eurealist.co.uk

I have posted on this before but it deserves repeating. Today George Trefgarne in the Telegraph suggests the real reason why we are to be blessed with a constitution is the same reason for the USA constitution “it was the need to underpin the currency that led to the development of the constitution of the United States in the first place. Several of the individual states that now make up America defaulted on their debts after the revolutionary war against the British in the 1780s. Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary, was among those who successfully argued that the states needed a common financial system and central government to avert a crisis, and so the United States was born.” So although we are told that the constitution is to make the EU work better, prevent the return to Nazi style concentration camps, return power to the nation states, and all the rest of the spin, the real reason is to prop up the Euro, which itself was a step towards a United States of Europe, those who promoted the Euro knew that without a state or at least a constitution to back up the currency, the Euro has no solid backing and could collapse, so we have a classical EU situation as envisioned by Monnet, where cooperation in one sphere will require the cooperation in anther field and so on until eventually a united Europe will be formed. Trefgarne thinks that unlike the USA 300 years ago “Such a disaster as the collapse of the currency in Europe is remote, but not that remote. Growth throughout the euro zone has been slow to non-existent since the mid-1990s. Alarming political strains are developing, notably in Italy and Portugal. Italy’s exports are depressed thanks to the high level of the euro, and it is in the midst of its second recession in two years. Its budget deficit is ballooning. And Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, cannot balance the books and is clinging on to power by his fingertips. In Portugal, matters are even worse. The country is running a massive fiscal deficit of nearly seven per cent of GDP and the socialist government is embarking on another round of unpopular spending cuts.” “Without the constitution, the legal framework behind the euro will depend on existing treaties. But the Stability and Growth Pact, which once provided the rules, was torn up in March and the few remaining strips mean euro member states can effectively behave as they like. There could soon be little to stop Italy and Portugal bailing themselves out by borrowing more, which could push the euro lower, set off turmoil in the bond markets and drive up interest rates for everybody else.” “The woes of Italy and Portugal illustrate the dangers that will confront the EU should the constitution fail. It could respond by finding a cunning way of ratifying a replacement. But that would be to act in defiance of the wishes of not just millions of citizens, but perhaps entire nations. Or it could abandon the constitution altogether, and leave the euro adrift, without a nation or a government behind it.” If Trefgarne is right and we find that the constitution is rejected by either France or Holland in the next week then the Euro will be the only currency ever not to have a state to back it up. This situation is not sustainable in the long term, so the real plan “B” as suggested by Delores, will be to force through plan “A” by putting pressure on the dissenting states to reform their ways and vote again, after some cosmetic changes to the text, the alternatives are simply to problematic for the internationalists to consider. We have almost reached the point where there can be no turning back, which is the whole point of the step by step approach to integration in the first place.