"It’s always dangerous to poke an angry bear", or Why Russia Sanctions are not likely to work

This article doesn't have a date on it, I think it may have been written before the current sanctions by Congress, but the reasoning seems just a valid now:

Why Sanctions Against Russia Might Backfire

[...] Is the hope that his friends will threaten to boot him out of office if he doesn’t shape up? One analyst recently claimed that Putin could be ousted easily, arguing that his replacement might be someone like Kudrin. But this neglects an important element of what holds Putin’s networks together: the pact of KGB loyalty. Many of the targeted individuals have past employment in, or suspected connections with, the KGB or its follow-on organization, the FSB (Federal Security Service). Putin, a career KGB officer and former head of the FSB, has repeatedly shown he can use FSB methods and tradecraft to harass his opponents, for example by releasing compromising materials (kompromat) that lead to their prosecution and imprisonment. He would certainly use those skills and connections to punish anyone who defects from his own team. Since many of his associates are reputed billionaires, they can afford to lose quite a bit of money before taking the enormous personal risk of betraying Putin and his KGB friends.

And the sanctions seem almost designed to enrage Putin personally, since they hit his personal networks so closely. The hope can’t have been that this would put him in a compromising mood. Is it instead that they will provoke him toward more aggression, leading him to miscalculate and increase his ultimate losses? Russia has already backed off some of its Western food-import counter-sanctions, because Putin’s original policy underestimated Russian dependence on specialty items like lactose-free milk, seed stock and salmon produced in Europe.

But it’s always dangerous to poke an angry bear. In recent months Putin has begun to encourage a conspiracy-mongering form of anti-Western nationalism. It’s impossible to know whether he and his cronies actually believe this neo-Eurasianist ideology. But neo-Eurasian arguments fill state-sponsored Russian media, and variations of it are seeping into the writings of even mainstream diplomatic analysts in Moscow. The West is blamed for denigrating Russia throughout history as backwards and wrong-headed, denying Russia its rightful place simply because its culture is different from Europe’s. In the 1990s, the story goes, the West tried to transform Russia in its own image, denying Russia’s separate identity and stealing its resources. Neo-Eurasianism rejects Western values of democracy, liberal tolerance, and individual rights. It argues instead for the superiority of a uniquely Russian communal and statist culture.

Ukraine matters, from this point of view, because Kiev was the medieval birthplace of Russia’s unique civilization, and now Ukraine’s eastern regions form a cultural buffer against the encroaching and degenerate West. Of course the West wants to stop Putin—his actions are rolling back Western influence. The sanctions bolster Eurasianist claims that the West has always persecuted Russia. They can be portrayed as another feeble attempt to demonstrate Western superiority.

Rather than pushing Putin toward accommodation, his cronies might push him toward nationalist extremism, to ensure their own continuing relevance in this new environment that Putin himself unleashed. The tilt toward extremism is already underway. [...]

Read the whole thing, for links and more. Also, there is the energy angle:

How U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Could Backfire

[...] France and Germany—the de facto, if often irreconcilable, leaders of the European Union—illustrate how Russian energy can shape foreign policy. France may rely heavily on foreign energy, but most of its oil and natural gas comes from Algeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Libya—not Russia. France can therefore afford to be more aggressive and supportive of sanctions against Russia.

Not so with Germany, which receives 57 percent of its natural gas and 35 percent of its crude oil from Russia. Berlin must therefore tread lightly between its primary security benefactor, the U.S., and its primary source of energy, Russia.

This is one reason Germany has been such an outspoken critic of the recent U.S. sanctions, which penalize businesses in any country that collaborate or participate in joint ventures with Russian energy firms. Germany supports the construction of Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that would run through the Baltic Sea, circumventing Ukraine—the transit state through which Germany currently receives much of its energy imports. The pipeline would help to safeguard German energy procurement, since it would allow Russia to punish Ukraine by withholding shipments of natural gas without punishing countries such as Germany further downstream. [...]

