NEWS, 09.06.2012.

Politics of populism

 

HOW many countries will Germany need to bail out before it has erased the guilt of the Holocaust? That is the provocative question posed by Thilo Sarrazin, a publicity-hungry maverick whose 2010 book attacking immigration shattered Germany's political consensus and sold more than 1 million copies. Recently he returned to the scene of the crime with a new book called Why Europe Doesn't Need the Euro. In a much-quoted passage, he says supporters of eurobonds are driven "by that very German reflex according to which atonement for the holocaust and the world wars will never be complete until we have delivered our entire public interest, and even our money, into European hands". This title has raced to the top of best-seller lists and sent jittery markets into panic. Sarrazin is a narcissist who is more interested in self-promotion than serious analysis. But his views on Europe as well as the political class' reaction to them tell us a lot about how the euro's political travails have come about, as well as how they are likely to unfold.An opinion poll last week provides just the latest proof that Sarrazin has his finger on the national pulse: over half of Germans think their country has suffered by joining the euro, while 79% reject eurobonds as a solution to the crisis. Sarrazin  a former regional politician and Bundesbank governor who was stripped of his official positions because of his views on immigration is not a man to do things by halves. His book breaks not one but two German taboos by linking Holocaust guilt with questions about the sustainability of the euro. (It is designed to be a refutation of Angela Merkel's argument that the breakup of the euro would lead to the breakup of the EU.)
But although  or rather because  Sarrazin is so good at mirroring public opinion, the German political establishment is falling over itself to bury his arguments: Peer Steinbrueck, the former finance minister (and possible candidate for chancellor), described it as "bullshit", while the current Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaueble, described it as "appalling nonsense".The antics of Thilo Sarrazin are a product of the constrained, elitist nature of German politics where after the experience of National Socialism many topics are declared outside the realm of political competition. As a result, all mainstream parties are in favour of Europe, the euro and the Atlantic alliance, and against war, inflation and nationalism. The result is a restricted political sphere where politicians have often been able to act against public opinion without fear of challenge including the decision to replace the über-popular Deutsch mark with the strikingly unpopular euro. But those who dare cross the threshold of political correctness as Sarrazin has repeatedly done tap into a vast reservoir of pent-up popular frustration. And because the establishment cartel turns them into outcasts rather than arguing with their views, this reservoir continues to grow.What is worrying is that Germany's leaders are now trying to treat foreign politicians who question German orthodoxy the same way they treat their own populists. When I was last in Berlin, I asked one of Merkel's aides what he thought her greatest achievements during the crisis were. He replied: "We could teach the neocons a thing or two about regime change." He may have been joking, but the brutal way that Merkel and Sarkozy used markets to topple Berlusconi and Papandreou has been replicated in the treatment of other leaders. First, Angela Merkel tried to dismiss Francois Hollande  not simply saying she disagreed with his views on the fiscal compact but refusing to meet him during the election campaign (the implication since the election is that it is all right to campaign in French, so long as you govern in German). And now they are trying to turn Alexis Tsirpas the firebrand leader of the Greek anti austerity Syriza party into a non person. A chorus of European politicians are trying to scare the living daylights out of the Greek people in the hope that the electorate will give a mandate to the mainstream New Democracy party, which had supported the bailout package. My hunch is that this approach is unlikely to deliver a mandate for New Democracy, and even if it succeeds, it could be undesirable. If European leaders want a sustainable deal that keeps Greece in the euro, they would do better to bind parties like Syriza into an agreement than to tie themselves to an ancien régime that has already lost much of its credibility.One of the ironies of the last few days is that Angela Merkel allegedly asked the Greek prime minister to call a referendum on whether Greece should stay in the euro. Back in December, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy forced George Papandreou out of office for suggesting just such a referendum. At the time, I believed that allowing the political process to unfold might have given Papandreou a mandate for standing by his agreements with the EU.However, by suspending the political process and imposing a technocratic government, Merkozy did lasting damage to the legitimacy of formal politics in Greece and has created the conditions for populism to flourish.The situation in Greece shows how Europe's technocratic tendency is leading to a strong populist backlash. The traditional "Monnet method"” of European integration  named after the French founder of the EU who tried to turn political issues into bureaucratic ones  has dramatically narrowed the political space in member states without creating any widening of the space for politics at a European level. Telling a politician such as Francois Hollande who has received a mandate to renegotiate the fiscal compact or Alexis Tsirpas in Greece that "there is no alternative" sends a terrible message to European publics: they can change governments but not policies. The markets have a legitimate fear that unless leaders take the necessary steps toward integration, the EU will collapse. But this approach of imposing rules on the grounds that there is no alternative in fact risks creating a full-blown rebellion, making it harder for countries such as Greece to undertake reforms.So far, Germany's willingness to bankroll the European project has kept the show on the road. But the most worrying feature of the Sarrazin story is that it shows how even in Germany, the power of pro European elites is challenged. The rise from nowhere of the Pirate Party  a ragbag collection of internet activists with no political programme to speak of that is now polling in double digits in some regional elections shows how fluid German politics has become. It is unlikely that the anti-charismatic Sarrazin will end up becoming the German equivalent of Holland's Geert Wilders or Austria’s Joerg Haider. But the refusal of mainstream politicians to make the case for European integration or to engage in full-throated political competition with their opponents could pave the way for someone equally undesirable to claim that mantle. It would be a tragic paradox if the German establishment's guilt over past extremism hampers its ability to overcome the populists of the future.

