By Alex Brummer, Daily Mail
Chilling reminders of the 1930s |
The elections to the European Parliament taking place across the Continent this week are being played out against the most disturbing economic backdrop since the dark days of the post-crash Thirties. This is the first time since the eurozone crisis erupted in Greece in 2010 that Europe’s people have had the chance to make their views known in an EU-wide election, and the outcome will not be pretty.
There are those in the UK who find the rise of Ukip and some of the views of its leader, Nigel Farage, on immigration unpleasant or offensive. But by the standards of the extremist and horribly racist Continental parties likely to win seats in the new European Parliament, Ukip might be regarded as moderates.
The abrogation of responsibility for Europe’s economic ills by the unelected European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and successive governments in Berlin and Paris is a disgrace.
A lack of action from this power nexus at the heart of the eurozone has allowed a degree of economic dislocation and hopelessness to develop that is manifesting itself in a lurch to the Far Right.
Of course, the recent narrative from the leadership in Brussels is to suggest the worst of the eurozone crisis has passed, and recovery is just around the corner.
The evidence for this is said to be the fall in the interest rate which the weaker European countries have to pay to borrow money on the international markets.
But to see these falling rates as a sign that normality has returned is a simplistic misreading of the underlying perils that still face the European economies. Similarly, because the ECB has taken on the task of policing the significant banks across the eurozone, it is assumed that the health of the financial system has been restored.
But the truth is that the kind of rigorous ‘stress tests’ imposed on banks in the U.S. and Britain in the wake of the 2007-09 financial crisis have still not taken place across the Continent.
As a result, the repairs to the banking system so essential for the restoration of economic output have barely begun in Europe. That means it is often impossible for smaller businesses to get the loans they need to fire the growth of their nations’ economies.
Meanwhile, there are 26 million people out of work.
In peripheral economies such as Spain and Greece, the number of young jobless is in excess of 50 per cent. These nations face a degree of social despair and disruption that could last for years.
In fact, if Germany — which grew at a healthy 0.8 per cent — is taken out of the data (it accounts for roughly one-third of euroland output) then the rest of the region is stagnant.
Read more
Pictures - Daily Mail
RELATED
How European Union bureaucracy wastes taxpayers' money - Including the funding of subversive and terror activities in Israel.
Britain's Left vile agenda
*****************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting my blog. Your comments are always appreciated, but please do not include links.