The goal of the EU is the colonisation of Southern Europe. It is no wonder that Spain’s membership in the EU and euro has not brought prosperity, but immiseration for many of its citizens.
Carlos García Hernández is managing director of the publishing house Lola Books
Originally published in Spanish in “red mmt” (To avoid any misunderstanding that is Spanish for “mmt network” and has nothing to do with the colour red)
Translated and Edited by BRAVE NEW EUROPE
John 5:19: “We know that we are from God, but the whole world is under the power of the Evil One.
The right wing has used children so much to make fallacious claims that it is very difficult to use the example of children for any serious reflection. However, the left has also used children to exemplify its positions. Without doubt, one of the most brilliant examples of this is Germany, Year 0, directed by Roberto Rossellini in 1948. The film depicts the life of a 13-year-old boy from Berlin immediately after the Second World War. It is a moving yet terrible story in which, amidst the ruins and houses demolished by bombing, the child continually suffers from the lies of generations before him.
Keeping an objective distance, I think it is convenient to do the same exercise that Rossellini does in the case of today’s Spain, since the COVID 19 crisis has brought Spanish society to a kind of Year 0. In what country is a 13-year-old Spanish boy growing up today? What lies does he have to put up with? And above all, what future awaits him?
To begin with, that Spanish child is probably poor, since 27.1% of children under 16 in Spain live in poverty (only Romania and Bulgaria are ahead of us in child poverty within the EU), but what is even more likely is that he or she will suffer unemployment in the future, since unemployment among young people under 25 in Spain is 40.4%.
It is true that the argument can be made that these data are due to the coronavirus and that when we are past this pandemic (which will happen) these data will improve. One could assume that there is no reason why they should not. After all, the crisis is not a crisis of real resources, but of health. However, it is worth asking whether this argument is really true. I think it is not. When the health crisis improves, there may be some recovery, but in no way will the end of the crisis mean the beginning of an era of prosperity.
The reasons for this are to be found in Spain’s membership of the euro and the European Union. In view of the emergence of the pandemic, the EU suspended its deficit and expenditure rules. This means that countries that incur public deficits in excess of those established by the treaties will not be penalised. This suspension was right. However, very few people are asking themselves the following question: if in a time of health crisis the EU rules have to be suspended and countries released from public deficit limits because otherwise EU countries would not be able to cope with the pandemic, what is the point of deficit and spending rules in times of normality? The answer is obvious: none.
The COVID 19 crisis has shown that the EU and euro spending and deficit rules are absurd and undermine the capacity of states to respond to emergency situations. The rhetoric that was sold for years to the generations before our 13-year-old, according to which the EU’s spending and deficit rules strengthened the European economies and gave them greater stability, was a big, stinking lie. What the EU rules have done is precisely the opposite, they have weakened the European economies and deprived them of the necessary instruments for dealing with crises. The only thing that EU rules seek to do is to dismantle the public sectors and transfer as much of the resources as possible to the elites that dominate the private sector.
Some will say that the EU is going to rescue us and give us aid to get out of the crisis, but this is also false. At first, it was even said that Spain would receive 140 billion from Brussels to carry out reconstruction after the COVID crisis and that 72.7 billion of this would be direct aid. Another lie. The truth is that, once Spain’s contributions to the EU have been discounted, EU aid will amount to only 5.7 billion (see the two tables below belonging to the general state budget) and will arrive from 2022 onwards subject to harsh cuts in public spending, particularly in public pensions, under the framework of what has been called the Next Generation EU.
Furthermore, these figures only reflect the best possible scenario within the EU, as at the meeting of the European Central Bank on 10 December it will most probably be decided to stop buying Spanish bonds and make all aid transfers conditional on loans subject to debt impositions, so that the insignificant aid of 5.775 billion euros from the EU may come to nothing. This shameful humiliation by Spain contrasts with the measures taken by Central European governments, especially in Germany (see table below).
While in Central Europe the countries’ expenditure on tackling the pandemic has shot up, in Spain expenditure is imperceptible. In Germany, Angela Merkel has injected direct aid amounting to no less than 500 billion euros to rescue the German economy. Thus Merkel has turned the pandemic into an imperialist opportunity from which German companies will emerge strengthened against the languishing companies of Southern Europe. Does anyone in his right mind believe that in return Germany has been required to make structural reforms and spending cuts? What a joke! Such impositions are only made on Southern Europe. Germany does what it wants, when it wants, and of course nobody asks it to explain itself, as that money comes from its trade surpluses. The dynamic is simple. The EU has dismantled the industrial sectors of southern Europe, then limited their spending capacity and finally forced the south to buy the products of the North. The interests of the South are irrelevant, only the EU hegemon Germany counts. This is the dynamic that is established between colonies and the colonial powers.
Were we not a colony, we could use our monetary sovereignty of our central bank to mitigate the effects of the COVID 19. This would include a job guarantee for our 13 year old child when he or she enters the labour market and at this time it would mean that all health personnel in Spain would be employed in combating the pandemic. None of this can happen within the EU and the euro. Indeed, the EU has suspended its spending rules. However, the Spanish government has proposed that the autonomous communities should not exceed a deficit of 2.2%. The figure, again, is ridiculous and insufficient, everyone knows that, but the fear of incurring deficits is so great that no one dares to ask for more, as once the crisis is over the EU will again impose spending and deficit limits that will be accompanied by further social cuts. The government is shamefully silent and obeys its masters.
In short, what is the big lie that adults tell our 13 year old child to justify his situation? The lie that says that without the European Union we would be worse off.
Euro delendus est
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