Skip to main content

EU Uber Alles? Neoliberal echoes of a darker, mid-century plan for continental unity

The unflinching support for the EU and its institutions is not about preventing European countries from becoming “Afghanistan.” Not about preventing collapse. Not about the inconvenience of long lines at passport control. It is about promoting an ideology, a specific worldview, a vision for the way the world should work.

by Michael Nevradakis

Part 4 - The EU’s democratic deficit, hypocrisy, and the human cost

The austerity regime in Greece has been far from victimless. Repeated reports from the United Nations and the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) have found that the austerity measures imposed in Greece are in violation of international law and the basic human rights of the Greek people, who have increasingly been impoverished during the crisis as a result of the successive pension and wage cuts and reductions to social services that have been imposed.

For a while, the “European family” demonstrated “solidarity” with Greece and its people. Such “solidarity” movements cropped up in early 2015 in particular—movements that were fully supportive of the SYRIZA-led coalition government, notwithstanding the signs that were evident from the very beginning that SYRIZA was not the leftist, anti-austerity force it was portrayed as being. Instead, their “solidarity” protests in European and North American cities, replete with SYRIZA flags, and their accompanying social media hashtag #ThisIsACoup, gently chastised the “bad Europeans” for “blackmailing” the well-intentioned “leftist” government of Greece.

Peculiarly, these mild protestations against the “bad Europeans” were never, ever accompanied by suggestions that Greece consider a departure from the EU or the Eurozone, even as a negotiating tactic. Instead, the Greek people have, by the very same people who displayed “solidarity,” often been lectured about Greece’s responsibility towards the rest of the “European family” and chastised for such matters as the petty corruption of not issuing a receipt for small purchases.

Indeed, it has often been Greece that has been called upon to display “solidarity” without reciprocation. With Greece beset by many dozens of destructive forest fires in recent weeks, the EU obliged Greece to send two firefighting airplanes to Albania—itself not a EU member-state—but France refused a request to send planes to help Greece’s overextended fire brigades extinguish the Greek blazes.

This mentality has made its way into the Greek political psyche. Prime Minister Tsipras’ victory speech on January 25, 2015 was full of pro-EU zeal, featuring many references to saving Europe, but none to saving Greece. The main opposition party, New Democracy, has helped organize several “remain in Europe” rallies since 2015 and has repeatedly positioned itself as a “responsible” and “outward-looking” alternative to the “leftist” SYRIZA.

Nary a word is mentioned, however, about the EU’s apparent disdain for democracy. As mentioned earlier, its executive branch, the European Commission, is wholly non-elected. Nor, for that matter, are the EU commissioners themselves. One such commissioner, EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström of Sweden, has said quite accurately that she “does not receive her mandate from the European people.

The non-elected president of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, himself embattled by the LuxLeaks scandals in the recent past, has stated that “there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties.” Sadly though, he hasn’t addressed the hypocrisy of lecturing Greece about “reform” whilst being embroiled in scandals of his own.

In turn, Germany’s apparent finance minister-for-life, Wolfgang Schäuble, who apparently also acts as finance minister of Greece and Spain and Italy and Portugal, has said “[e]lections change nothing. There are rules.” The sovereign judicial institutions of an EU member-state have also been openly questioned when decisions don’t go the EU’s way, as was the case recently in Greece. Solidaridad!

This author received an in-your-face taste of the EU’s brand of democracy in a 2013 visit to EU institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg. During this visit, a succession of technocrats shed all pretense and demonstrated their disdain for democracy and the very concept of the nation-state. Their talks were peppered with such quotes as “The labor force should be ‘flexible’ and should ‘diversify;’” “Mussolini dealt with the situation;” “There are regions of Italy which we wish Brussels could govern directly;” and “We believe in a single European consciousness.” Compare these with the Nazi quotations presented earlier in this piece.

During this series of talks, the technocrats and their partners in academia arrogantly attributed the EU’s economic perils to three simple factors: “Bad design. Bad luck. Bad decisions: Greece.” Revealing the EU’s possible endgame, we were further told that “the nation-state is a 19th-century construct, and nothing lasts forever.

Further demonstrating the utter lack of democracy and accountability in the Nobel Prize-winning EU, it should be noted that the European Central Bank (ECB), which holds the economic fate of the EU’s member-states in its hands, has only one mandate in its governing documents: maintaining price stability — reflecting a longstanding German aversion to inflation of any sort. Nothing in the ECB’s constitution requires it to enact policy with social mandates, such as full employment, in mind. Indeed, the ECB itself does not lend directly to member-states but exclusively to private banks, from which states are then obliged to borrow at higher interest rates.

