Tag Archives: European Union

EU’s Covid-19 Vaccination Debacle: “Epochal Failure” by Soeren Kern

Posted on February 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Covid-19 vaccine rollout supervised by the EU has given that institution a huge black eye, and make’s Brexiting Britain look pretty darn smart. From Soeren Kern at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The vaccination rollout has been plagued by bureaucratic sclerosis, poorly-negotiated contracts, penny-pinching and blame shifting — all wrapped in a shroud of secrecy. The result is a needless and embarrassing shortage of vaccines, and yet another a crisis of legitimacy for the EU.
  • “The European Commission ordered too late, limited its focus to only a few pharmaceutical companies, agreed on a price in a typically bureaucratic EU manner and completely underestimated the fundamental importance of the situation. We now have a situation where grandchildren in Israel are already vaccinated but the grandparents here are still waiting. That’s just completely wrong.” — Markus Söder, Bavarian premier and possible future German chancellor.
  • “I now fear that the European Union will find itself in the impossible situation of having to prolong some of the existing [Covid-19] restrictions beyond the summer, while both Britain and the United States start to normalize. That is the cost of the vaccine delays: a very high cost in lives, prestige and further economic losses.” — Bruno Maçães, political scientist and former Portuguese Europe Minister.
  • “The commission decided to aggrandize its competence and it wasn’t up to the job — it didn’t have the right people or the right skills.” — Adrian Wooldridge, political editor, The Economist.
  • “In the dispute over the delivery delay of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the EU Commission is currently making the best advertisement for Brexit: It is acting slowly, bureaucratically and protectionist. And if something goes wrong, it’s everyone else’s fault.” — Bettina Schulz, commentator, Die Zeit.
The EU’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign rollout has been plagued by bureaucratic sclerosis, poorly-negotiated contracts, penny-pinching and blame shifting, resulting in a needless and embarrassing shortage of vaccines. Pictured: People await their vaccination at the Robert-Bosch hospital in Stuttgart, Germany on February 12, 2021. (Photo by Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images)

The European Union’s much-touted campaign to vaccinate 450 million Europeans against Covid-19 has gotten off to an inauspicious start. The vaccination rollout has been plagued by bureaucratic sclerosis, poorly-negotiated contracts, penny-pinching and blame shifting — all wrapped in a shroud of secrecy. The result is a needless and embarrassing shortage of vaccines, and yet another a crisis of legitimacy for the EU.

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The rapidly failing EU, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on February 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Any honest mark-to-market accounting and loan-loss provisions for Europe’s major banks would sink the EU. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

It is not widely realised that the EU concept is on its last legs. The bureaucratic inefficiencies and bad leadership were fully exposed last week over the inability of the EU to distribute vaccines and the attempts to blame everyone else. But a larger problem is hidden in the euro structure, comprised of banking and TARGET2 settlement systems.

This article discusses the precarious financial position of the commercial banks and the gaming of the TARGET2 system by national regulators to hide bad debts. The bad debt situation is now set to deteriorate at a faster pace thanks to the economic consequences of coronavirus lockdowns and is not helped by lack of vaccines, which defers the return to economic normality.

It is no exaggeration to conclude that the failure of its settlement system will bring down the ECB and the national central banks. The ECB will be gone, and NCBs will reform to administer new national currencies — there can be no other outcome.

With the euro failure the European Commission is likely to cede power to national interests, heralding a new era of immense political uncertainty as new currencies and government financing arrangements are devised.

Introduction

At a political level there appears to be frightening levels of ignorance about the economic consequences of punishing Britain for Brexit at a time when the EU’s own economy is teetering on the edge of a financial crisis.

Last week Britain’s remaining Remainers were revealed by the extraordinary behaviour of the European Union to have been little more than tilting at windmills. Without consulting the Irish or the British, the Commission triggered Article 16 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, in effect putting a customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. This was in direct contravention of earlier promises to respect the Good Friday agreement by not doing so. It was at the EU’s insistence that no border should exist onshore, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK for customs’ purposes.  Despite this breach of an agreement upon which the ink was barely dry, the British government managed to keep its cool and persuade the EU to reconsider and back down.