The Russia hysteria has to stop. Time for the Dems to face facts about losing the election; they ran a weak candidate. It was hers to lose, and she lost it. Deal with it.

These new sanctions are being seen as the U.S. using the Russia excuse to snatch market share in European Oil and Gas markets. It's going too far, we should back off.

     

Brexit: Could it break up the UK?

That is just one of many concerns:

Could the UK hold another Brexit vote?

London (CNN)The UK made a historic decision to leave the European Union on Thursday -- but has so far hesitated on pulling the trigger to go.

Now questions are being asked as to whether it has to happen. Here are the scenarios in the conversation. [...]

The whole article is worth reading, but this may be the most relevant point:

[...] In Scotland -- where 62% of voters cast a ballot to remain in the EU -- Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has suggested the devolved Scottish Parliament could attempt to veto a Brexit.

She also said Scotland could pursue a second referendum on leaving the United Kingdom in the event of a Brexit. Scots voted by 55.3% to stay in the UK at an earlier referendum in 2014.

Similarly, in Northern Ireland, where 56% of voters want to remain in the EU, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has called for a poll on a united Ireland.

Cameron said Monday that Scotland's Parliament did not have the legal power to veto the referendum result, a position backed by Mark Elliott, professor of public law at the University of Cambridge.

As Elliott explains in a blog post, this is because the UK Parliament in Westminster is sovereign, and has not given away any of its powers to devolved legislatures like those in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

But Jo Murkens, an associate professor of law at the London School of Economics, argues that while Scotland and Northern Ireland may lack the legal power to veto a Brexit, the threat of the breakup of the UK presented a "political and moral" veto.

It is incumbent on Westminster MPs -- who were not just there to "implement the view of the people," but to "exercise political judgment" -- to block the Brexit to prevent the fracturing of the kingdom, he told CNN.

"It's not 52 percent to 48 percent -- it's 2 to 2," said Murkens. "Two nations have voted to remain and two nations have voted to leave. And if the overriding objective is to keep the United Kingdom together and intact, then MPs have a duty to read this referendum result differently and say in order to preserve the UK we will not leave the EU."

Pro-Remain MPs outnumber Leave backers in the House of Commons by about 3 to 1.

Armstrong agreed that the sentiments in Scotland and Northern Ireland could play a major role in how Britain's political class navigates its way out of the crisis.

"Once that politics starts to play out a bit more, and it becomes clear that it's not just a case of the UK withdrawing from the European Union but the UK itself falling apart, that again may crystallize minds in terms of what the future looks like," he said. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links and video. It will be... interesting to see how this unfolds. I think that the powers that be will not be in a rush to break up the UK. How they will avoid it, is another question. I expect there will be a lot of negotiating and compromising attempted, but who can say where it will lead to? Time will tell.

     

Political shifts in Europe

Right Wing’s Surge in Europe Has the Establishment Rattled

[...] All over, established political forces are losing ground to politicians whom they scorn as fear-mongering populists. In France, according to a recent opinion poll, the far-right National Front has become the country’s most popular party. In other countries — Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands — disruptive upstart groups are on a roll.

This phenomenon alarms not just national leaders but also officials in Brussels who fear that European Parliament elections next May could substantially tip the balance of power toward nationalists and forces intent on halting or reversing integration within the European Union.

“History reminds us that high unemployment and wrong policies like austerity are an extremely poisonous cocktail,” said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and a Social Democrat. “Populists are always there. In good times it is not easy for them to get votes, but in these bad times all their arguments, the easy solutions of populism and nationalism, are getting new ears and votes.”

In some ways, this is Europe’s Tea Party moment — a grass-roots insurgency fired by resentment against a political class that many Europeans see as out of touch. The main difference, however, is that Europe’s populists want to strengthen, not shrink, government and see the welfare state as an integral part of their national identities.

The trend in Europe does not signal the return of fascist demons from the 1930s, except in Greece, where the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn has promoted openly racist beliefs, and perhaps in Hungary, where the far-right Jobbik party backs a brand of ethnic nationalism suffused with anti-Semitism.

