Opinions & Ideas

Category: future

THE EU IS A FRAGILE, VOLUNTARY, UNION THAT CAN ONLY WORK IF THERE IS GIVE, AS WELL AS TAKE

cropped-European-Union-flag-006.jpgThere is no denying that the Brexit decision is a blow to the EU. There is a real risk now that the 27 EU countries will start pursuing national interests at the expense of the common EU interest. If they do, everyone will lose.

The 27 EU states need to act resolutely to strengthen EU wide democracy, to ensure respect for EU rules, and to show that the EU can do business efficiently with the rest of the world.

The European Union is not a monolith. It is a voluntary Union of 28 states, with no independent tax raising power.

It operates on the basis of rules, which its 28 members must freely respect. If they fail to do so, the EU ceases to mean anything.

These rules are made under the authority of the EU’s Treaties, which have been ratified by all member states, and the Treaties can only be amended if all 28 states agree.

The more members the EU has, the harder it becomes, by a form of geometric progression, for the EU to amend its Treaties.

A club that has no power to change it basic rules will eventually fossilize and die.

The EU’s 28 members are, in theory, sovereign equals, regardless of differences in population or wealth.  But voting weights do recognise differences in size, on all issues where unanimity is not required.

The EU makes trade deals on behalf of its members, using the extra bargaining power that its size gives it. But because it negotiates on behalf of 28 states, not just one, it can be harder for the EU to finalise a deal that it would be for one state, negotiating alone.

In the case of some Trade deals, it is sufficient  for them to be ratified by the European Parliament alone.

In others, all 28 national parliaments must ratify too. In these cases, the EU has much more difficulty being an effective trade negotiator.

RESPECT FOR RULES BY MEMBER STATES IS AN EXISTENTIAL NECESSITY FOR THE UNION TO SURVIVE

If one or more member states get into a habit of failing to respect EU rules or directives, the EU ceases to be operational, particularly if the states failing to respect the rules are bigger states.

Recently France has threatened to flout an existing EU directive because efforts to amend it, in a direction France wanted, are being blocked by the national parliaments of 11 EU states.  In response the French Prime Minister, Michel Valls, is threatening not to implement the existing directive, which would completely undermine EU rulemaking.

Michel Valls said

“If it is not possible to convince … France will not apply this directive.”

That is a direct threat to the EU from a founding state. It is really dangerous

COMPROMISES BETWEEN NATIONAL INTERESTS NEEDED IF EU IS TO DO TRADE DEALS

Likewise, if it becomes too difficult for the EU to complete trade agreements because a few states within the EU hold up the agreement in order to advance a national interest, then the EU’s utility as a trade negotiator fades away.

This was an argument  advanced by some of  those who favoured Brexit, namely that the UK could negotiate its own deals more easily outside the EU, without having to wait for 27 other countries to agree. That thesis will be put to the test soon.

Commission has conceded, under pressure from national government facing early elections, that the Trade deal with Canada must, not only be ratified by the European Parliament and the  28 government, but by the 28 national parliaments as well. This is a risky decision.

If the EU’s deal with Canada fails because one or two national parliaments fail to ratify it, years of work by Canadian and EU negotiators will go down the drain. Other countries will begin to doubt if negotiating with the EU is worth their time. The Brexit advocates will have won part of their argument.

A lot more is at stake here than the content of the agreement with Canada.

TREATY CHANGE MUST ALSO BE POSSIBLE

It has become accepted wisdom in every EU capital now that Treaty change is off the agenda. This is because  of

+The requirement to have a referendum in Ireland on a Treaty change involving a transfer of sovereignty
+ the voluntary decisions of France and the Netherlands to have referenda on certain EU matters, in the Netherlands case  even on a minor agreement with Ukraine.
+ the expectation that a Treaty change would be preceded by a cumbersome  Convention.

The net result of all of this is that the EU will not consider Treaty changes, even ones that might make it more democratic.