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Break in Relations With the EU? – ‘If This Is the Way They Want It, So Be It’, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on October 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

Does it make sense for Europe to cast its lot with the US against Russia and China? From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

Wolfgang Munchau of Euro Intelligence has been suggesting recently that the EU is making mistakes born from listening only to its own (like-minded) echo chamber. Munchau was referring to how – when Boris Johnson had sought for a deal “to be in sight” by this month’s EU summit, he was met with disdain. The Council said not only was there ‘no deal in sight’, but that there would be no acceleration of negotiations, and furthermore stuck rigidly to its three red-line, ‘non-negotiables’.

Macron haughtily afterwards stated that the UK had to “submit” to the bloc’s “conditions” – “We didn’t choose Brexit”.

To which Boris tartly retorted: ‘There’s no point then in talking’.

Munchau wryly noted that the biggest risk to any deal “is when you keep telling yourself that the other side needs ‘it’ more than you do”. Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, then made clear what the Council imagines ‘it’ to be: It is the EU’s majestic “huge and diversified markets”.

“The EU has a month to disabuse Emmanuel Macron of this intellectually lazy assertion. The EU should not base its negotiating strategy on [the]notion that Johnson will fold: Maybe he will, maybe not”, Munchau observed.

Well, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov clearly shares Munchau’s general analysis. Speaking at Valdai last week, Lavrov said, “When the European Union is speaking as a superior, Russia wants to know, can we do business with Europe?”

“… Those people in the West who are responsible for foreign policy and do not understand the necessity of mutually respectable conversation – well, we must simply stop for a while to communicate with them. Especially since Ursula von der Leyen states that geopolitical partnership with current Russia’s leadership is impossible. If this is the way they want it, so be it”, [he concluded].

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The destruction of the euro, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on October 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

The euro will be destroyed by debt and the idea that somebody besides the debtor countries must pay it. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

The Eurozone is bust. The deterioration of TARGET2 imbalances have been hardly noticed, but in recent months it has been alarming. Despite official denials over the years that it is a matter of concern, it is increasingly obvious that the national banks of Italy, Spain and other nations with increasing bad debts are hiding them within the TARGET2 system. The first wave of Covid-19, which is leading to bankruptcies throughout the Eurozone, is now being followed by a second wave, which will almost certainly take out a number of important banks, in which case the cross-border euro system will implode.

Introduction

If ever there was a political construct the unstated objective of which is to enslave its population, it is the European Union. Its opportunity stems from national governments which, with the exception of Germany and a few other northern states, had driven or were on the way to driving their failed states into the ground. The EU’s objectives were to support the policies of failure by corralling the accumulated wealth of the more successful nations to fund the failures in a socialistic doubling-down, and to accelerate the policies of failure to ensure that all power resides in the hands of statist looters in Brussels.

It is Ayn Rand’s vision of the socialising state as looter in action.[i] All of surviving big business is aligned with it: those who refused to play the game have disappeared. Senior executives with extensive lobbying budgets are no longer at the beck and call of contentious consumers and have hollowed out their smaller competitors. They have opted for the easier non-contentious life of seeking favours of the looters in Brussels, enjoying the champagne and foie gras, the partying with the movers and shakers, and the protection they bribe for their businesses.

It is a corrupt super-state that evolved out of American post-war policy — the child of the American Committee of United Europe. Funded and staffed by the CIA in 1948, the committee’s objectives were to ensure the European countries bought into a US-controlled NATO, in the name of stopping Stalin’s westwards expansion from the post-war boundaries. This was the official story, but it is notable how it formed a template for subsequent American control of other foreign states. It is the action of the jewel wasp that turns a cockroach into a zombie, so that its lava can subsequently feed off it.

