love scaremongering about the EU clause which allows freedom of movement of people within the EU (Mme Le Pen principally, but also a substantial number of supporters of the UKIP/EXP) - the stories spreading about millions of immigrants from Romania descending upon Western Europe in the wake of the near-collapse of the Romanian economy are mean-spirited and essentially based, incorrectly, upon hearsay anyway - but they are intentionally being used as a method to garner votes, particularly in constituencies in countries where living standards are already low and unemployment is high - see the British former industrial heartlands if you want examples.
For the record that clause (in previous treaties) was what allowed me, a British national, to move to find better opportunities in the Netherlands and Germany when the North of England was ravaged by the scourge of Thatcherism. It provided me with opportunities which I would not deny anyone else. The problem is not the migration, the problem is the unemployment (and the high levels thereof!).
I asked myself last week why so many European companies (notably from France and the UK, but the Netherlands comes to mind as well) invest in the manufacture of goods in near-slave-labour China. Perhaps if they invested instead in now democratic Romania and Bulgaria, shop shelves would be filled with goods made in Europe, there would be less unemployment in those countries, and less need for emigration.
Just a thought (though in my opinion also the "road to go").
One of the few bits of good news to emerge from Europe in recent months (and the European Parliament elections) has been the emergence of Matteo Renzi as Prime Minister of Italy. He is young, charasmatic, committed, wants to see growth in Europe, wants to see reforms both in Europe and in Italy. He is not on either political extreme, in many ways he is an out-and-out centrist. But he also thinks that the old guard have had their day, need showing the door, and it is (definitely, and I would agree totally!) time for new thinking.
Will he succeed? No idea. But I seriously hope so. And "hope" is the magic word here. Europe is badly in need of it (and not in the form of the phoney laissez-faire market solutions and closing off of all national borders promulgated by the UKIP/EXP and FN!).
Recommended reading - an article on Matteo Renzi (for those of you who can speak German):
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/matteo-renzi-nach-der-europawahl-wir-sehen-deutschland-nicht-als-gegner-sondern-als-vorbild-1.1980897
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