If that remains the case, the EU will eventually freeze up, because it will not be able to respond  to new circumstances, and its member states will have to look to other, less democratic or transparent institutions than the EU, to advance their collective interests. One could even see NATO being called into service for more broadly defined “security “ purposes.

Some may argue that Treaty change in general is not urgent.  I agree there is no need for a comprehensive review of the Treaties, so soon after the Lisbon Treaty came into force.

But a Treaty change to respond to concerns that emerged in the UK referendum campaign, for example changes to make the EU more visibly democratic and accountable , should be possible.

For example, Treaty changes could be envisaged to

  1. Have  the President of the European Commission be elected directly, in a two round election, by the entire electorate of the EU. 
Have the President of the Euro group be similarly elected by  the Euro zone countries
  2. Give National Parliaments of the EU, if a minimum number agree, a power to require the Commission to put forward, for consideration, a legislative proposal within the EU competence in the Treaties.
  3. National Parliaments already can delay EU legislation, so why not allow them make a positive proposal?

UK GOVERNMENT FIRST STEPS NOW

Now that the UK has voted to leave the EU, the first step has to be taken by the UK Government.

It must decide what sort of relationship it wants to have, trade wise, with the rest of the world.

At the moment, that is governed by agreements negotiated, for the UK, by the EU.

If the UK simply leaves the EU, all those agreements will  fall, as does UK membership of the World Trade Organisation(WTO). Agreements with dozens of non EU countries, will have to be negotiated again, at the same time as negotiating  with the EU. A lot of work.

Basically the UK government will have to choose choice between three options

  • Leave the EU and, like Norway, apply to join the European Economic Area (EEA),
  • Negotiate a new special trade agreement, like the agreement Canada or Switzerland has with the EU
  • Leave the EU without any trade agreement and apply, as a separate country, to join the WTO

The EEA option could be put in place quickly and would not disrupt trade all that much.

The EEA is a readymade model for external association by a non member with the EU. It could be taken down from the shelf, so to speak.  But, as an EEA member, the UK would still have to implement EU regulations and contribute to the EU budget. It would not allow curbs on EU immigration. The EEA option has been dismissed by “Leave“ campaigners, but it does involve leaving the EU, and  complies  with the literal terms of  the  referendum decision.

If the UK experiences severe balance of payments problems over the summer, the EEA option may become attractive. The UK already has a big balance of payments deficit anyway and capital inflows may be inhibited by the Leave vote. The EEA option would buy time, and would not preclude leaving altogether eventually.

The second option, a special trade deal, would be much more difficult.

It would require a detailed negotiation on every type of product or service sale between the UK and the 27 member countries of the EU, including across our border.

Such an agreement would take years to negotiate (probably 7 or 8 years), because it would be subject to domestic political constraints, and political blackmail attempts, in all EU countries, each of whom  would have to ratify it. If it proposed curbs on immigration from the EU, the EU countries affected  would make difficulties with other aspects of the deal, as a bargaining counter.

It is unlikely that a Trade Agreement would allow the UK to sell financial services into the EU. Indeed it would be in the interest of EU countries, that might hope to attract financial services, to make sure the UK got few concessions .

The third option…leaving the EU with no agreement… could come about, either because that was what the UK chose, or because the negotiations on a special trade deal broke down or were not ratified by one or two EU states.

It would require the application of the EU common external tariff to UK or Northern Irish products crossing the border into the Republic.

Average EU tariffs are around 4%, but on agricultural goods the mean tariff is 18%. The imposition of these tariffs is a key part of the Common Agricultural Policy, which protects the incomes of EU farmers. We would have no option but collect them at customs posts along our border. All forms of food manufacture and distribution within the two islands would be disrupted.

The disruption of the complex supply chain of the modern food industry would be dramatic and the knock on effects impossible to calculate.

A similar effect might be felt by the car parts industry, which is subject to tariffs, and is important to some parts of England.