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As Germany and France Come Apart, So Too Will the EU, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on January 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

The rulers are talking consolidaton and ever-larger governments, but the people are headed the opposite direction. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

When is a nation-state no longer a functional state? It’s an interesting question to ask of the European nation-states trapped in the devolving European Union. Longtime correspondent Mark G. recently posed seven indicators of dissolving national sovereignty; here’s his commentary:

“RE: The Ghosts of 1968 (February 14, 2018):

In France the “Ghosts of 1968” have become the Poltergeists of 2018. This looks like another real watershed in European and world history. Once again Parisian mobs have appeared and have collectively realized they now hold the real power. And their issues are all anti-EU (European Union) and anti-NWO. (New World Order)

I’m honing my German Collapse Scenario as more data flows in, as it is in ever-faster and larger quantities. ‘Germany’ will implode in parallel with the EU.

So-called ‘states’ with:

1. no effective military forces
2. no control of their own borders
3. no control of their currency and banks
4. a government with a ‘diverse’ population in which the majority either has no loyalty to Berlin (recent ‘refugee’ immigrants) or has dropped its loyalty (large parts of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg), and which is also losing the allegiance of the many eastern European immigrants in Germany. These people are among the most energized opponents of the ‘refugee’ influx.
5. Fast rising anarchy and lawlessness by the recent ‘refugee’ immigrants, and which is well known to the population, as are the official orders to the police to minimize crime statistics reporting by not opening official cases.

and

6. A mass media believed by no one due to the bald lies it broadcasts 24/7 daily about numbers 1-5.

…will soon cease to exist. This is confirmed by:

7. The continuing spiral of the ruling post WWII political parties into their own political black holes. CDU/CSU on the right and SDP on the left have all lost their hold on the modern German population.

The biggest joke of all is that Theresa May is negotiating the terms of “Brexit” from the EU with a political corpse and not a viable polity.

Another round or lap is coming soon. Personally I think the only thing staving off another eurozone banking crisis is the absolute certainty that no imaginable German government can currently agree to the slightest external concession without risking an internal political collapse.

Thus all the various Eurozone elites involved are refraining from provoking such a crisis for calculated narrow reasons. This leaves it to a European mob in some capital to initiate it by confronting a national government with either internal political collapse or re-entering EU-wide monetary and fiscal conflict with the ECB/EU gang.

And yes, I’m sure you spotted the next part. Poland and Hungary acting on behalf of the Phoenix Rising Ersatz Austro-Hungarian Empire will twist the EU’s tail at that time as hard as they can for maximum regional advantage.”

The fracturing of Germany is conventionally viewed as somewhere between implausible and impossible, and the same can be said of France and Germany drifting apart and the EU dissolving: the mainstream is committed to presenting Germany, the German-French alliance, the euro and the EU as rock-solid.

Yet if we follow the logic and evidence presented in these seven points, we are forced to conclude that the fractures in France, Germany and the EU are widening by the day, and that the ceaseless propaganda spewed by the ruling elites isn’t mending the fractures or restoring the illusion of stability.

(Regarding the French yellow vest dissenters: the 80,000 mobilized security forces are intentionally seeking to incite violence to justify crushing the yellow vestdissenters with massive paramilitary force: French Democracy Dead or Alive?)

In the long run of history, the apparent solidity of 20 or 30 years can shatter very rapidly as populations under increasing financial and political stress default to much more enduring divisions and loyalties.

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Secession from the European Union, by Thierry Meyssan

Posted on November 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

The European Union is become European’s answer to the Hotel California: you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. from Thierry Meyssan at Voltairenet.org via lewrockwell.com:

For Thierry Meyssan, the way in which Germany and France are refusing the right of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union demonstrates the fact that the EU is not simply a straight-jacket – it also goes to show that the Europeans still care as little about their neighbors as they did during the two World Wars. Manifestly, they have forgotten that governing a country means more than simply defending its interests in the short term, but also thinking in the long term and avoiding conflicts with its neighbours.

The member states of the European Union seem unaware of the clouds that are gathering above their heads. They have identified the most serious problems of the EU, but are treating them with nonchalance, and fail to understand what the British secession (Brexit) implies. They are slowly sinking into a crisis which may only be resolved by violence.