Perhaps best demonstrating the contempt with which the EU elite and its supporters view democracy and popular will, numerous parliamentary votes and referendum results that have not gone the EU’s way have systematically been subject to re-dos and overturned. For instance, Ireland rejected the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by referendum in 2008. A “relatively small member state” daring to “hold up” attempts at further EU integration was considered intolerable by the powers that be, and a new vote was called. Amidst tremendous pressure, voters wilted and accepted the treaty in the new referendum.

Similarly, Irish voters rejected the EU’s Treaty of Nice in 2001. This surprise result was also deemed unacceptable. A new referendum was scheduled in 2002, the usual pressure on voters piled on, and the Treaty approved by Irish voters the second time around.

In 2013, Cyprus’ newly-elected government of President Nikos Anastasiadis rejected an EU-proposed “bailout” that would have resulted in a “haircut” of bank deposits ranging from 6.6 percent to 9.9 percent. Indeed, not one vote in favor was cast in parliament. De facto EU boss Germany was not impressed. Under stifling pressure and amidst threats of “imminent” bankruptcy, the parliament caved and passed a modified, but still onerous, “bailout” bill and haircut in a second vote.

In Greece, of course, the “leftist” SYRIZA government felt no obligation to even pretend to show resistance, despite the absurd “#ThisIsACoup” rhetoric that it tacitly supported behind the scenes. The July 2015 popular referendum overwhelmingly rejecting the EU’s austerity proposals was swiftly overturned and replaced by an even more severe austerity package, all in the name of keeping Greece “in Europe” (as if it would float away to Antarctica otherwise).

Following the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, elitist, pro-EU scholars from such “safe space” institutions as the London School of Economics recoiled in disgust at the “tyranny of the majority.” Clearly, voters were not as well-informed as pro-EU ivory tower intellectuals. This sentiment is not a recent phenomenon, however: similar views were expressed over a decade ago following the rejection of the proposed EU “constitution” by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Therefore, it is no surprise that in the EU today, non-elected authorities are the ones who, for instance, tell countries what to grow and what not to grow (EU common agricultural policy), or whether or not a state-owned national air carrier can be allowed to continue to operate. A private and high-cost quasi-monopoly (Aegean Airlines) along with a smattering of low-cost airlines with a limited range of destinations has replaced Greece’s Olympic Airlines, which undoubtedly had been mismanaged but nevertheless connected Greece to North America and Australia. In neighboring Turkey, Turkish Airlines—unimpeded by EU “competition” regulations and half-owned by the Turkish state—flies to the most countries and fourth most destinations in the world.

Source, links:


[1] [2] [3] [5] [6] [7]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WikiLeaks reveals that literally every router in America has been compromised

The latest Wikileaks Vault7 release reveals details of the CIA’s alleged Cherry Blossom project, a scheme that uses wireless devices to access users’ internet activity. globinfo freexchange As cyber security expert John McAfee told to RT and Natasha Sweatte: Virtually, every router that's in use in the American home are accessible to hackers, to the CIA, that they can take over the control of the router, they can monitor all of the traffic, and worse, they can download malware into any device that is connected to that router. I personally, never connect to any Wi-Fi system, I use the LTE on my phone. That's the only way that I can be secure because every router in America has been compromised. We've been warning about it for years, nobody pays attention until something like WikiLeaks comes up and says 'look, this is what's happening'. And it is devastating in terms of the impact on American privacy because once the router...

Confirmed: Alex Jones' popularity rises after Infowars banning from social media

globinfo freexchange We wouldn't expect to be confirmed so fast on this. A few days ago in the article IT and social media supergiants have just made Alex Jones a hero in the eyes of the ultra-conservative audience , we wrote that Alex Jones' wet dream has just become reality thanks to the combined move by Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify to ban Infowars. These private IT and social media companies couldn't give a better gift to him right now. At a time where Infowars was going through a saturated period according to the best scenario, the corporate giants actually saved it with that stupid(?) strategy. Suddenly, a corporate branch of the liberal establishment gave real value to Alex Jones' awful performance, pretending to be the 'anti-establishment' hero - just like Donald Trump - and made him a real hero in the eyes of the ultra-conservative audience that has been brainwashed by his absurd conspiracy theories. Only a couple of days later...

Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots!

globinfo freexchange According to world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the rising use of automated machines may mean the end of human rights – not just jobs. But he’s not talking about robots with artificial intelligence taking over the world, he’s talking about the current capitalist political system and its major players. On Reddit, Hawking said that the economic gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow as more jobs are automated by machines, and the owners of said machines hoard them to create more wealth for themselves. The insatiable thirst for capitalist accumulation bestowed upon humans by years of lies and terrible economic policy has affected technology in such a way that one of its major goals has become to replace human jobs. If we do not take this warning seriously, we may face unfathomable corporate domination. If we let the same people who buy and sell our political system and resources maintain control of automated technology, the...

How normal human behavior became a false mental disorder epidemic

globinfo freexchange In the early nineties, an epidemic of mental disorder was sweeping America and Britain. It had been uncovered by a new system for identifying disorders. Psychiatry had been attacked for relying on the personal and fallible judgement of psychiatrists. But instead, a new objective method based on checklists had been invented. These listed only the objective symptoms, and deliberately did not enquire into why the individuals felt an anxiety. In the late 80s, nationwide surveys had revealed an incredible picture: more than 50% of Americans suffered from mental disorders. But at the very same, the drug companies had announced that they had created a new type of drug, called an SSRI, which they claimed, targeted the circuits inside the brain that were causing these malfunctions. The SSRIs were marketed under names like "Prozac". What they did was alter the amounts of serotonin that flowed across the circuit connections within the brain, and they...

CIA had an agent at a newspaper in every world capital at least since 1977

Joel Whitney is a co-founder of the magazine Guernica, a magazine of global arts and politics, and has written for many publications, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. His book Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers describes how the CIA contributed funds to numerous respected magazines during the Cold War, including the Paris Review, to subtly promote anti-communist views. In their conversation, Whitney tells Robert Scheer about the ties the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom had with literary magazines. He talks about the CIA's attempt during the Cold War to have at least one agent in every major news organization in order to get stories killed if they were too critical or get them to run if they were favorable to the agency. And they discuss the overstatement of the immediate risks and dangers of communist regimes during the Cold War, which, initially, led many people to support the Vietnam War. globinfo freexchange...

Eurozone is ready to explode, but probably not for the reasons you think

globinfo freexchange Wolfgang Schäuble and the German leadership of the eurozone have good reasons to worry, maintaining an uncompromising attitude in the negotiations with Greece. But the repayment of Greek debt, which amounts to EUR 317 billion, is not one of the most important ones. The Greek debt is insignificant in comparison with the financial dynamite of the German (and other) banks, which in recent months gives more daily ignition signs. Only Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Germany, is significantly exposed, holding dubious financial products known as "derivatives", worth 67 trillion euros. This amount is similar to the GDP of the entire world and 20 times greater than the GDP of Germany. Any comparison with the situation of the bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 would not be irrelevant. Just when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, had available derivatives of only 31.5 trillion. The crisis of 2008 confirmed the concise definition of derivatives as proposed b...

Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

globinfo freexchange   As we wrote in our previous article, after almost eight years, the US imperialists and the NATO criminals got what they wanted. They finally managed to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine.     We now have indisputable evidence for that, through a document by the top US think tank, RAND Corporation. In the preface of a 2019 report under the title Extending Russia, Competing from Advantageous Ground we read: [emphasis added]                            The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps ar...

Signals of an unsustainable future coming from Davos

Hyper-automation impact on unemployment rise - further shrinking of the middle class - creation of a working elite - substitution of saturated Western consumers with other emerging consumer tanks globinfo freexchange The general conclusions from the report The Future of Jobs , of the 2016 World Economic Forum, leave little room for optimistic thoughts about the future. They reflect what already most of us have realized: that the combination of the current socio-economic model with the rapid hyper-automation of production, lead to further imbalance and inequality in favor of the very few. As Stephen Hawking mentioned recently: “ If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the seco...

American youth are turning on Israel, left and right

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal on the total collapse of support for Israel among young American progressives, and the crisis Israel faces for the first time among conservative youth. 

GAME OVER, Trump: Putin, China & BRICS Just CRUSHED US Dollar

Danny Haiphong   Donald Trump's war on BRICS is backfiring as the Russia & China-led Global South moves to dump the US dollar and build a new order independent of its dictates. Journalist and geopolitical analyst Ben Norton breaks it all down.    Related: Trump's tariffs: A unique opportunity for BRICS and the Global South to fully escape from dollar tyranny