Blow EU Jacques, I’m not all right: The crisis has shattered the façade of European unity, as governments turn back to the nation state to defend their own brands of capitalism. (Mick Hume, 10/08/08, Spiked)
Whatever happened to the new age of European unity we were supposed to be entering, according to our leaders? Or, come to that, where is the all-powerful ‘Brussels Empire’ we have often been warned about by the shriller critics of Euro-bureaucracy? The financial crisis sweeping the continent has revealed that the European Union has no clothes. At the first sign of serious trouble, it has become every government for itself. Or to paraphrase an old British working-class saying, a case of ‘Blow you Jacques, I’m not all right’.
First the Irish government broke Euro-ranks and unilaterally declared that it would guarantee all deposits in Irish banks, thus risking conflict with financial institutions elsewhere in the EU. That might have been dismissed as the desperate action of a small European economy trying to avoid becoming the next Iceland. But when the government of Germany, the biggest economy at the heart of the Euro-zone, effectively did the same thing it was clear that big shifts are afoot. Just the day before, German chancellor Angela Merkel had led an emergency summit call for European solidarity. Within 24 hours, in the face of mounting problems, Germany had torn up that paper agreement and gone its own way, to the horror of ‘close allies’ such as Britain.
Amid the outbreak of confusion and consternation that followed, British chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling sought to reassure us that the German government had issued only a ‘political declaration’ of intent rather than a ‘legally binding’ guarantee for bank depositors. They had indeed, Mr Darling; it was a political declaration of the German state’s intent and determination to defend its national financial interests, regardless of what worthy EU summit statements might say. The governments of Denmark, Greece and Spain have followed suit in guaranteeing savers’ deposits, and more are expected to do so.
Suppose someone told you that the Brits were surprised the Germans had stabbed them in the back?
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