Meanwhile the remaining 27 countries of the EU, and the EU institutions, will have a lot of thinking to do too.

They need to respond decisivly to the (false) claim that the EU is not democratic.

All EU legislation has to be passed by a democratically elected European Parliament, and also by a Council of Ministers who represent the democratically elected governments of the 28 EU countries.

The members of the European Commission must be approved by the democratically elected European Parliament.

But there is room to further  improve  EU democracy.

I  would make two suggestions ,

  • The President of the European Commission should be directly elected by the people of the EU in a two round election , at the same time as the European Parliament Elections every 5 years

2.)To create a closer link between National Parliaments and the EU, a minimum of nine national parliaments agreeing should be sufficient to require the Commission to put forward a proposal on a topic allowed by the EU Treaties . National Parliaments can already delay EU legislation, so they should be free to make positive proposals too.

That said, the EU should avoid over promising, and should not allow itself to be blamed for all the problems people face in their daily lives.

The EU is not an all powerful monolith that can solve the problems caused by technological change and globalisation. It is just a loose voluntary confederation of 28 countries, with no tax raising powers of its own. Nor is the EU responsible for debts mistakenly taken on by its members.

If the losers of globalisation and technological change are to be sheltered from misfortune, it is for the 27 states, not the EU itself, that has the taxing power to redistribute money from the winners from globalisation  to the losers.

The UK has not been particularly generous in this regard.  Its welfare system is modest, and its investment in productivity improvement has been poor.

In some respects, UK voters  have just mistakenly blamed  the EU. for the effects of the  omissions, and under performance, of successive UK governments.

THE SOURCE OF ECONOMIC SUCCESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY….EACH COUNTRY WILL HAVE TO RELY ON ITS CHILDREN’S SKILLS AND INGENUITY IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPETITIVE WORLD

A lot of attention is being given to the competition Europe and the United States will face from economic growth in Asia over the next 25 years.

A survey conducted by the World Economic Forum shows that Asia is the most optimistic part of the world about its economic future. And optimism is essential to investment!

The OECD has estimated that between now and 2060, GDP per capita will increase eightfold in India, and sixfold in Indonesia and China, whereas it will merely double in OECD countries, which include Europe and North America. This will affect the balance of power in the world. It is interesting to note that two of the top three Asian dynamos are democracies, India and Indonesia. And both of them have substantial Muslim populations.

The source of economic growth can be summed up in two words…innovation and population.

UNBLOCKING EUROPE’S ARTERIES TO RELEASE INNOVATION

If a country has an innovative and well educated population, open to trends in the global market, able to understand them and identify the needs of the world that it can meet, and with an economic and governmental structure that allows speedy allocation of resources to those needs, and  away from less efficient uses, it will have a higher growth rate.

This is why there is so much emphasis on “structural reform “ in OECD,IMF and EC advice to countries. Structural reform is designed to clear the arteries of the economy, and allow blood to flow more quickly to the activities that will yield the best return.

For example, if a country has disproportionately expensive, slow or overly elaborate legal system that will be a blockage in the arteries. If a country has disproportionately high electricity prices because it uses electricity prices to subsidise uneconomic generation for regional policy purposes, that will block arteries. Likewise if it has disproportionately costly or slow broadband communications, avoidable skill shortages, unwillingness to recognise genuine foreign qualifications, work disincentives for particular groups, or a distorted market for credit that does not favour productive activities,  all these things are blockages in a country’s economic arteries.

Such blockages can also apply at supranational level too. It has been estimated that the lack of a single market for digital services in the EU is blocking the arteries of the EU economy to the tune of 260 billion euros, the lack of a true single financial market is doing so to the extent of 60 bill euros,  the lack  of an integrated energy market to the extent of  50 billion euros, and  the lack of a single services market (including non recognition of skills certified in other countries) is blocking the arteries of the European economy to the extent of  235 billion euros.
Interestingly, a European Parliament staff paper shows that one of the slowest countries to implement the structural reforms urged by Heads of EU governments since 2011, is Germany. And one of the fastest, on paper at least, is Greece. These are reforms that Germany’s own Chancellor recommended along with her colleagues. One of the problems is the delays at the level of the Lander.

