Ein Milliardär entdeckt die Liebe (German Edition)

Spanish health minister resigns over 'mastergate' scandal

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The detention of five leading Catalan pro-independence politicians, followed 48 hours later by the arrest and detention of deposed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont in Germany, brings the extraordinary and tumultuous events of Spain and Catalonia since September closer to an end point. Puigdemont had been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium, and was arrested in Germany on his return from a trip to Finland after a European Arrest Warrant was reissued for him.

The attempted unilateral secession of Catalonia from Spain dramatically failed, as Puigdemont was the last remaining figure of significance who still stood by the notion of an independent Catalan Republic declared on October 27, The Catalan process for secession, or independence, began in a political sense in , though its root causes are much deeper.

Catalonia's cultural struggle against Madrid goes back centuries. Opinion polls aside, there has never been a majority support for independence in any regional election held since , leading to a questionable legitimacy. The Spanish authorities, the main political parties and the government have repeatedly declared that the separation of a part of Spain from the national territory is illegal.

Here lie the origins of legal mechanisms being used again now against Puigdemont and his colleagues to confront the independence movement: From and with more intensity from , Catalan institutions embarked on an intense international lobbying campaign to obtain international support and achieve the aim of becoming a new member state of the European Union. These three elements, ambivalent social and political support, a state explicitly hostile to any attempt at separation and a complete absence of international support, have led to the almost complete defeat for Catalan independence.

The capture and imprisonment of Puigdemont symbolically closes this phase. Between and , the Catalan movement for independence displayed extraordinary capacity for mobilisation, managing to bring a million people onto the streets of Barcelona almost every year. The movement was peaceful, optimistic and celebratory, confident that separation from Spain was eminently achievable and imminent. However, this relentlessly upbeat outlook seemed to prevent recognition of hard political reality.

In spite of public statements from a range of international leaders, including the European Union, supporting the continued unity of Spain, the movement told itself that when the time came, recognition for Catalonia was inevitable. While arguably it had little choice, the EU has backed Spain in the Catalan dispute.

One consequence has been a eurosceptic turn within the Catalan independence movement over perceived betrayal by Brussels. The Catalan movement for independence, as well as a number of internal and strategic errors, seriously misjudged the interest and willingness of the EU to countenance the break up of Spain. Yet, the EU is an alliance of states. The EU has been through repeated crises since and it seems astonishing that the leaders of Catalan independence thought the bloc might be supportive of further disruption.

While there are several different proposals that have been put forward in this regard, they all share similar characteristics and weaknesses.

European-wide unemployment insurance proposals – more bunk!

I considered why Jacques Delors should not be considered a progressive visionary in this blog post — Jacques Delors — a failed leader not a champion of a prosperous Europe August 14, Rather the vision and plan that Delors pushed through in the late s as President of the European Commission has failed dramatically and reflected the dominance of neoliberal economic thinking combined with the dysfunctional Franco-German rivalry.

Which is the central claim by neoliberals and deluded progressives that we critiqued in out book — Reclaiming the State: Just the assertion that we are in a post-Westphalien world is now accepted uncritically by many progressives along the TINA lines. As we argued in the book, the state is very much alive and all major policy decisions are still made via the legislative capacities of the nation states.

Progressives were duped into believing the idea that the nation state is powerless in the face of globalisation. In part, the EMU as a post national construction is the embodiment of that deception. The founders knew that the nation states would not concede crucial fiscal capacities but they also knew they could neuter those capacities with the Stability and Growth Pact framework and better serve the elites.

They allow cognitive dissonance to be pervasive and knowledge to be suppressed by ideology. The German chancellor said no to almost everything the French president has proposed. The only meaningful concession is a short-term lending facility for countries in trouble — but on conditions likely to be unacceptable to Italy in particular.

I have not heard anyone even trying to explain how this could help reduce instability …. The only known antidote to misleading narratives such as these is truth-telling. The biggest threat to the eurozone now is the toxic combination of the preachers of hatred and those who dare not speak truth to power.

My assessment is that these proposals are all regressions to the mean — they just perpetuate the folly. The proposal for a European-wide unemployment insurance scheme is symptomatic of the Groupthink among European economists that led to the problem in the first place. Many of the authors of this report were involved in various studies that gave rise to the design of the EMU in the first place.

Then, in , as the system they lauded back in the s was clearly failing, their approach was to patch it up with various ad hoc measures, all of which are ring-fenced by the austerity mentality. But the fiscal autonomy of the EMU Member States has been severely compromised by the SGP and the austerity packages forced onto many of the Eurozone economies during the crisis. It seems that democracy and autonomy can be violated when the Troika is imposing the terms, but then in other cases, it is upheld as a sacrosanct principle that cannot be compromised.

That sort of hypocrisy has woven its way through the entire debate about economic and monetary integration in Europe and will continue to deliver sub-par outcomes.

Brave New Europe

The application of this rule inevitably leads to a violation of democracy because the risk of insolvency is intrinsic to the flawed design of the monetary system. Member States are forced to issue debt in a currency they have no control over and the ECB is formally precluded from giving any guarantees although of-course it has violated that prohibition via its huge bond-buying programs.

Default risk and insolvency are always lurking, waiting for the next major economic downturn to arrive.

