Europe: Thank you and goodbye?

09Dec11

I currently work at the European parliament for a Finnish MEP. With the economic situation being what it is and every day bringing us more bad news and stories of high-level meetings in Brussels, people often think I’m in the centre of power and know what’s happening.

But it’s the member states, the Council, calling the shots now. Not the European parliament.

My two cents on the crisis is not based on some omniscient behind-the-scenes confidential information. But the situation got bad enough to draw me from my EU-blogging retirement for this post.

There have been two trends with the European financial crisis. First one is spiralling of the crisis – it keeps getting worse. Second trend emerged most visibly yesterday: intergovernmentalism.

Spiralling

The whole year there have been talks of containment and people have been explained that we need to pour in more money, create more mechanisms because if we don’t, it’s all going to collapse.

Well, the shit hasn’t hit the fan quite yet but it’s not looking rosy either. After each meeting there’s a sigh of relief that some decision was made but then a few days later it turns out to be inadequate. Markets are in total control; stock markets and credit rating agencies are telling us daily how they think Europe is doing. And nobody quite understands how it all works and affects us.

The air of uncertainty is the worst part.

It seems impossible to predict how will each bail-out measure affect the markets. The member states saved Greece from bankruptcy because letting them go under would have meant a dive into the abyss – the possibility for dire implications was great but at the same time there’s no knowing we’re heading to any better direction as it is.

The uncertainty is affecting us, the consumers, and of course it’s taking its toll on businesses as well. Nobody is going to make a decision to invest into Europe right now.

We’re living in dark times and it’ll take years to recover.

Intergovernmentalism

Merkel and Sarkozy. The two most powerful factors in the whole equation. It’s them deciding now and the rest of us following. Countries like the UK and Finland aren’t really taking it – they’ve both recently had elections with eurosceptic outcomes and can’t reason to their people why something Germany and France decided amongst themselves is something the rest of us should blindly obey.

Therefore UK’s decision to stay out of the new … treaty, agreement? (nobody even properly knows what was it or who’s in it) is not surprising. It’s been a long time coming. Finland is in on the new agreement but with odd clauses that essentially imply that the Finnish parliament can block all decisions. It’s the start of a two-speed Europe, where countries opt-in and -out as they see fit.

I’m not going to say more Europe is the answer. I’m not even saying what the UK did was wrong. Because who are we to judge? Majority of Brits essentially hate the EU even at the best of times and I doubt there’s any love left now.

The hype about UK’s decision is odd, it draws the attention to the one country that in all honesty was quite likely to stay out anyways, and takes the focus away from the fact that once again the countries did reach an agreement and are willing to commit to solving the crisis.

EU is in damage control mode and it needs to make quick decisions and only those countries who are willing to commit to those decisions should be on board. Otherwise it’s all really going to come crashing down.

What will it mean for countries opting out? Chances are they might be better off for a while. But assuming EU ever gets back on track, how likely do you think it will be that they’ll be welcomed with open arms? I foresee another “non, non, non” on its way.

Filed under: UK & the EU   |  1 Comment
Tags: crisis, EU, europe, eurozone, two-speed Europe, UK