To put it all another way, and using some economic jargon, Europe has a choice. According to the EU Ageing Report, the EU can stay on its present course, and, as in the last 20 years, have a total factor productivity growth rate of only 0.8% pa. 

Or it can make changes which could lift its total factor productivity growth rate to 1.1% per annum up to 2020 and 1.4% per annum thereafter. A slow, longterm, return perhaps, but a real one all the same.  And in the long run, enough of you will be around for that to matter!

STRUCTURAL REFORMS HAVE DIFFERING POTENTIAL BETWEEN COUNTRIES

Some countries, not Ireland, have been artificially held back by top heavy bureaucracy, that prevents their societies from allocating resources to where they will get the best return.

Societies can fail to allocate resources well, or block good reallocation of resources, by political vetoes, and constitutional limits. 

The reforms necessary  include reforms to the labour market, but to a much greater extend they involve freeing up markets for the sale of goods and services, from electricity, to professional services, to government services, as I have mentioned already.

Of course, freeing up the arteries will not solve the problem, unless there is blood flow of commercial innovations based on good R and D, accompanied by an innovative and flexible culture within Government, within educational institutions and in the general population.

Between now and 2060, according to the OECD,  the countries with the biggest upside potential, for extra  growth  that might come about as a result of the implementation of structural reforms,  are China, Slovakia, Poland, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy and Russia. 

At the other end of the scale, some countries that already have relatively efficient systems, and are  getting the benefit of reforms made in the past. These countries include the UK, Netherlands, Ireland and the USA. 

It is good that Ireland is in that position and that is an indication that the reforms we made over the last 40 years or more have yielded fruit. And this is despite the fact that Ireland still has, to a degree , many of the  rigidities I mentioned earlier, and has room to improve in those areas.  

On the other hand, other competitor countries, like China, Poland, Slovakia and Greece have even more room to improve, or  more upside potential than we do , and may thus pose a bigger challenge to us,  as soon as or if  they get their act together.

Already comparatively efficient countries, like Ireland, the Netherlands, the US and the UK,  will have to look elsewhere than structural reforms on their  own, if they are make extra gains. They will have to run faster and faster just to hold their current relative position.

STRUCTURAL REFORMS ALONE NOT ENOUGH……THE NUMBER OF YOUNG PEOPLE WILL MAKE A KEY DIFFERENCE

In every society, young people are the innovators. My own sense is that the crucial determinant, of  relative success in the 21st century as between countries, will be the proportion of young people in a country, and the relative mental agility of those young people, in comparison to those in other countries .

Their potential will be influenced by formal education, but not only by education. It will also be influenced by what happens to them as children, before they ever go to school.

Other things being equal, a country with a large elderly and middle aged population and few young people, is unlikely to produces as many innovators as a country with a large youth population. It is also likely to have more political veto points.

To an extent, each society decides the sort of future it wants to have, when it decides how many children it will have. Societies in many European countries, including Germany, Spain, Italy and many East European countries have decided to have few children, and that is a choice they have made, perhaps unconsciously, about the future profile, and potential, of their country. 

For example, partly as a consequence of differences in past birth rates, the OECD calculates that from 2018 to 2030, Ireland’s potential employment growth rate will be 1.2% per annum, and France’s will be 0.2%.

In contrast, Germany over the same period, will experience a potential employment decline of 0.6% a year, and Finland faces a potential employment decline of 0.2% per year. 

These differences partly explain why Germans and Finns see limits to their ability to bail out other countries, like Greece. They know will soon have fewer people at work, supporting an increasing number of retirees, and they will want to hold their money back for that. Unfortunately for it, Greece has a similar problem of an ageing and diminishing workforce, and an increasing elderly population.