Conclusion

Thus, according to the likes of Enderlein, as soon as a nation falls into crisis, its citizens lose the capacity to influence their own destiny and are, instead, at the behest of unelected officials in the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF. That vision has never appeared to me to represent a road map for a sustainable and prosperous Europe. While Enderlein and Co. At the height of the crisis, Enderlein and Co. The virtue of stable social communities built on family structures and community spirit is ignored by this mainstream approach.

The economy rules and workers are considered meagre pawns in the decisions by management on where to locate industry. One would think a primary aim for any durable solution to the European crisis is to keep regions viable, especially as Enderlein and Co. The belief assertion that labour mobility would be of sufficient magnitude to provide a semblance of equalisation in unemployment rates within the Eurozone is denied by the overwhelming evidence that between and there was no discernible movement among citizens who were already resident within the Eurozone Source.

The fund would be managed by Eurozone finance ministers and build its kitty from contributions from nations experiencing above the Eurozone growth rates and pay out to nations in crisis. The scheme would thus force nations to reduce their domestic spending in times of buoyant economic growth and provide some relief in bad times. Significantly, Enderlein and Co. A later proposal from Jean Pisani-Ferry and Co. He considers the current instability in Italy and its poor economic performance since joining the euro. Among the options for Italy he rejects exit, bailouts, the abandonment of austerity, debt restructuring and more, because:.

Every single one of these measures would likely initially lead to an additional crisis — either political or financial, either in Italy or in the rest of Europe ….

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One might ask who has the job when the currency-issuer is the central bank and the fiscal agents the Member States have no direct relationship with the central bank nor any currency-issuing capacity. A constructive approach to euro area reform. Member countries would pay into a fund, with countries particularly prone to major economic disturbances paying disproportionate contributions.

So the weaker EMU nations would be even more screwed during times of growth and not be able to spend on domestic initiatives as much as the growth might permit. And then when recession hits, they would still have to pursue fiscal austerity obey the SGP rules but be able to get some of their own funds back as long as the funds were repaid again later. This is just another inadequate credit provision along the lines of the proposal to create the European Monetary Fund. What nations need in times of crisis is the capacity to allow their fiscal positions to go into whatever deficit is consistent with the non-government saving desire collapse in spending.

In short, the proposal suggests it is like an automatic stabiliser but it lacks the essential characteristics. It would retard public spending when there was growth, even if that public spending was driving growth and it would not allow the deficit to grow to necessary levels in times of downturn.

It is just a credit facility within the existing austerity framework. It would unlikely be sufficient in that regard to prevent elevated levels of unemployment.

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A far better way to strengthen the automatic stabilisers is to introduce a European-wide Job Guarantee funded by an enhanced Euro-level fiscal capacity tied in with the currency-issuance power of the ECB. Scholz made it clear — his support for a European-wide unemployment insurance scheme was conditional on it being fiscally-neutral and without any transfers between Member States being consolidated. The economists pushing for this sort of scheme also want to punish the poorer nations more than those that are less prone to crisis by further restricting their capacity to stimulate public service delivery in good times.

For the Europhile cheer squad to think this sort of scheme will represent fundamental reform shows you how far removed they are from any reality. However, it seems to me they [European-wide unemployment insurance proposals] have not validity besides the elections cycles because: Stiglitz in the article [Can the Euro Be Saved?

Yes, it seems we are in a Post-Westphalian World. China might represent the last attempt of saving the Westphalian World. Fuping County, Shaanxi Province. My understanding of what is Wesphalian World: My understanding of what is Post Wesphalian World: Almost years later after the birth of Lorenz von Stein the social movements theorist we still do not know how to educate ourselves to avoid the existence of a small kleptocracy.

Groupthink and denial continues — succinctly put. Nobody ever explains the economic implications of these Euro payments or their end. I assume it just has probably minimal exchange rate implications. Just a small point. There were positive coincidences not in order of importance: I understand their point. I have a business partner that says I from inland of Portugal because my father was from there even though he knows I was born in another country. This quote almost beggars belief. What is one to say about the mentality of well-paid, highly self-regarding ie comfortable, smug and arrogant academics in all apparent seriousness propounding macroeconomic policies which are guaranteed to further impoverish the already-impoverished?

They deserve to be locked-up, fed a starvation diet and forced to do hard labour — with no remission. Can it be possible that he was talking through his hat? Or — even more unthinkable — telling bare-faced lies?

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No, no — I refuse to believe that; a President of the great United States would never lower himself so far. Most people are nationalistic in Europe before being European but the Chinese have it drilled into them. And also there is this strange co-existence of celebrating being New China, post more important than — end of Mao, who must be viewed as mostly good , replacing feudal non-communist China, but also celebrating being Han Chinese with 5, years of civilisation leaving aside the early years of myth and the non-civilised parts.

So the relating of the Belt and Road to the glorious days of the Silk Road.

Chinese though nationalistic are also though, very regionally orientated. People can tell by dialect. Also there is much more of a relationship to ancestors plus a need of place with so many internal work migrants , so people will say their hometown is such and such even though they and their parents may never have lived there and they may only return once a year to see the grandparents. Apologies for going off at a tangent Professor Mitchell. I understand your doubts.

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