NEWS,19.01.2012.

In signal to Israel, US delays war games

The postponement of a massive joint United States-Israeli military exercise appears to be the culmination of a series of events that has impelled the Barack Obama administration to put more distance between the United States and aggressive Israeli policies toward Iran.
The exercise called "Austere Challenge 12" and originally scheduled for April, was to have been a simulation of a joint US-Israeli effort to identify, track and intercept incoming missiles by integrating sophisticated US radar systems with the Israeli Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome anti-missile defence systems. United States participation in such an exercise, obviously geared to a scenario involving an Iranian retaliation against an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, would have made the US out to be a partner of Israel in any war that would follow an Israeli attack on Iran.

Obama and US military leaders apparently decided that the US could not participate in such an exercise so long as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to give the administration any assurance that he would not attack Iran without prior approval from Washington. The official explanation from both Israeli and US officials about the delay was that both sides agreed on it. Both Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Mark Regev, spokesman for Netanyahu, suggested that it was delayed to avoid further exacerbation of tensions in the Gulf. The spokesman for the US European Command, Captain John Ross, and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Laura Rozen of Yahoo News on Sunday that the two sides had decided on the postponement to the second half of 2012 without offering any specific reason for it. However, Rozen reported on Monday that "several current and former American officials" had told her on Sunday that the delay had been requested last month by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. One official suggested privately that there was concern that the alleged Barak request could be aimed at keeping Israel's options open for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in the spring. But it would make little sense for Netanyahu and Barak to commit Israel to war with Iran before the shape of the US presidential election campaign had become clear. And Barak would want to have knowledge gained from the joint exercise in tracking and intercepting Iranian missiles with the US military before planning such a strike. Moreover, the Israeli Air Force was still touting the planned manoeuvres as recently as Thursday and, according to Israeli media, was taken by surprise by Sunday's announcement. 

The idea that the Israelis wanted the postponement appears to be a cover story to mask the political blow it represents to the Netanyahu government and to shield Obama from Republican charges that he is not sufficiently supportive of Israel. Nevertheless, the signal sent by the delay to Netanyahu and Barak, reportedly the most aggressive advocates of a strike against Iran in Israel's right-wing government, could hardly be lost on the two leaders.
Obama may have conveyed the decision to Netanyahu during what is said to have been a lengthy telephone discussion between the two leaders on Thursday night. Iran policy was one of the subjects Obama discussed with him, according to the White House press release on the conversation. The decision to postpone the exercise may have been timed to provide a strong signal to Netanyahu in advance of this week's visit to Israel by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Dempsey reportedly expressed grave concern at a meeting with Obama last autumn about the possibility that Israel intended to carry out a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities without consulting with Washington in advance.
Obama has been quoted as responding that he had "no say" in Israel's policy, much to Dempsey's dismay. The coincidence of the announced delay with Dempsey's mission thus suggests that the new military chief may inform his Israeli counterpart that any US participation in a joint exercise like "Austere Challenge 12" was contingent on Israel ending its implicit threat to launch an attack on Iran at a time of its own choosing.
This apparent rift between the two countries comes in the wake of a series of moves by Israel and its supporters here that appeared aimed at racketing up tensions between the US and Iran.
In November and December, US neo-conservatives aligned with Netanyahu's Likud Party and what is sometimes called the Israel lobby engineered legislation that forced on the Obama administration a unilateral sanctions law aimed at dramatically reducing Iranian crude oil exports and "collapsing" its economy. The administration's reluctant embrace of sanctions against the oil sector and the Iran's central bank led in turn to an Iranian threat to retaliate by closing off the Strait of Hormuz. The risk of a naval incident suddenly exploding into actual military conflict suddenly loomed large. Netanyahu and Barak are widely believed to have hoped to provoke such conflict with a combination of more aggressive sanctions, sabotaging Iranian missile and nuclear facilities, and assassinations against individual scientists associated with the nuclear program. Amid tensions already reaching dangerous heights, Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was assassinated in Tehran in a bombing on January 11. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor immediately condemned the assassination and vehemently denied any US involvement in that or any other violence inside Iran. It was the first time the US government had chosen to distance itself so dramatically from actions that mainstream media has generally treated as part of a joint US-Israeli policy.United States officials told the Associated Press on Saturday that Israel was considered responsible for the killing, and the London Times published a detailed account of what it said was an Israeli Mossad operation. 

