JORGE RODRIGUES SIMÃO

ECONOMY CRISIS - EUROPEAN UNION selling 'SPECIAL ASSETS' as debt mounts

10. How the euro spoilt any other business

IT WOULD BE EASY TO FORM THE IMPRESSION that, at least since late 2009, nothing much has happened in the European Union except for the euro crisis and its economic and financial repercussions. Yet the normal business of the European institutions in such areas as competition policy, policing the single market, agriculture, transport, social and employment regulation, and trade has perforce continued.

The budget has continued to be spent and, especially in the negotiations for 2014–20, quarrelled over. The European Council has also, from time to time, been summoned to discuss matters other than the economy and the euro, even if it has quickly reverted to these more momentous issues. There has been less EU legislation than before, in part because governments have long made clear that they wanted less. Even so, overall it is undeniable that the euro crisis has spilt damagingly into many other areas of EU activity.

European Debt Crisis - Economic Collapse In 3 Minutes - Clarke & Dawe

9. Democracy and its discontents

THE NOTION THAT THERE IS A DEMOCRATIC DEFIGT in Europe is almost as old as the European project itself. Until 1979, when the first elections to the European Parliament were held, none of the European institutions were directly elected, and the gap between ordinary citizens and decisions taken in Brussels was seen to be a yawning one. National governments, which are elected, are of course represented in the Council of Ministers, the senior legislative body. But most have tended to keep quiet about their bargaining and few are held to account for actions in Brussels by their own national parliaments. Moreover, the spread of qualified-majority voting has meant that individual governments can now be forced to accept policies that they have themselves opposed.1

Euro Crisis is Just Beginning, Global Collapse is Coming

8. In, out, shake it all about

UNTIL EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION (EMU) came along with the Maastricht treaty, the general assumption was that all members of the European club would participate in all its formations and policies. Naturally there were exceptions: Ireland was neutral, so when it joined in 1973 it became the only member not in NATO; and the UK and Ireland stayed out of attempts to set up passport-free travel through the Schengen treaty. Some inner clubs such as the Benelux trio also existed. But Maastricht marked the first occasion when some EU countries, in this case first the UK and later Denmark, specifically opted out of a treaty obligation to join a major European project, the single currency. Also in Maastricht, the UK opted out of the so-called social chapter of social and employment legislation. Moreover, the treaty clearly envisaged that not all European Union members would qualify for EMU. Thus was born a new concept for the European project: that most were in but some would stay out of certain projects.

EUROPEAN CRISIS IS THE EUROPEAN UNION ABOUT TO COLLAPSE

7. The changing balance of power

AS WELL AS CONSTITUTING THE MOST SERIOUS CHALLENGE to the European project since its inception, the euro crisis has had a huge impact on its political and economic balance, at every level. Among countries, it has hugely increased the influence of some, notably Germany, and decreased that of others, notably France. It has fostered a growing north–south divide in the European Union, which has to an extent replaced the previous east–west one. It has sharpened the division between those countries that are in the euro and those that are not. Among the EU institutions, it has strengthened the role of the European Council at the expense of the European Commission and the European Parliament. And although it has led to deeper integration of sorts, especially in fiscal policy, it has also reduced the political weight of the central EU bodies and increased that of national governments. Many if not all of these shifts in power will endure. Most will profoundly affect the workings of the wider EU as well as the euro zone.