Solving the crisis without the European Union?
José M. de Areilza
October 23, 2008
It is too early to know if the measures taken by governments everywhere will be enough to create confidence and solve the credit crisis. But what is already clear is that the EU has not been an important actor so far in the global attempt to rescue the system. Moreover, these past weeks national governments have used the EU to back national measures already taken by them, often in rivalry with each other. They have ignored largely EU institutions, EU procedures and norms and EU principles governing EMU and the internal market. Intergovermentalism and improvised directorates have prevailed over the “Community method”.
With Sarkozy at the helm and reconnecting with the worst French “dirigisme”, there is even talk in Europe about creating national Sovereign Wealth Funds to compete with the SWF’s from China, South East Asia, Russia or other oil countries, even though normally these funds are opaque, politicized and unaccountable structures, and do not meet very basic corporate governance standards. Sarkozy’s suggestion to stay as super-president of the Eurogroup -why not life tenure as Préfet of G-4?- is also a way to contest the legitimate right of the Czech Republic to hold the rotating presidency of the Council from January 1, 2009.
The worst of all is that the EU system of economic governance needs to be strengthened at least to offer common financial supervision and to speak with one voice on international monetary issues. But future transfers of power to the EU seems to be out of the question, after we have seen who and how we decide on the exceptional moment.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI | bookmark on del.icio.us.
Leave a comment
Advertencia de Protección de Datos:
Los datos personales capturados con ocasión de la utilización del formulario de comentarios (nombre/apodo, dirección de correo electrónico, sitio web y dirección IP), serán incluidos en un fichero del propietario del sitio web y se publicarán (excepto su dirección de correo electrónico y su dirección IP) en esta página con la finalidad de permitir opinar públicamente al lector, así como para en su caso contestar al comentario o consultas que formule. Podrá ejercitar sus derechos de acceso, de rectificación, de cancelación y de oposición en lo referido a dichos datos personales dirigiendo un correo electrónico a la dirección: datos.personales@blogeuropa.eu.
----
Privacy notice:
Please be informed that by using the comments form, your personal data (name/nickname, e-mail address, website and IP address), will be included in a file owned by the website proprietor and published along your comment (except for your e-mail and IP addresses), in order for the reader to publicly comment, as well as -should that be the case-, to respond to any comment or query that readers may have made. You will be able to exercise your rights to access, rectify, cancel and oppose such personal data by sending an e-mail to the following address: datos.personales@blogeuropa.eu.
I agree that Europe should be constitutionally capable of much more effective action, but an orgy of governmental (national) and intergovernmental actions and initiatives risks further damaging the European Union’s painfully slow march towards legitimate and accountable democratic governement and governance.
Even the European Parliament seems to have grasped these Caudillo-type initiatives as a last straw, totally fogetting that the EP is supposed to lay the foundations for a democratic EU.
But we have to ask, where has the European Commission been, and has it totally reversed into becoming a secretariat and a part of the commentariat?
Comment by Ralf Grahn — October 24, 2008 @ 10:05 am
I Think that The European Union Eastern expansion is causing a much more difficult kind of decission making. Too many actors.
Every decission made by the council or comission , is opposed by the EP ( not without reason) and now, there’s a lack of governance because of the (lack of?) Lisbon Treaty…
Comment by David Fernandez Mena — October 26, 2008 @ 8:27 pm