But the soaring fortunes of groups like the Danish People’s Party, which some popularity polls now rank ahead of the Social Democrats, point to a fundamental political shift toward nativist forces fed by a curious mix of right-wing identity politics and left-wing anxieties about the future of the welfare state.

“This is the new normal,” said Flemming Rose, the foreign editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. “It is a nightmare for traditional political elites and also for Brussels.”

The platform of France’s National Front promotes traditional right-wing causes like law and order and tight controls on immigration but reads in parts like a leftist manifesto. It accuses “big bosses” of promoting open borders so they can import cheap labor to drive down wages. It rails against globalization as a threat to French language and culture, and it opposes any rise in the retirement age or cuts in pensions.

Similarly, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam leader of the Party for Freedom, has mixed attacks on immigration with promises to defend welfare entitlements. “He is the only one who says we don’t have to cut anything,” said Chris Aalberts, a scholar at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and author of a book based on interviews with Mr. Wilders’s supporters. “This is a popular message.”

Mr. Wilders, who has police protection because of death threats from Muslim extremists, is best known for his attacks on Islam and demands that the Quran be banned. These issues, Mr. Aalberts said, “are not a big vote winner,” but they help set him apart from deeply unpopular centrist politicians who talk mainly about budget cuts. The success of populist parties, Mr. Aalberts added, “is more about the collapse of the center than the attractiveness of the alternatives.” [...]

Well,they ain't the Tea Party. Wasn't it Margret Thatcher who said, "The problem with Socialists is, they inevitably run out of other people's money to spend". It's a reality that a growing majority of people seem unwilling to face. I'm not even saying they shouldn't be socialists. I'm saying, everyone needs a budget, NO ONE can spend more money than they have, without continually borrowing until they get into serious deep trouble. That's not politics, it's MATH. And common sense.

     

German cartoon explains "Inflation Monster"

I heard about this on a segment of NPR, and decided to look up the cartoon. Most of the names in the credits at the end seem to be German. The Germans know a lot about hyper-inflation, because it destroyed their currency in the 1920s, with devastating consequences, so it's not surprising that they want to teach about that danger to the rest of the EU.

This cartoon is also promoting the European Central Bank. It makes them seem ever-so reasonable, working to contain inflation and deflation. But I have to wonder about all Central Banks everywhere. Are the problems they are working to contain, problems that they created in the first place? Like printing too much money and debasing the currency? Some of the comments that were made on the Youtube page, posted beneath the video, offer food for thought:

ECB Inflation Monster Cartoon

[...]

Propaganda doesn't have to be lies. But it's subtly implying that the ECB is actually good for europe...

[...]

its not propaganda everything is true what it says but the ecb isnt explaining why they printed 1000 billion euros for the banks last year in this cartoon

[...]

That's a great question. Greenspan "talked" free market capitalism. The problem is, the Federal Reserve is NOT part of a free market. Controlling the price and amount of money (interest rates and inflation) is NOT free markets. A free market hasn't really been tried since 1913. It's a fallacy to say what we have today is a free market, when a central bank controls the money supply, along with government access to that "unlimited" supply, and while government is in partnership with big business.

[...]

This video is very misleading. Keynesian economics and central banking is now being proven out that it doesn't work! Free market economics (also known as the Austrian school of economics) is the way to prosperity for all! Also, deflation is a natural occurrence as technology increases and the cost of making things goes down, which is good for everyone!

[...]

This is banking propaganda rubbish. You don't need to fight off these "monsters" if you have "real" money, like silver or gold. A central bank is justified in existence because governments want to be able to spend without restraints, and big corporations want cheap loans from the central bank. That's why we get these freaking boom and busts!

[...]

So how does the Stockmarket feed this "Inflation Monster" thingy? With Futures and Futures of Futures leading to Concealed Inflation (4:54), once profits are cashed out of the Casino Stockmarket scene, and real world business become commodities, along with real estate, the Inflation Monster looks like Punch in a Judy show run by the "Stockmarket Index" monster, and Oliver twists in his grave, by Dickens!