The origin of the problem

During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the members of the European Community accepted to bow to the decisions of the United States and to integrate the states of Central Europe, even though these states did not correspond in any way to the logical criteria of adhesion. With this momentum, they adopted the Maastricht Treaty, which transformed the European project of economic coordination between European States into that of a supra-national State. The idea was to create a vast political bloc which, under the military protection of the United States, was intended to engage with the USA on the road to prosperity.

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The Myth Of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation, by Alex Gorka

Posted on April 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

Judging by the policies it implements and the George Soros people in influential positions, the EU dances to George Soros’ tune. From Alex Gorka at strategic-culture.org:

It’s an open secret that the “Soros network” has an extensive sphere of influence in the European Parliament and in other European Union institutions. The list of Soros has been made public recently. The document lists 226 MEPs from all sides of political spectrum, including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, seven vice-presidents, and a number of committee heads, coordinators, and quaestors. These people promote the ideas of Soros, such as bringing in more migrants, same-sex marriages, integration of Ukraine into the EU, and countering Russia. There are 751 members of the European Parliament. It means that the Soros friends have more than one third of seats.

George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and the founder and owner of Open Society Foundations NGO, was able to meet with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with “no transparent agenda for their closed-door meeting”, and pointed out how EU proposals to redistribute quotas of migrants across the EU are eerily familiar to Soros’s own self-published plan for dealing with the crisis.

The billionaire financier believes that the European Union should receive millions of immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa, provide each one with an annual 15,000 EUR in aid, and resettle these migrants in member-states where they do not wish to go and are not necessarily welcome.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the EU of “eating out of the hand” of Soros. He believes that the billionaire open borders campaigner is behind the attacks on Hungary. The reason is the government’s attempts to take legal action over a new law which requires foreign-supported ‘civil society’ organizations — many funded by Soros — to list their big overseas donors in a public register and be transparent about their funding sources in their publications. The Hungarian government is applying efforts to close the Budapest-based Central European University founded by Soros.

“The whole of the European Union is in trouble because its leaders and bureaucrats adopt decisions like this,” said Orbán. “The people support the ideal of the European Union. At the same time, they can’t stand the leadership of the EU, because it insults the Member-States with things like this, and it abuses its power. Everyone in Europe can see that. This is why the European leadership is not respected.”

To continue reading: The Myth Of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation

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The Myth of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation, by Alex Gorka

Posted on November 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

Is the European Union a George Soros puppet? From Alex Gorka at strategic-culture.org:

It’s an open secret that the “Soros network” has an extensive sphere of influence in the European Parliament and in other European Union institutions. The list of Soros has been made public recently. The document lists 226 MEPs from all sides of political spectrum, including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, seven vice-presidents, and a number of committee heads, coordinators, and quaestors. These people promote the ideas of Soros, such as bringing in more migrants, same-sex marriages, integration of Ukraine into the EU, and countering Russia. There are 751 members of the European Parliament. It means that the Soros friends have more than one third of seats.

George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and the founder and owner of Open Society Foundations NGO, was able to meet with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with “no transparent agenda for their closed-door meeting”, and pointed out how EU proposals to redistribute quotas of migrants across the EU are eerily familiar to Soros’s own self-published plan for dealing with the crisis.

The billionaire financier believes that the European Union should receive millions of immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa, provide each one with an annual 15,000 EUR in aid, and resettle these migrants in member-states where they do not wish to go and are not necessarily welcome.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the EU of “eating out of the hand” of Soros. He believes that the billionaire open borders campaigner is behind the attacks on Hungary. The reason is the government’s attempts to take legal action over a new law which requires foreign-supported ‘civil society’ organizations — many funded by Soros — to list their big overseas donors in a public register and be transparent about their funding sources in their publications. The Hungarian government is applying efforts to close the Budapest-based Central European University founded by Soros.

“The whole of the European Union is in trouble because its leaders and bureaucrats adopt decisions like this,” said Orbán. “The people support the ideal of the European Union. At the same time, they can’t stand the leadership of the EU, because it insults the Member-States with things like this, and it abuses its power. Everyone in Europe can see that. This is why the European leadership is not respected.”