Pensions are already 14.5% of Greece’s GDP, 13.8% of France’s GDP and almost 11% of Germanys’, as against just a little over 5% of  GDP in the UK and Ireland. That difference explains a lot, at least as much as the supposed doctrinal differences between German “ordo-liberalism” and  Anglo Saxon Keynesianism!

It is true, as Keynesian economists argue, that coordinated demand stimulus, by countries that can afford it, would help Europe’s economy achieve its jobs potential, without risk of inflation, and that can  come from countries whose fiscal positions are strong, but the judgement as to which European country can do that, has to take some account of differences in the ageing profile of each country.

Incidentally these differences also illustrate the foolishness of anti immigrant sentiment in Germany.  Germany’s 6.6 million immigrants paid in 22 billion euros more in taxes and contributions, than they took out in benefits, and some of that surplus is helping pay the pensions of native born Germans. I expect the same may apply in France.

In fact, the EU Ageing report, to which I referred earlier, estimates that 55 million immigrants will have to come into the EU by 2060, to make up for the decline in our native born workforce because  past decisions on family size. That can change, of course.
Meanwhile, Africa’s population will have increased by 28% by 2060 and Asia’s population will have slightly declined.   

EUROPE’S YOUTH PROBLEM……..A WASTED GENERATION?

In the next fifty years, on unchanged present trends, the overall working-age population of Europe will drop considerably, from last year’s peak of about 300 million to 265 million. This will be a significant blow to nearly every aspect of the Eurozone economy.

At the same time, the old-age dependency ratio–a fraction or percentage expressing the ratio of residents over the age of 65 to those under that age–will rise from 28% (recorded earlier this decade) to a staggering 58% by 2060.

The causes of this challenge are in Europe are manifold: declining fertility, advances in old-age care, the residue of baby-boom demographics. But the impact will be serious.

This is made even worse by the fact that so many of today’s youth in Europe are unemployed. The longer they are unemployed, the less relevant their skills become, and the harder will it be for them ever to get a well paying job. Their life time earning potential is being radically diminished.

The experience of long term unemployment is devastating.  That is a huge medium term problem. I heard a representative of the Gallup polling organisation, who do in depth polls that the experience of long term unemployment was worse, for the person involved, than of opinion and studies of public psychology, say that his organisation’s finding was the death of a spouse.  Imagine what that also does to future earning potential and self confidence!

Mario Draghi has recognised this, as the central European problem of today.

He said in his  speech at Jackson Hole last year

“The stakes for our monetary union are high. Without permanent cross country transfers, (which he did not expect will happen), a high level of employment in all countries is essential to the long term cohesion of the euro”

I would emphasise two words in that sentence….. “all” and “essential”…..

“ ALL” countries in the euro must have a high level of employment. 

And the head of Europe’s Central Bank says this is “ESSENTIAL”  for the euro.

Not the sort of language you would expect from a Central Banker of the subject of employment, which shows that solving Europe’s unemployment problem is essential to the survival of the euro, and thus the avoidance of immense financial instability and wealth destruction, that would flow from a break up of the euro.

Even economists, like Martin Wolf, who opposed the creation of the euro, argue that its break up would be an unmitigated disaster at this stage. The break up of the euro could herald an era, between the countries now in the EU, of  arbitrary savings destruction, of national protectionism, of competitive devaluation,  and  of mutual litigation and recrimination, that would destroy the interdependence that has allowed the European Union itself to be a structure of peace in Europe for 60 years. 

We would not be going back to the 1980’s, but to the 1930’s. 

And Mario Draghi has linked finding a solution to high unemployment is some European countries(like Greece and Spain) to finding a way to avoid that. That is what is at stake.

TODAYS PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WILL HAVE A HEAVY ECONOMIC BURDEN TO BEAR……, 

But, in the longer run, we have another problem. We will soon not have enough young people at all in Europe.

