This world will be uncomfortable for the Germans, who for the sake of the euro will find themselves having to survive without the ‘Europe’ to which they had once looked to provide them with a safe dwelling place

On the occasion of Merkel in Turkey, the refugees influx, the killing of Schengen, the new immigration laws in Germany, the Dachau transit camps, a rogue deal with a country that up to weeks ago was deemed unsuitable to be a member of the EU, this excerpt quite catches it.

wolfgang streeck
WHY THE EURO DIVIDES EUROPE


A new system?

It has been a long time since we last heard positive arguments for the single currency, whether political or economic. The only grounds adduced by the defenders of the status quo against the abandonment of what Polanyi would doubtless have called a ‘frivolous experiment’ is that the consequences of a breakup, though not foreseeable, would be worse than a continuation of what has become a permanent institutional crisis. Underlying this is probably the fear of the European political class that voters might present them with the bill for having casually placed the prosperity and peaceful coexistence of the continent at risk.

Yet the costs of dismantling the single currency cannot survive much longer as an argument in favour of its continuation. The Northern hope of escaping from the current predicament with a one-off payment — or even a one-off deflation to bring about structural reform in the South — will evaporate, as surely as Southern hopes for long-term support for social structures ill-suited to a hard-currency regime. Meanwhile, the notion that a pan-European democracy might spring up out of the European Parliament and somehow ride to the rescue will turn out to be an illusion—and the longer the wait, the greater the disillusionment. Less feasible still is the dream of achieving such a democracy by dint of letting the Eurozone crisis drag on until ‘the pain’ becomes too great— not so much the economic pain in the South as the moral and political anguish in the North, above all in Germany.

More likely than a headlong rush into pan-European democracy is that the national polities will fall prey to aggressively nationalist parties. The only remaining supporters of euro-led integration, apart from politicians fearful of losing their seats, will be the middle classes of the South, who dream of achieving a social-democratic consumer paradise on the coat-tails of Northern capitalism, even as this implodes; and the Northern export industries, which want to preserve the credit-financed consumption of the Southerners as long as possible, together with the competitive advantages of an undervalued pan-European currency. However, if convergence in any real sense is definitively ruled out, and the full extent of the need for regular redistributive cash injections becomes evident, the current situation will no longer be sustainable in electoral terms, even in Germany.

As Merkel headed to Turkey to forge a deal with a dictator with the sole intention of keeping her country "safe" from nefarious welfare-seekers refugees this last paragraph rings all the more true. Creating a EU Gitmo is worth a couple of billions euros and further perks.
 
The most plausible scenario for the Europe of the near and not-so-near future is one of growing economic disparities—and of increasing political and cultural hostility between its peoples, as they find themselves flanked by technocratic attempts to undermine democracy on the one side, and the rise of new nationalist parties on the other. These will seize the opportunity to declare themselves the authentic champions of the growing number of so-called losers of modernization, who feel they have been abandoned by a social democracy that has embraced the market and globalization. Furthermore, this world, which lives under the constant threat of possible repetitions of 2008, will be especially uncomfortable for the Germans, who for the sake of the euro will find themselves having to survive without the ‘Europe’ to which they had once looked to provide them with a safe dwelling place, surrounded by well-disposed neighbours.