[...]

Related Links:

Commentary: Stimulate the economy, not government

What would a U.S. currency collapse look like?

Argentina's Example: Are we heading there?

Our true national debt: $130,000,000,000,000.

The Literal High Price (or prices!) of QE3

Has US Currency already "collapsed"?

"The psychological pain will be much greater than the Great Depression, even though the physical conditions will be much better."

     

Spain: caught between a rock and a hard place

Spain: A Political Risk Analysis

Spain is in the throes of the worst economic crisis in its recent history. Reeling from the collapse of a debt-driven construction boom, Spain entered recession in the second quarter of 2008 and posted six consecutive quarters of negative growth. Although the economy grew by 0.1 percent during the first quarter of 2010, Spain’s growth prospects are poor and any pick-up could be short lived.

Spanish GDP fell 3.6 percent in 2009, and a package of harsh austerity measures announced since then will undermine any economic recovery during the foreseeable future. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says there will be no positive GDP growth in Spain until 2011, at which point it will still be below 1 percent. The Spanish Finance Ministry on May 20 said it now predicts a 0.3 percent contraction in 2010. It also cut the forecast for Spanish growth in 2011 to 1.3 percent from 1.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Spain now has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. More than 20 percent of working-age Spaniards (or 4.6 million people) were without a job during the first quarter of 2010. That compares with an average rate of 10 percent among the 16 countries that use the euro currency. Persistently high unemployment presents an obvious threat to political stability in Spain.

As unemployment soars, Spain is also facing an exploding budget deficit. The collapse of the labor market, which has resulted in a steep drop in tax collections, and the Socialist government’s spendthrift policy response of increasing unproductive public sector stimulus spending skyrocketed the deficit to 11.4 percent of GDP in 2009 (or five times higher than in 2008).

The combination of negative GDP growth, rising unemployment, and a high deficit has raised concerns about the sustainability of Spain’s finances. Indeed, two international ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, have recently lowered Spain’s long-term sovereign credit rating, citing the risk of a prolonged period of below-par economic growth and persistently high fiscal deficits.

The downgrades will make it more expensive for Spain to finance its debt, and increase concerns over Spain’s overall creditworthiness. Indeed, investors anxious that a debt crisis in Greece could create a domino effect in Spain are already demanding higher interest rates to hold Spanish debt.

Although Spain’s problems have been known for years, concerns about the Spanish economy were thrust into the international spotlight in January 2010, when noted New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said Spain posed a major threat to the stability of the European single currency. Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Roubini warned: “If Greece goes under, that’s a problem for the eurozone. If Spain goes under, it’s a disaster.”

A debt crisis in Spain would make the problems in Greece look tame by comparison. At €1.3 trillion, the Spanish economy is more than four times the size of Greece’s. (While Greece represents about 2.5 percent of eurozone GDP, Spain accounts for about 11.5 percent.) Spain is also the fourth-largest economy in the 16-nation euro zone, the eighth-largest in the OECD, and the tenth-largest in the world. Many analysts believe Spain is simply too big to be bailed out, and that a Spanish default would almost certainly lead to the breakup of the euro zone.

Fearing for the future of the euro, the European Union and the IMF have put intense pressure on Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to implement a series of austerity measures aimed at bringing the public deficit down to a eurozone limit of three percent of GDP. [...]

Read on to see the many reasons why that can't happen. The current government won't survive if they do what they need to, but if they don't do it...
     

Switzerland: a role model for everyone?

Only One Country Meets EU Criteria. It Is Not In EU

[...] Does any European country meet fully the EU’s criteria for membership? No, even Germany does not. By now, you have probably guessed that the list is likely to be as short as an amputated poodle’s tail is. “No one” would be an answer that sounds well. True it is not. But that allegation, too, would be wrong. Switzerland is the one country that meets the criteria.

