On April 22, 2017, the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Pier Carlo Padoan presented a briefing to the 25th Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF in Washington. He spoke on behalf of Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and the Republic of San Marino. This annual event examines the “macroeconomic outlook” of the nations in question and conditions the IMF policy approach for the year ahead. Padoan, an ardent pro-Eurozone supporter, told the gathering that in the last year, the Greek economy was recovering and that “GDP remained stable in 2016, while for the first time since 2010 two consecutive quarters of growth were reported”. I wonder what data he was looking at. The official national accounts data for Greece doesn’t tell that story. With Greece still wallowing in the depths of recession, it is clear that the IMF hasn’t finished with the destruction of that formerly independent nation. The destruction to date (27 per cent contraction and increased poverty) are considered by the IMF to be “only a down payment” on what Greece has to do so satisfy the Troika. At what point do people start to realise that the on-going costs of this austerity dwarf the significant costs that would accompany exit? And the Troika is not done with Greece yet. They intend to screw it down even further. And the costs of remaining in the dysfunctional monetary union escalate by the day. At some point, the Greeks will realise they have been dudded. What is left is anyone’s guess – but it won’t be pretty. The destruction of Greece is “only a down payment” according to the IMF – keep that mentality in mind when you are working out whether Greece should remain obedient or tell them all to f*ck off and regain their currency independence and restore prosperity.

One of the various smokescreens that were erected by the European Commission and the bevy of economists that it either paid or were ideologically aligned to justify the design of the monetary union around the time of the Maastricht process was the concept of subsidiarity. In 1993, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (a European-based research confederation) published its Annual Report – Making Sense of Subsidiarity: How Much Centralization for Europe? – which attempted to justify (ex post) the decisions imported from the 1989 Delors Report into the Maastricht Treaty that eschewed the creation of a federal fiscal capacity. It was one of many reports at the time by pro-Maastricht economists that influenced the political process and pushed the European nations on their inevitable journey to the edge of the ‘plank’ – teetering on the edge of destruction and being saved only because the European Central Bank has violated the spirit of the restrictions that a misapplication of the subsidiarity principle had created. It is interesting to reflect on these earlier reports. We find that the important issues they ignored remain the central issues today and predicate against the monetary union ever being a success.

How would we assess whether a monetary system was working? There are several dimensions that warrant attention. On any dimension that we might put forward, the Eurozone has been a miserable failure. I have just read the latest – Benchmarking Working Europe 2017 – compiled and published by the European Trade Union Institute and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which documents these dimensions of failure of the European Union and the Eurozone in particular. It puts the White Paper on the future of Europe released by Jean-Claude Juncker on March 1, 2017, into better perspective. The White Paper is the European Commission’s “contribution to the rome Summit on March 25, 2017” to “mark the 60th anniversary of the EU”. It is a document bereft of any substance and should be disregarded. The ETUI and ETUC Report provides sufficient evidence to conclude that the whole monetary union shebang should be dismantled as quickly as possible.

The tiny nation of Malta (~ 420 thousand population) and the only one of two Eurozone nations that have English as one of its official languages is now hosting the EU Presidency for 2017. This was a function that was established by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 and allows a nation to influence the European Union’s agenda. As the rules dictate Malta shares this function with two other nations (Netherlands and Slovakia) to form the so-called Trio Presidency. There will be a lot of talk and papers produced and a lot of flags and posters are appearing in Valletta (Malta’s fortress capital) but don’t expect much to come from it. The other thing about 2017 and the EU is that they are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome later this month (signed on March 25, 1957 and operational from January 1, 1958). The European Commission is clearly keen to give the impression that the Treaty of Rome was the first step in the succession of steps that made Europe what it is today. In one sense that is correct. But in a more important sense that claim is nonsense. The reality is that the subsequent revisions of the Treaty (Maastricht and Lisbon) represented fundamental paradigm or ideological shifts in the way Europe was to be governed. The Treaty of Rome recognised that limited economic cooperation could be beneficial to all participating nations as long as it was attenuated or managed by comprehensive system of state intervention. The subsequent treaties represent a shift from the Member States having the capacity to ensure full employment to a situation where the Member States are biased to enforcing austerity and creating persistent and elevated levels of unemployment and poverty at the behest of the ideological masters in the European Commission, who are neither elected by or accountable to the people of Europe they claim to represent. So … why are they celebrating the 60th anniversary of an approach to economic policy making and nation-building that they have now completely rejected?

The Eurozone flash National Accounts estimates for the fourth-quarter 2016 was released yesterday by Eurostat – GDP up by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU28. The annual growth rate for the Eurozone in 2016 was 1.7. The news also indicated that the Greek economy fell back into its Depression and was followed by the other basket case, Finland. Both recorded negative growth in the December-quarter, Greece -0.4 per cent, Finland -0.5 per cent. Both results reflect the on-going fiscal austerity. Spain, on the other hand, allowed by the European Commission to run large structural deficits (to keep the PPP in power) recorded another strong growth result. Perhaps if Syriza had demonstrated some spine, they too could have got away with the Spanish solution – where Brussels turns a blind eye to the blatant breach of the Stability and Growth Pact rules, while its economy starts to growth strongly. But, then history tells us that Syriza caved in almost immediately and the continued decline of the Greek situation is a direct result of the policies they were then co-opted to inflict on their own people. Deeper analysis of the Greek situation reveals how dire the future is likely to be. I present a few indicators of that future in this blog. As the neo-liberal colony of Greece takes another step backwards, it isn’t hard to understand why? Basically, the Troika conspired to destroy the prosperity of Greece as a nation and its political leadership joined that conspiracy by refusing to broach an exit from the Eurozone. Simple really.