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The hopelessly corrupt structure of the Eurozone & the Eurogroup

by Ramin Mazaheri

Part 5 - Can we combine the Eurogroup with a parliament? Not in real life….

What is clear is that the Eurogroup operates with even more power than the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan because there is absolutely zero citizen accountability. Right now, the Troika steers the 19 national budgets the way they want, with Germany their public Rottweiler.

But now you say that you want Eurogroup citizen accountability? You mean, regarding the crucial questions of national budgets and are they in line with the rules/sound economic thinking?

Ok then, a “leviathan” in Varoufakis’ words (or perhaps just a “Eurozone Finance Minister”), must be created to accept or reject the 19 national budgets. But you can’t just have an executive branch – you need a legislative branch as well. What is this, a state of emergency, where laws get made by decree and cops are the judges? Of course that’s unacceptable in the freedom-loving West, don’t be fatuous….

So there are 3 minimum conditions for this Eurozone Parliament:

1) The Eurozone Parliament can hire or fire the new “Eurozone Finance Minister”. 2) It must approve the final contents of every national budget. 3) The Parliament’s powers are clearly defined by a Eurozone Constitution.

This would move the Eurogroup from the current cabal system to 18th century bourgeois democracy; from the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment, but well short of the Industrial, Socialist and Digital Revolutions.

Regardless of how ultimately reactionary such an “improvement” would be, Varoufakis acknowledges that all of this speculation is a political impossibility:

It is crystal clear that at least two of these conditions will not be met. Neither the German government nor the Parisian elites would countenance allowing the euro chamber to hire or fire the leviathan. Nor would they dare embark upon the writing of a euro constitution.

This means it would take a true revolution in ideology and practice to even get these paltry bourgeois powers added to the Eurozone. And why would The People make a true revolution…and then be content with something so pathetically inadequate and unmodern?

In keeping with a historical theme I elaborated in the previous article of this 7-part series, France’s historic effort for an anti-austerity Eurozone, France in 2017 remains far more progressive than their slightly-more dominant neighbor to the east: Macron wants a finance minister, parliament and budget for the Eurozone…but he’s not going to get it. Merkel has only expressed tepid proposal for a Eurozone Budget Minister, and two things appear likely: he or she will be German, and Germany will insist that the post holds much less power than the other 18 Eurozone members would prefer. After all, why would Germany want to change the status quo? As that article discussed, Germany has been a rabidly anti-communist, pro-American, economically-imperialist country ever since the US decided shortly after WWII that West Germany was to be reindustrialized in order to become their main client state in Europe.

What does have a lot of support from France and Germany is a “European Monetary Fund”, which would simply codify the current bailout fund.

Democracy can wait, but safeguarding bank bailouts cannot, LOL….

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