The problem with this exception is that the only country in the center of the EU that surrounds it and that is stubbornly a non-member, is Switzerland. Could one say that the situation is a surprise? Not necessarily. Is it proper to state that her finances are sound although she is not a member? Hardly. The best fitting explanation is that Switzerland is OK because she is, regardless of being maligned, cajoled, pushed and extorted, not part of the EU. [...]

If a "European" model of government is going to be used by anyone, wouldn't it make sense to use a model that works well in real life? Switzerland may not be perfect (what country is?), but it's fiscally solvent, and it was smart enough not to join the EU. They're doing something right.


Also see: What can the Swiss teach us?

     

Germany Exercises it's Political Muscles

Germany Awakes. Rules of the Game Are Changing in Europe

[...] Germany is refusing to bail out Greece. Earlier this week, Chancellor Merkel told the Bundestag that Greece should be expelled from the eurozone if its financial problems risk dragging the euro down. France and the European Commission in Brussels reacted furiously to this suggestion. Barroso dismissed Merkel’s words as “absurd.” Paris and Brussels insist that the EU come to the financial rescue of Athens. Since most of the money for a rescue operation will have to come from Germany, however, such a decision cannot be taken without Berlin’s approval.

Bullying Berlin does not seem to be a clever move. Merkel’s Bundestag declaration followed shortly after Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos had accused the Germans of exploiting the Greek debt crisis for their own financial and economic benefit. “By speculating on Greek bonds at the expense of your friend and partner, by allowing [German] credit institutions to participate in this deplorable game, some people are making money,” the Greek Socialist said. “A cheap euro makes the south of Europe suffer, while German exports benefit.”

Last month, Pangalos had angered the Germans by demanding that Berlin pay reparations for Nazi crimes. “The Nazis took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece and they never gave it back,” he said. The German Foreign Ministry responded that in 1960 Germany paid Athens 115m German marks in compensation for the Nazi occupation and that “parallel to this, since 1960 Germany has paid around 33bn marks in aid to Greece both bilaterally and in the context of the EU.”

The Germans no longer accept being required to be the EU’s paymasters to atone for their Nazi past. There is also an increase in euroscepticism in German public opinion. While Germany introduced austerity measures and trimmed down its welfare system, countries such as Greece refused to do so, relying on the fact that the EU (read: Germany) would bail them out when they got in trouble in order to save the euro.

In Europe, the political rules of the game are changing. An editorial in Wednesday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Germany’s most influential newspaper, drew attention to the fact that “The biggest member state, which has for so long silently been the guarantee of the EU, has now openly expressed that it is no longer prepared to pay any price for European unification. The present Euro crisis is more than a monetary matter. … The image of [Germany as] the paymaster of Europe, the caricature of the Brussels bureaucracy, and the growing displeasure with the loss of [German] Sovereignty has shaped a eurosceptic fundamental sentiment, into which the Greek debacle has landed like a bomb. No German government today can afford to put the European interest before the German interest, especially not in core issues as monetary policy. And even if it tried, it can reckon on being opposed in the German Constitutional Court.” [...]

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel is making a state visit to Turkey:

Merkel tells Turkey EU talks 'open-ended'

ANKARA — German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkey Monday that its membership talks with the European Union did not guarantee accession and urged it to grant trade privileges to EU-member Cyprus.

"The rules of the game have changed" since Turkey first applied to become a member of the bloc five decades ago, Merkel said through an interpreter after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"The (accession) negotiations are an open-ended process. We should now pursue this open-ended process," she added, suggesting that Turkey's integration with the bloc does not have to be full membership.

Along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel remains one of the staunchest opponents of Turkey's bid to join the European Union, arguing that a vast, relatively poor country with a mainly Muslim 71-million population has no place in Europe.

She has instead proposed a "privileged partnership" between Turkey and the bloc, an alternative Ankara flatly rejects.

Merkel however stressed the immediate task for Ankara was to open its ports to vessels from Cyprus -- an EU member Ankara does not recognize -- under a customs union accord with the Union.

