After the end of the Cold War we had a number of conflicts with the direct participation of NATO countries, wars and “peace missions” that hardly got any real winner. USA and its allies won every battle on the field but how many of this wars gave us a better world?
At the very last moment a plan has been approved in order to save Cyprus from bankrupcy. Why am I not surprised? A few days ago I write another about this situation, the basic idea was to stigmatize that ten billion Euro are small money if we consider the hundreds of billions (or maybe the thousands) Euro already used to save other countries and/or their major banks.
Cyprus is not the real problem about Eurozone, nor it’s the worst place to consider when it comes to bad finance all aroud Europe. What is Cyprus today? A symbol. It’s a slap in the face of russian oligarchs, who used for years this small island to practice money laundering on a massive scale. It’s a slap in the face of a number of financial operators who used the fiscal laws of Cyprus to pay the lowest tax cut possible in Europe. It’s a warning, a strong one, to Malta (and thru Malta to the UK).
What Cyprus is today it’s a warning to all of us european citizens. The decision to drag a percentile of bank deposits, no matter how much, it’s not only a financial measure made by a scared government but the demonstration that under the combinate pressure of ECB, IMF and WB there are very few chances to escape their decisions. In Italy we already experienced such a fate, back in the ’90s. In order to get enough money to pay the interests on our national debt the government got a small cut, 6 part on one thousand, from every bank account.
So, what about tomorrow? What France will do later this year when the pressure of foreign investors will try to crush its economy? What Slovenia will do next month to lift the pressure of a compromised economy?
The whole mechanism of austerity, enforced in Europe in the last two years, shows now its many cracks. Last Friday (March, 1st) the Bundesrat in Germany blocks the application of the Fiscal Compact due to its economic weight, demanding 3.5 Euro billions in compensation from the federal state. The Bundesrat, that’s under control of SPD-Grunen, opposes PM Merkel and finance minister Schauble decision to put national economy under constriction to reach budget targets for 2013.
This year will be held general elections in Germany and the fiscal issues are one of the major battlefields for the campaign to come. CDU-CSU, Merkel’s party, loses most part of the local elections in 2012 and the leaders of the party are expecting the worst in the months to come. Economics will be the leading argument almost everywhere this year and new formations like “Alternative for Germany” are already speaking aloud about to set a stop to any form of debt financing from Germany and to reset the borders of Eurozone.
In the meantime there are very important demonstrations thru Europe. That’s from Slovenia, a country that’s on the brink of a major political crisis.
This one is from Bulgaria, where demonstrations topped national government a few days ago.
Finally we got Greece, a country that’s on the edge of a full-out revolution any time soon.
Got the pictures? Add to the list Serbia, Spain and Italy. Keep an eye on Hungary, another country that’s ready to blow under its right-wing government. Think about Romania and Moldova too, their financial problems are getting worse day by day.
Austerity is not an answer, not even a little one, in the face of a crisis like this one. Time to set back the clock and rethink the whole situation, before it’s too late.
Angelo Benuzzi 