Crisis, Globalization and Unpredictability…The Euromoney index…Now we have this mess…Greek debt: 175

For Spain, Greece, and other Member States, the financial crisis demands growth and facilitation of employability. The fact that Germany is standing in the way of Spain and Greece’s growth is hypocritical, as is their demanding nature regarding serious austerity measures…At the moment, the European Union has transformed Greece into Sisyphus, stubbornly compelling it to push the boulder of austerity up a steep mountain, only to watch without success as it rolls back down. What Greece needs the EU to concretely represent Odysseus and use inventive tactics and strategies in order to lead them to safety. The Greeks’ needs cannot respond to the severe austerity measures, and therefore the governance system of the EMU must take political action so as to resolve its inadequacies...

Although Greece might now have a basic extra monetary plan, it still has a formal loan repayment plan to make in 2015 on its debt that now totals 175% of GDP. Additionally, Greece is susceptible to continue its bank deposits…Greek finance minister Varoufakis is right when he says that all this help was useless since Greece’s rate of unemployment now is more than twice as large as five years ago and also because the Greek state is bankrupt…The EMU needs a heroic change in policies and instruments. Unfortunately, the EU has been catastrophic as far as the policies are concerned, indicating that it has not learned from the past. In fact, policies are put into effect with the goal of keeping the crisis within the countries that have caused it (given that Germany has control over negotiations)...

Perhaps more crucial, though, is the much-debated political restructuring of EU policies and institutions. Precarious though it may seem, without an expansion of the EU’s competences within the social field, any social objective will remain simply declaratory. EU social policy should no longer be conceived as a functional necessity of economic integration but as an autonomous competence based on criteria of distributive justice. EU competences in the social policy field need to evolve from the regulatory status to the redistributive status through the reintroduction of political and legal control over competition in order to enhance the well-being of society; if serving society’s interest is still considered to be a valued end in itself…Politicians will have to make unpalatable choices…Perhaps sharing of the weight necessitates a combination of options: transfers, moderate deflation in the South, more inflation in Germany, and temporary exits, facilitated by substantial debt relief. If the ECB stopped “fishing” savings capital from north to south and stopped following it’s whatever it takes philosophy, markets would by themselves bring the necessary realignment by inflating the northern European countries…Let the Keynesians dream their ideological dreams, and let the rest of us turn to the real problem…

Putin has shown that he is a threat to the peaceful international social structure in Europe. While the East might not have to fear a military confrontation with Russia, Putin’s regime has been successful in sustaining localized forms of conflicts in neighbouring countries in order to expand the Kremlin’s influence…Putin may be gambling that the European Union will not continue to support official approvals. That would appear a risky bet, especially with regard to the strong leadership by Angela Merkel. An economy in recession will leave Russia in a weaker position to follow its goals in Ukraine and otherwise challenge the West…While NATO is making new plans for a stronger Eastern European presence, chronic underfunding by its members means that, unless the Obama Administration foots the bill, such an expansion simply won’t be achieved…