"The most important issue is the implementation of the protocol... We have to deal with the Cyprus issue. That would be to the benefit of us all," she said.

Turkey's refusal to grant trade privileges to Cyprus has led Brussels to freeze talks in eight of the 35 chapters that candidates must successfully negotiate prior to membership.

Since starting the talks in 2005, Turkey has so far succeeded in opening only 12 chapters.

Merkel also pushed Turkey on Iran, urging it to back Western allies in imposing a possible fresh set of sanctions over Tehran's suspect nuclear activities. [...]

She's pushing for quite a few things. Turkey is still voting against sanctions on Iran. Merkel has made an interesting concession, regarding Turkish schools in Germany. As for Cypress and the rest... it will be interesting to see if she gets anywhere.
     

Is the EU’s currency, the euro, in trouble?

Apparently the Euro is threatened, because of Spain and Greece:

The EU’s Horrible Honeymoon

[...] At this point Europe is not even halfway its 100-day political “honeymoon” since the Treaty of Lisbon, which transformed the EU into a state in its own right, came into force. So far the honeymoon has been a nightmare. Since the beginning of the year, the EU’s currency, the euro, is on the brink of collapse; Greece has been placed under EU financial supervision to prevent it from going bankrupt. Now U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that he will not attend next May’s EU summit in Madrid. It was to have been Obama’s first visit to post-Lisbon Europe – the consecration of the new political order.

[...]

Although Obama’s snub hurts Europe’s pride, the euro’s monetary problems are far more serious. They not only affect Europe’s finances and economy, but may also tear down the political EU framework. When the European Commission placed Athens under EU supervision last week, Greece was almost bankrupt. Brussels has forced the Greek government to present a plan to drastically reduce its budget deficit from 13% to 3% by the end of 2012. The plan will cost the Greeks blood, sweat and tears. It includes a freeze on civil service wages and the postponement of the retirement age. Brussels has invoked new EU powers under Article 121 of the Lisbon Treaty, which allow it to reshape the structure of Greece’s pensions, healthcare, labor market and private commerce.

“The envisaged correction of the deficit is feasible but subject to risks,” says EU Commission President Barroso – an understatement. The Commission fears a backlash from the Greek unions, who might organize strikes and bring down the Greek government. Trade unions in other countries are nervous, too. They warn that it is unacceptable that the European Commission intervenes in setting national wages.

The EU’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia declared that the Greek targets will be enforced strongly and that, if necessary, even more draconian measures will be taken. “Every time we see or perceive slippages, we will ask for additional measures to correct these slippages. Never before have we established so detailed and tough a system of surveillance,” Almunia said. He has demanded quarterly updates on progress towards reduction targets, as well as a first report on 16 March. “This is the first time,” he said, “we have established such an intense and quasi-permanent system of monitoring.”

Much is at stake. In the coming weeks, the strength of the euro will depend on whether the markets believe that the government in Athens is strong enough to implement the reforms or trust that the other eurozone countries will bail out the Greeks. This year the eurozone governments have already borrowed a record €110bn from the markets, thereby forcing up the cost of borrowing for countries with the weakest public finances, such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy.

[...]

Even if the situation in Greece can be stabilized, the EU’s nightmare is far from over. The next eurozone dominos that might fall are Portugal and Spain. Portugal’s deficit reached 9.3% of GDP last year, Spain’s 11.4%. [...]

The article describes how there is a great deal of resistance to the idea of "bailing out" Greece, and that Greece may even be "excluded from the Eurozone" before a bailout were allowed to happen, although such an exclusion would contravene the laws of the EU.

But worse still, is the threat of Spain's financial collapse. It has the fourth largest economy in the EU. If it fails, it will be devastating for the EU.

     

Herman Van Rompuy, the E.U. King President

Meet the President of Europe

Herman Van Rompuy. Get used to the name. He is the first President of the European Union, which with the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by all the 27 EU member states in early November was transformed into a genuine United States of Europe.

