"No wall that excludes people and limits freedom is so high or so wide that it can not be broken," Merkel said in the Chapel of Reconciliation on the former death strip on Bernauer Strasse.
David Gow differs: It may be three decades since the Berlin wall came down but too many others have recently proliferated.
In Social Europe he writes
Europe: tear down those walls!
‘Die Mauer in den Köpfen’ (the wall in the heads) is a phrase I first heard as a German correspondent in the 1990s, not that long after the October 1990 celebrations of reunification at the Reichstag in Berlin, on which I reported. The famous dictum of the former long-time Social Democrat leader Willy Brandt at the Schöneberg town hall a year earlier—‘es wächst zusammen was zusammen gehört’ (what belongs together grows together)—had swiftly turned to dust.
Then, as now, economic disparity had something to do with it, even though on average €100 billion a year has been transferred from west to east over the last three decades. Three million east Germans lost their jobs within barely a year. The overwhelming number of senior posts were taken over by Besserwessis. And today, as the Hans Böckler Foundation’s WSI institute recently reported, east German wages are 16.9 per cent lower than for western counterparts with the same qualifications.
Indeed, in the run-up to the decidedly low-key, typically soul-searching 30th-anniversary celebrations in Germany, there were many reflections on the emotional, cultural, sociological and psycho-political walls remaining between east and west. The chancellor, Angela Merkel, who grew up in the old German Democratic Republic, told Der Spiegel: ‘Different experiences of life in east and west are a fact. We should talk more about it and make a greater effort to understand each other.’ She blamed an initial lack of curiosity and interest on the part of west German politicians.
And, I might add, the west German media. When I returned from a week-long visit to Saxony in 1991, investigating neo-Nazi attacks on migrants and asylum-seekers, colleagues in the Bundespressekonferenz (official lobby for political correspondents) asked incredulously: ‘Why on earth go there? They’re a different, difficult lot …’ Outside the Zwinger museum complex in Dresden 15 years later, a group of tourists from Düsseldorf admitted to me that it was the first time they had set foot in the east—and insisted they still had little in common with their compatriots.
Now, I imagine, they would be shaking their heads in disbelief at the fact that, together, the Left Party (Die Linke, part-successors to the old east German Communists) and the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland commanded over 53 per cent of the vote in the recent state election in Thuringia or that the AfD came a strong second in Brandenburg and Saxony. It scores 13 per cent in current national polls; it won 23.4 per cent in Thuringia, 27.5 per cent in Saxony and 23.5 per cent in Brandenburg.
Read the full article at Social Europe.
Posts mit dem Label eu werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label eu werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
11/10/2019
9/12/2019
What the iPhone Index says about the Eurozone
There is the United States of America and then there is the supposed United States of Europe aka European Union. Both US have their own currency, but only one has a sovereign currency and that shows.
Apple introduced its newest iPhones just days ago. Here is the iPhone Index. It shows the average days a potential buyer would need to work to be able to afford one (see link as to which model and the specs).
It takes an average of 5.8 days in the US. In the EU it is rather different and this difference shows, yet again, who is the real beneficiary of the Euro in the Eurozone. Let's have a look.
A citizen of Slovakia would need to work 31.7 days for a new iPhone. A Greek 27.7 days and someone from Malta 19.2 days. A Spaniard would need to toil for 15.7 days while someone from Belgium just 11.3 days. OK, some of these countries have lower living costs etc.
A German citizen would need to work less than 10 days to afford one. Coincidentally, the same time as an Austrian. No comment here.
Someone from THE tax haven, money laundering locale of the highest order would need to move his ass to work for just 6.7 days. Let's take this as a mere outlier in the Eurozone.
However, and this since Italy dominates the news for political reasons for more than a year, a comparison with Germany offers a striking discrepancy. An Italian would need to work 6 days, or 2/3s, longer than a German for an iPhone.
Apple introduced its newest iPhones just days ago. Here is the iPhone Index. It shows the average days a potential buyer would need to work to be able to afford one (see link as to which model and the specs).
 |
| Research Picodi.com |
A citizen of Slovakia would need to work 31.7 days for a new iPhone. A Greek 27.7 days and someone from Malta 19.2 days. A Spaniard would need to toil for 15.7 days while someone from Belgium just 11.3 days. OK, some of these countries have lower living costs etc.
A German citizen would need to work less than 10 days to afford one. Coincidentally, the same time as an Austrian. No comment here.
Someone from THE tax haven, money laundering locale of the highest order would need to move his ass to work for just 6.7 days. Let's take this as a mere outlier in the Eurozone.
However, and this since Italy dominates the news for political reasons for more than a year, a comparison with Germany offers a striking discrepancy. An Italian would need to work 6 days, or 2/3s, longer than a German for an iPhone.
7/21/2019
If the USA were like the corrupt shithole EU, the president since 2016 would be Joe Biden
Short flashback pre EU elections campaigning. These were the German top candidates.
Never was there a hint of the Defense Minister von der Leyen being a possible candidate. Let alone was there any public mentioning of her name to begin with.