From 2030 on, Europe’s working age population will decline and the number of retired people depending on them will increase. There are four Europeans of working age today for every one retired person. By 2060, there will be only two.

To be precise, Europe’s labour supply will remain stable up to around 2023, and decline thereafter, by about 19 million people, up to 2060.

As a result of these trends, Europe’s relatively small number of pre school and primary school children of today, will, later in their lives, have to support a proportionately much larger retired population, than will their competitors in India, China, and Indonesia.

Europe will be like a horse carrying extra weight in the “global competitiveness horse race” of the mid 21st Century.

In Europe, the OECD projects that, from 2014 to 2030, the increases in public expenditure on health, long term care, and pensions, will range from increases of 6.3 percentage points of GDP in Luxembourg, through 5.6 percentage points in Belgium,  and 4,8 points in Finland to 2.7 points in Ireland, down to  1.4 points of GDP in the UK, to a mere 0.8 points in Italy and 0.7  points in Poland. This is the difference made by pension and entitlement reforms in the latter countries.

If young people are to be able to have  the future earning capacity to bear these extra burdens ,it is essential that as small children today get every developmental educational advantage now, no matter what the present income status of their family.

That is not just a matter of social justice, although it certainly is that, it is a matter of pragmatic self interest for today’s, eventually to be retired, workforce and electorate.

But what sort of educational investment will make a difference?

Increasing the teacher /pupil ratio may help, but the evidence on that in ambiguous. Some countries with high teacher ratios do less well than do others with proportionately fewer teachers.

In fact, it  may be before children go to school at all that the  biggest improvements in intellectual ability can be achieved.

…………SO THEY NEED EXTRA SUPPORT FROM THE EARLIEST AGE

I recently read a report prepared for Vietnam by the World Bank on how that country could improve its educational performance.

The report said bluntly

“Much of the inequality in learning outcomes, between different types of young Vietnamese observed in primary education and beyond, is already established before the age of formal schooling”
This may be caused by physical poverty, including bad or insufficient nutrition, which will stunt a baby’s mental development. Similar poor nutrition will be found in a minority of homes in rich countries too.
But things, like that,  that can be explained by lack of money, are not the only factors affecting a child’s mental development.

The World Bank Report goes on

“The brain development of young children’s highly sensitive to stimulation and interaction. The more parents and care givers interact with a young child, for example through talking, singing or reading, the better are the conditions for brain development”

The report suggests that, in Vietnam, babies from better off families have more of this sort of stimulative inter action with parents and care givers, than do babies in poorer families.

But the general  point about what makes a difference applies at all income levels, and if very small children , as they develop, only see their parents for an hour or so each day, and spend the rest of the time away from them, they may lose out on mental development, no matter how well off they may be materially.

If these World Bank views about intellectual development are true, they deserve an urgent response from parents, crèches, and government at all levels here in Europe.

If we are going to depend on a smaller number of children to support our welfare systems over the next forty years, we must do everything we can now, to enhance their earning capacity, especially by ensuring that they have a happy and stimulating childhood, from the earliest age.

That may be the most important long term economic stimulus of all!
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Speech by John Bruton, President of IFSC Ireland, and former Taoiseach, at the dinner  of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland in  the Convention Centre, Dublin at  8pm on Thursday 29th January
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GREECE ON THE RACK….

WHERE WILL THE CHAIN REACTION LEAD?
WHAT LESSONS MUST EUROPE LEARN?
The world is watching the political and economic situation of Greece with uncomfortable fascination. There is a widespread fear that, if Greece is unable to pay its debts, there will be a chain reaction.

The first part of the chain reaction could affect the solvency of some European and American banks who lent to Greece, and who would not be getting all their money back.  Those who sold credit default swaps with those banks could also be caught.