The President of Europe has not been elected; he was appointed in a secret meeting of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. They chose one of their own. Herman Van Rompuy was the Prime Minister of Belgium. I knew him when he was just setting out, reluctantly, on his political career. [...]

Read the rest to find out what kind of person the new "president" is.

     

Czech President caves, signs Lisbon Treaty

He was the last hold out, but the Czech President caved in to the pressure being put upon him:

Leviathan Is Born: The Annexation of Europe by Brussels

On November 3rd 2009, at 3 pm local time, the Czech Republic ceased to exist as a sovereign state when Vaclav Klaus, its president, put his signature under the Treaty of Lisbon. The Czech Republic was the last of the 27 member states of the European Union to ratify the treaty which turns the EU into a genuine state to which it members states are subservient.

Klaus had delayed signing the document for as long as he could.

[...]

Now, with Mr. Klaus’s signature, the game has drawn to its close and a treaty, so despised by the people that it was never put to them, has turned 500 million Europeans into citizens of a genuine supranational European State which is empowered to act as a State vis-à-vis other States and its own citizens. The EU will have its own President, Foreign Minister, diplomatic corps and Public Prosecutor. Henceforward, the only remaining sovereign power of any significance in Europe is Russia. Apart from Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the EU leviathan has a grip on every other nation, whose national parliaments are, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, obliged to “contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union,” i.e. further primarily the interests of the new Union, rather than those of their own people.

The new European superstate, however, is not a democracy. It has an elected parliament, but the European Parliament has no legislative powers, nor does it control the EU’s executive bodies. The latter, who also have legislative power overriding national legislation, are made up of “commissioners.” These are appointed by the governments of the member states (although no longer with one commissioner per member state, as was the case so far, but with a total number capped at two-thirds of the number of member states). The EU is basically a cartel, consisting of the 27 governments of the member states, who have concluded that it is easier to pass laws in the secret EU meetings with their colleagues than through their own national parliaments in the glare of public criticism.

[...]

The formal decision about who will become President and High Commissioner will be taken in late November. As the wheeling and dealing – all of it behind closed doors so that the people will not know – continues, it is not certain yet that Herman Van Rompuy will emerge as Europe’s first president. It is, however, not a coincidence that a Belgian seems the most likely candidate. Belgium is a supranational state, constructed by the European powers in 1830 and made up of two different nations, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. As such, Belgium, whose capital Brussels also happens to be the EU’s capital, serves as a model for the EU in its attempt to build a supranational state out of the continent’s different nations.

Like EU politics, Belgian politics is characterized by a lack of transparency, unaccountability, corporatism and a willingness to bend the democratic rules and legal procedures so as to allow the political establishment to proceed with their own project and secure the survival of a state which is unloved by its citizens but provides the livelihood of the ruling elites. What Vaclav Klaus calls “Europeism” is the application of Belgicism, the doctrine underpinning the Belgian state, on the European level. [...]

Read the whole thing, to see what the Czech President had to say about the end of Czech sovereignty, and what to expect from all of this.


Also see:

Without Opposition: the European Union
     

Will the EU force Britain to accept the Euro?

Is an attempt being made to split the Anglo-American Alliance, by collapsing the dollar? Connect the dots. From two separate articles:

France Condemns Czech President Over EU Treaty

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy criticised Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Thursday for failing to sign the European Union's Lisbon Treaty and said there would be repercussions unless he fell into line quickly.

In an interview with Le Figaro newspaper, Sarkozy also said the fact that Britain had not adopted the euro single currency would make it difficult for former Prime Minister Tony Blair to become president of the 27-nation bloc.

[...]

Some European leaders, including Sarkozy himself, have suggested Blair would be a strong candidate, but a number of smaller countries have come out against the British politician and the French president sounded doubtful about his chances.

"The fact that Great Britain is not in the euro remains a problem," Sarkozy said.

