The end of Merkel's Europe? - by Richard... Monday, March 05, 2012

The end of Merkel's Europe? - by Richard... Monday, March 05, 2012

One is just a tad surprised by the surprise expressed over Mariano Rajoy's surprise announcement about the Spanish deficit last week. That is because, if one recalls what the prime minister was saying at the end of February, it should not have come as a surprise.

Anyhow, even if the Financial Times was surprised when Rajoy said that Spain was going to breach its budget target for the year, that is nothing to what Ambrose is calling it - no less than a "thunderclap".

But, it seems, it is not only what Rajoy has done, but the way he has done it – or, to be more precise – what he has been saying. Bearing in mind that the "colleagues" had just signed their fabulous new treaty, taking the eurzone closer to fiscal union, up pops Rajoy and says: "Democracy, national sovereignty and dignity of the states and their citizens in a democratic Europe that is said is much more important than the supposed 'fiscal union' of the EU".

This is as close to farting in church as it gets, and what Ambrose finds striking is the wave of support for Mr Rajoy from the Spanish commentariat. One from Pablo Sebastián, he says, left me speechless.

"Spain isn’t any old country that will allow itself to be humiliated by the German Chancellor," he writes – as loosely translated by Ambrose. "The behaviour of the European Commission towards Spain over recent days has been infamous and exceeds their treaty powers … these Eurocrats think they are the owners and masters of Spain".

"Spain", he continues, "and other nations in the EU are sick and tired of Chancellor Merkel's meddling and Germany's usurpation – with the help of Sarkozy's France and their pretended 'executive presidency' that does not in fact exist in EU treaties".

There is then reference to the behaviour of the EU commission to Spain in recent days being "infamous" and "exceeded the powers granted to this institution to the Treaties", and a complaint that the Eurocrats are acting "as if they were owners and lords of the Government of Spain".
Thus does Sebastián say: "Rajoy must not retreat one inch. The stakes are high and the country is in no mood to suffer humiliations from a Chancellor who is amassing all the savings of Europe and won't listen to anybody, as if she were the absolute ruler of the Union".

"Merkel and the Commission should think hard before putting their hand into the sovereignty of this country – or any other – because it will be burned and the citizens are not going to consent".

This then is the fermenting mood in the fiercely proud and ancient nation of Spain in Year III of depression, probably the worst depression the country has seen since the 1640s, says Ambrose. And he sees in this trenchant comment the awakening of the Latin Bloc – and the end of Merkel's Europe.

If that is the case, it really would be something.
y

What is the purpose? - by Richard...

The Independent, to its credit, conveys the condemnation by Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, the 66th elected president of the UN General Assembly, of his own organisation.

The United Nations, he says, "must urgently reform to stay relevant in a world facing unprecedented conflicts and is not fit for purpose", and that "the ability of five countries to veto Security Council decisions was no longer credible and the outdated system was endangering international peace and security".

Al-Nasser is treading on dangerous ground here, as it is the veto which makes the difference between an intergovernmental organisation and a supranational government. It was the lack of veto in the League of Nations which led Jean Monnet to look for an alternative structure, and the emergence of qualified majority voting, on which the EU largely depends.

Whatever the current limitations, the prospect of a UN constructed on the same basis as the EU is not a road down which we want to go. Therein lies another major step towards the establishment of a world government.

Such considerations actually beg the question as to what the UN is for. Al-Nassar is looking at the organisation in the context of its traditional peace-keeping role, but as Dellers points out in his bookWatermellons, there is far more to the UN than this.

In fact, it is through subsidiary bodies like the UNEP, the UNFCCC and the IPCC, that the real power of the UN is exercised, making the traditional peacekeeping operations a minor part of the total operation.

Via Watermellons we actually get a very much clearer idea of where the UN is headed, with its grandiose and sinister ambitions for world governance. Whether, with his call for the abolition of the veto, that casts Al-Nassar as a useful fool, or a Machiavellian plotter, is moot, but the one thing we really cannot afford is a UN without that veto.

However, we can agree with Al-Nassar that the UN is not "fit for purpose". Perhaps, then, the more important question is whether we can (or should) afford a UN at all, or whether we should abolish it entirely.