Eurocrash: an obvious but important point
Tuesday 12 June 2012
This Sunday, the focus will be on the re-run of the Greek general election but, in its own way, the final round of the French parliamentary elections will be just as crucial. The outcome – expected to strengthen Hollande's power base – will leave him free to attend EU matters with gusto, and we can then expect to see a change of pace and focus.
Writing for DW, Stefan Seidendorf of the Institute for Franco-German relations, says things will now "get serious" but he also says that European leaders are not ready to renegotiate the fiscal pact. It has simply never happened in European integration history, he says, that an agreement is renegotiated after there have been elections in a member state.
Despite Hollande's pre-election pledges, therefore, we can now see the French pushing the pact through the system, if only to clear the decks for the discussion on the fiscal union. Some clue of where the battle-lines lie may then become apparent after the four-nation summit (Italy, Spain, Germany, France) on 22 June.
Elsewhere, though, in the real world, events continue to crowd in, demonstrating that the "colleagues" are running out of time. This morning's Handelsblatt reports that the Greeks could soon be running out of power.
The implications of this are obvious – take away power and you bring people onto the streets … especially in a Mediterranean summer, where life inside buildings without air conditioning is torture. The riots we have so far seen will have been little more than a dress rehearsal.
Although reports of incipient crisis are ritually denied, this report also serves as a reminder, that the financial crisis has real effects – as if we needed reminding. A progressive collapse of infrastructure though is one of them. There will be many more.
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Richard North 12/06/2012
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