As the US dollar continues to weaken, euro and the yen have surpassed the dollar as the favored currency by central banks:

The demise of the dollar

[...] Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

Well I really doubt there will be an invasion this time. Europe wanted a weaker America, so they can advance their own plans. It looks like they are getting what they wanted. But how far will it go, and at what cost to us? Hastening the collapse of the dollar, to force Britain to accept the Euro as their currency?

Note I said "hastening", not causing. The causes for the weakening dollar have more to do with the actions of our own government, than anyone else. How long before it's too late to turn that around? Or is it already too late?

     

Ireland has 2nd vote on Lisbson Treaty

I hope they vote "no" yet again [See update below, the vote is "Yes"]:

On Friday Ireland Decides Europe’s Future

This Friday, the Irish people are again being asked to sign away their sovereignty and freedom to the European Union authorities in Brussels. When the matter was put before them in a referendum in 2008, the Irish voted “No.” Now they have been told to vote again on the same matter. Ireland is the only country of the 27 EU member states where the people are allowed a direct vote about their future. In the other 26 countries which together with Ireland make up the European Union, the governments – not the people – have already decided to transfer national sovereignty to Brussels.

The EU leaders want Ireland to vote “yes.” They are intent on forcing the Irish to vote again and again until they say “yes.” In the past weeks, politicians from all over Europe, including Ireland’s own government ministers, have been threatening the Irish people that a second “No”-vote will have serious economic repercussions, although it has not been specified what these repercussions will be.

The referendum this Friday is Ireland’s second referendum in two years on the European Union’s 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In June 2008, the Irish voted “No” and rejected the treaty. The fact that the Irish are being forced to hold a second referendum on the matter, is indicative of the nature of the EU and the way in which it “consults” its people. The EU is in the habit of giving recalcitrant populations another go if initially they fail to see that what the EU’s leaders have decided for them is best for them.

Had the Irish voted “yes” last year, they would not have been given a chance to change their minds. However, as the EU does not take “No” for an answer, the EU authorities have pressured the Irish government to make them vote again. Polls suggest that this time Ireland might vote “yes.” The Irish government and most of Ireland’s political parties are intimidating the people, warning them that if they say “no” again, Ireland will miss its date with history and isolate itself in Europe. Yet, the Irish are a proud and freedom-loving people and might live up to their ancient tradition of standing up to foreign domination. Many Europeans, including many English, are hoping that Ireland will be true to itself and defy Brussels as it once defied London. In Britain, Gordon Brown’s government had Parliament ratify the Lisbon treaty, despite the opposition of the British people.

Much is at stake in Ireland on Friday, because the Lisbon treaty is not an ordinary treaty. [...]

Read the whole thing for the details about what is at stake.


Related Links:

Will Sarkozy force Ireland to vote again?

Ireland votes "no" on EU superstate


UPDATE 10-03-09:

Ireland Votes Yes for European President

LONDON, Oct. 3 -- Henry Kissinger once famously asked, "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" The answer, thanks to the Irish, may soon be the president of Europe.

Results from a referendum in Ireland indicate that voters there have removed the single greatest barrier to region-wide adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, which would further integrate the European Union -- the world's largest political and economic alliance encompassing almost 500 million people in 27 countries.

The treaty would also create a new full-time E.U. president and secretary of state, more closely linking the region's foreign policies and affording the alliance new clout on the world stage.

Irish voters rejected the treaty in a vote last year. But reassured that the European Union would not demand changes to their abortion laws or military neutrality, Irish switched gears in a second referendum Friday. Early returns released Saturday indicate a clear victory for the yes campaign.

"The Irish people have spoken with a clear and resounding voice," Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who lead the charge for the treaty's approval, said in a statement to reporters in Dublin. "It is a good day for Ireland, and a good day for Europe."

The results illustrate how the global financial crisis has forced hard-hit nations like Ireland to find new value in their E.U. membership, reenergizing a project in cross-border governance that some said would never work.

The about-face, analysts say, appeared to be driven at least in part by fear. [...]

Read the rest to see why.