The second part of the chain reaction would affect other Governments, who may not have quite as difficult a situation as Greece, but who, like Greece, have to borrow to cover day to day expenses because their tax revenue is insufficient to cover their outgoings. Ireland is in this category.  Lenders who lose money they had lent to the Greek Government, would be even less willing, than they are now, to lend to other Governments. A 21st century precedent of an advanced European country defaulting on its debts would have unknowable consequences in a fragile and volatile world.  

I have read a recent publication by a German economic think tank, the Ifo Institute, about Greece.
The conclusion I drew from it was that the problems, now coming to a head in Greece, have been obvious and knowable for at least twenty years, long before Greece joined the euro.

If mechanisms were not insisted upon to remedy those problems, before Greece joined the euro, then responsibility must be shared for that by all the member Governments of the euro, who admitted   Greece into the euro. The European institutions, that were supposed to be examining the  accounts of the Greek 
Government to ensure that those accounts presented an accurate picture of Greece’s real liabilities, have to answer for their omissions too.

Greece was one of the fastest growing economies in Europe from 1950 to 1973, but thereafter it stagnated. But public spending went on growing, from 23% of GDP in 1970, to 30% in 1980, and to  49% in 1990. By 2009, it was 52% of GDP.  A lot of the money went to pensions and extra public sectors jobs.   Whenever a Greek politician arrived at an international meeting, he was accompanied by an entourage that was four times as big as any other.
  
But tax revenue was not keeping pace. The Government  debt level grew  especially  quickly in the  1990s when guaranteed debt of state companies  were taken onto the Governments own  balance sheet, and  money the Government borrowed from its own  Central  Bank had to be properly accounted for.  This was known before Greece was admitted to the euro.

Greece does have a tax collection problem.

This is because it has such an exceptionally high proportion of its workforce who are self employed, or who are in the non traded sector of the economy ( ie. sectors who cannot export their services, like doctors, shopkeepers etc.).  The extent to which people pay due taxes is lower than elsewhere in these two sectors………almost everywhere in the world. Seemingly tax evasion by the Greek self employed in not much worse than by the self employed in the  US, the Greek problem is that  self employed people make up a much  bigger share of the Greek economy, than they do  of the US economy.  Greece’s tax collection problem thus has more to do with the structure of its economy, than with any uniquely Greek aversion to paying tax.

All these facts must have been  known to the European Central Bank, the Banque de France, Bafin (the German regulator), and all the other  supervisory authorities, when  the banks they were supervising  lent  vast sums to the Greek Government, during  period  since Greece joined the euro.  While its exact scale may have been concealed by accounting tricks by the last Greek Government , the fact that there was a huge problem  was knowable.
I believe that it is time to face up to the full extent of the sovereign debt and banking problem in Europe.
We need now is a ten year plan for the euro zone, not just a ten month plan!
Europe must align its income expectations to its productivity. At the moment, the first is running well ahead of the second. Productivity must catch up, or income expectations must fall back.  In some cases, the gap will take years to close.  These  social choices are unavoidable, but  have to be made in a democratic way.

Voters are able to face reality, so long as everything is laid out before them.
In the countries who lent foolishly, as much as in those who borrowed foolishly, the authorities should own up to their share in the mistakes.  That has not happened yet in every case.

Once that is done, Europe can move on more convincingly

1.)   to devise a political structure to prevent irresponsible borrowing by Governments, ( One suggestion is an EU veto on national budgets)
2.)   to increase productivity and allocate scarce resources more wisely, (This is more  difficult because it requires action by the private sector, which has  misallocated time and money in the past)

3.)  to slim down the financial sector, (This is not happening, layoffs are taking place everywhere except where the problem started!)

4.)  to make banks safe to fail, rather than too big to fail, (This requires  a much higher capital ratio) and

5.) to build a large contingency fund, by contributions from all members, that will stand behind Governments who have kept the rules, but who face temporary  difficulties beyond their control.  Until a fund is built up, standing behind weaker countries involves a risk for  countries who have good credit ratings and who have to pledge that credit to help out  the weaker countries.   
  

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