To continue reading: The Myth of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation

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Catalonia: What’s Next? by Justin Raimondo

Posted on October 1, 2017 | 1 comment

SLL will put in its two cents on Catalonia in the next few days. Justin Raimondo does a good job of outlining the issues and implications. From Raimondo at antiwar.com:

As the Spanish government reveals the true nature of its “democratic” pretensions, injuring hundreds in an effort to stop Catalans from voting, one thing is clear: Catalonia is no longer Spanish. In the very effort to prevent the referendum Madrid has handed the victory to the separatists: this is what the sight of Spanish police clubbing people at the polls means. While previous polls showed that the advocates of Catalan independence were neck-and-neck with those opposed, there is every reason to believe that now the overwhelming majority are for secession. The government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has lost whatever legitimacy it once had.

Indeed, if I was looking for a way to ensure that the independence movement would triumph, then this kind of crackdown fits the bill. The world has come a long way since 1933 – and that’s why calling in the Guardia Civil is having the exact opposite of its intended result.

As I write the number of injured is rising by the minute: it’s almost to 800 now, and will doubtless climb. Using rubber bullets, the Guardia Civil, Spain’s police force, has fired on its own people, injuring scores: yet more injuries were inflicted by beatings, with police using truncheons indiscriminately on young and old alike, attacking firefighters, old ladies, journalists, and anyone who got in their way.

And yet the ostensible goal of their actions – stopping the referendum – was not achieved. Seventy-three percent of the polling stations remained open and functioning, despite the efforts of the Guardia Civil – underscoring the blind arrogance of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he stupidly claims that “no referendum was held in Catalonia.” Spain’s actions, he said, are “an example to the world.”

What is that guy smoking?

Outside of the fantasy world of Señor Rajoy, the Catalan referendum has indeed been held, and the results are not in doubt: the question is, what will the Catalan government do now? And what will be Madrid’s response?

The spectacle of violent repression unleashed against peaceful protesters has provoked widespread outrage throughout Europe. Despite the coolness with which the EU bureaucracy views the Catalan government, it is doubtful that the European Parliament will stand idly by while this goes on, and there is probably considerable pressure being brought to bear on the Spanish authorities by the EU bloc to hold back. Yet it looks to me like Madrid, after going this far, is going to double down and go much further – with catastrophic results.

To continue reading: Catalonia: What’s Next?

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Does “More Europe” Mean More Government? by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on September 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

Like governments everywhere, the government of the European Union has gotten bigger and more intrusive…very big, and very intrusive. From Daniel Lacalle at mises.org:

Imagine for a moment that you are a British citizen with doubts about Brexit. You turn on the television and listen to the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, state the following:

  • That the 27 countries of the Union should adopt the euro and be in Schengen by 2019.
  • That “we are not naive defenders of free trade”.
  • That Europe needs a European superminister of Economy and Finance who is also Vice-President of the Commission and President of the Eurogroup.
  • That a European Monetary Fund should be created

Probably, at that moment, many doubts will dissipate. Unfortunately, for those who would like the UK to remain in the European Union, in the opposite direction of their wishes. You would probably think “thank God we are out”.

Juncker’s speech on September the 13th did not seek to find elements for an agreement with the United Kingdom, but to strengthen the current model of the Eurozone at all costs. It was presented as an opportunity to remind us all of his real project for the European Union, clearly based on the French interventionist economic and financial “dirigisme”, and very far from the UK, Finnish, Irish or Dutch open model of economic freedom.

That is the big problem. The message of “more Europe” is always oriented towards “more interventionism” .

A few weeks ago we questioned in this column the triumphant message of the European Commission affirming that “Europe has left the crisis thanks to the decisive action of the European Union“. With Juncker’s speech we can say that the slightest hint of taking advantage of Brexit to improve in freedom, flexibility and dynamism disappears.

Instead of reflecting on the reason why the hyper-regulated and massively intervened Europe has taken more than three times as other countries to emerge from the crisis, we are faced with the classic response of bureaucratic power.

According to Juncker and others’ in Brussels, one could think that if Europe grows less, creates less employment and comes out of the crisis later, it is not because of excessive bureaucracy, but because there is not enough.

To continue reading: Does “More Europe” Mean More Government?

 

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