The killing of the nuclear scientist also came in the context of what appears to be an intensification of diplomatic activity that most observers believe is designed to lay the groundwork for another "Iran Six" meeting (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany). It has been widely assumed for the past week or so that here another "Iran Six" meeting would be held with Iran by the end of this month or early next.
While recent published stories about Washington's communicating with Tehran through intermediaries stressed US warnings about its "red lines" in responding to any Iranian move to close the Strait of Hormuz, those same communications may also have conveyed greater diplomatic flexibility on the nuclear issue in the hope of achieving some progress toward an agreement. Mossad is believed to have assassinated at most a handful of Iranian nuclear scientists - not enough to slow down the Iranian program. And the timing of those operations has strongly suggested that the main aim has been to increase tensions with the United States and sabotage any possibility for agreement between Iran and the West on Iran's nuclear program, if not actually provoke retaliation by Iran that could spark a wider conflict.  The assassination of nuclear scientist Majid Shariari and attempted assassination of his colleague, Fereydoon Abbasi on November 29, 2010, for example, came just a few days after Tehran had reportedly agreed to hold a second meeting with the "Iran Six" in Geneva on December 6-7. A major investigative story published on Friday on the website foreignpolicy.com quoted former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials as saying that Mossad operatives had been impersonating CIA personnel for several years in recruiting for and providing support to the Sunni terrorist organization Jundallah, which operated inside Iran. That Israeli policy also suggested a desire to provoke Iranian retaliation against the United States.

10 years since the introduction of common currency

Euro happy birthday

Euro ended the year at the new minimum against the yen and the lowest level in 16 months against US dollar

Passes through a deep crisis

Unlike fireworks, lighting effects on bridges and cheering people in rows in front of ATMs, which marked the introduction of the euro at midnight the first January 2002. tenth anniversary of the common European currency passes without major ceremony, which indicates a deep crisis through which it passes.
Ten years later the word "euro" in the title usually goes with the word "crisis", so writes in a commentary in tajms list of New York (New York Times).
Political leaders are indicated in the New Year Message to the challenges faced in order to exit the economic crisis. In Brussels, there was no ceremony or press conference to mark the date. The approach followed by other countries to do the minimum - tomorrow will be the 17 countries that now use the euro out of the two-euro coin to mark the tenth anniversary.

In Frankfurt, European Central Bank on its website posted a short video to remind you of the benefits of the euro.
"During the past decade, the single currency has become a symbol of integration and cooperation in Europe," says the video is the President of the European Central Bank

Mr Mario Dragi.

"Despite the current challenges faced by Europe and world citizens in the euro zone can be assured that the ECB will remain faithful to its mandate to maintain price stability", has vowed to continue on.

Political leaders are indicated in the New Year Message to the challenges faced in order to exit the economic crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to assess the 2012 may be more difficult than the last difficult year that has passed the eurozone.

Starting from Greece two years ago, debt crisis has engulfed Portugal and Ireland, and now threatens all the countries in the eurozone although  plans for aid and European summits that have a one after one going on during the 2011

The first time is the question of survival of the common currency, according to AFP.

While it is expected that the government earlier this year en masse to seek additional funds in financial markets, Greece in January waiting for the difficult negotiations with the banks in order to reduce debts to them at half of which depends on the financial survivel of country.

Nearly two-thirds of French oppose the return of the franc, and the possible return of the coin would mean "hell" for Greece. Because of unwillingness from Germany "reached into her pocket," the eurozone has not been able to provide a sufficiently large pool of assistance witch could also help to more countries the size of Spain or Italy. The support of the IMF remains uncertain.

Europe is attempting to overcome the lapse that has existed in establishment monetary Union, which has been shown clearly in crisis, and that is lack of coordination of economic policy.

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Most European countries should in principle to sign an agreement in early March in the respect of certain fiscal rules.

Euro ended the year at the new minimum against the yen and the lowest level in 16 months against the dollar, although it is well above the value it had in relation to U.S. currency when it was introduced.

And despite all that almost two thirds of French oppose the return of the franc, and the possible return of the coin would mean "hell" for Greece, warned the governor of the Greece central bank Jorgos Provopulos.

13 billion marks another is still not change in Euro

On the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the euro, according to the German central bank, is still not changed another 13 billion marks.

Around 330 million people in 17 countries in the eurozone for the Jubilee will get a sort of gift - anniversary dime of two euro First of January 2002. In Germany and another 10 countries of the European Union has entered into use the common European currency - the euro. Ten years later, the euro zone has 17 states and seven countries of the EU plans to replace the national currency, the euro.

The circulation of 880 million euros, approximately 857 billion are paper money, 23 billion coins. Nearly 30 percent of the total amount of coins is in the German national coins, by about 16 percent of Spanish and French and 13 percent Italian.At least in circulation Slovenian, Estonian and Maltese euro coins, as well as those issued in San Marino (0.01 percent), Monaco (0.006) and the Vatican (0.004).

Around 330 million people in 17 countries in the eurozone for the Jubilee will get a sort of gift - anniversary dime of two euros with the same motives for all countries - differ only country name on the back.