There was, however, the old Russia saw:
Now the Senate, Congress and other powerbroker would gather behind closed doors. They would nix the final selection of the two candidates Trump and Clinton. Instead, to heal the wounds, satisfy certain interests and whatever, they would present the approximately 240 million Americans of voting age JOE BIDEN, and only Joe Biden to vote on. This goes to show what the EU is:
 |
| Spiegel |
There was, however, the old Russia saw:
Europe Elections 2019
"Is Russia sowing discord on the internet again?”All forgotten when the right corrupt non-candidate was elected. Here is The ECONOMIST asking
Does Ursula von der Leyen have the right skills for the EU Commission?
It is hard to imagine a biography less suited to the mood of today’s Europe than that of Ursula von der Leyen, the German incoming president of the European Commission. Insurgent parties are sweeping the continent, cracks are forming between and within the eu’s member states and new threats are looming in the wider world. Mrs von der Leyen is the posh daughter of a Christian Democrat (cdu) minister-president of Lower Saxony. She rose through various government roles as an ally of Angela Merkel, glides multilingually through the world’s foreign-policy salons and can seem rather prim. Many consider her spell as German defence minister a debacle. Just what the old continent needs, one might groan: a slick, over-promoted scion of Europe’s unloved political establishment.Now try to imagine such a scenario in the USA in 2016. Admittedly, one would need to be completely boozed up to even contemplate this. Yet, let's try. Trump and H. Clinton were the two final candidates for the election in November 2016. Trump was very divisive, no doubt about that, some even said he is a disgrace. Hillary with too much baggage.
Now the Senate, Congress and other powerbroker would gather behind closed doors. They would nix the final selection of the two candidates Trump and Clinton. Instead, to heal the wounds, satisfy certain interests and whatever, they would present the approximately 240 million Americans of voting age JOE BIDEN, and only Joe Biden to vote on. This goes to show what the EU is:
The EU is an “explicitly anti-democratic”, crony capitalist state.
7/06/2019
After this latest EU election farce there can be no doubt, the shithole EU is firmly in the hands of the Ugly Germans
In the 2000 United States presidential election the US had a recount in Florida. This was due to the small margin by which Bush was leading and produced an automatic recount under Florida state law.
What was not under scrutiny were the candidates, Bush and Gore. These candidates were known to be the candidates for the new president and 250 or whatever million Americans knew this.
In 2016 President Trump won the election against Hillary Clinton. Whatever doubts and rumors some disappointed quarters had or still have about the outcome, every American knew the names of the two candidates for the White House.
Enter the shithole EU. It held an election for the new leader of the the next President of the European Commission. Here is the Wikipedia page with the candidates running. Nowhere will you find the name Ursula von der Leyen! She was never mentioned as a candidate even in Germany at the time before and during the elections. "... she has emerged from the shadows as the EU member states' nominee for the top job, after initial compromise deals collapsed". Even the alcoholic and former chief of the EU Commission Juncker said: "Naming of von der Leyen as EU executive chief not transparent".
Enough said. Here is, again, the interview with Bernard Connolly in 2016. Boy, was he right:
The EU is an “explicitly anti-democratic”, crony capitalist state.
Merryn: Hi, I’m Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of Money Week magazine. Welcome to another one of our video interviews. Today we are extremely privileged – we have with us Bernard Connolly, who is one of only four economists who Mark Carney named in 2008 as having correctly anticipated and analysed the great financial crisis. He’s also the author of this particularly brilliant book: The Rotten Heart of Europe, which I have talked about many times, so regular readers will, I hope, have read it by now. If you haven’t, go out, get it and read it.
What we’re going to start by talking about today is a subject which is covered at some length in this: the European Union and, specifically, should Britain be leaving the European Union. There’s a big question for you.
Bernard: It’s an easy one to answer, Merryn. Yes, of course it should. And it should do that because the European Union is explicitly anti-democratic. It aims at eliminating the rule of law. It aims at instituting initially a sort of crony capitalism state that would quite quickly transmute into a bureaucratic socialist state.
It is oppressive. It is hypocritical. It has inflicted enormous misery on all its subject countries, most obviously of course through monetary union, which was presented as an economic mechanism but was always intended… And we have a former Commission president, Romano Prodi, to vouch for this. It was always intended to create economic crises which would push people into giving up more of their sovereignty, democracy, legitimacy, freedom. And sad to say it’s been very successful in that regard if in no other.
Stalin’s Soviet constitution of 1938 was the most perfectly democratic ever devised on paper. But Stalin ran an empire. The European Union is an empire.
Merryn: Well, let’s go back a bit to what you first said. It’s explicitly anti-democratic. Now, a lot of people will say: How can that be? We vote for MEPs. Our MEPs go and sit in the European Parliament. It might be not as directly representative as perhaps the Westminster Government but, nonetheless, that’s a democracy.
Bernard: Well I think there are three levels of an answer there. One is, if you like, the debating point answer to say: Stalin’s Soviet constitution of 1938 was the most perfectly democratic ever devised on paper. But Stalin ran an empire.
The European Union is an empire. It has imperial ambitions, which extend beyond its present borders. It has the ambition to create a multi-national army which, as John Stuart Mills said on representative government 150 years ago, has been the executioner of liberty throughout the ages.
Merryn: OK, but who is It, then? You talk about the EU as if it is not the parliament, what is it?
Bernard: It increasingly is Angela Merkel. Leaving that question aside for the moment – perhaps we’ll come back to it – it is a nomenklatura. It is a nomenklatura consisting of politicians, but even more so of bureaucrats, of bankers, of a certain number of academics, of media people. It’s Davos man with power rather than just a good lunch.
Merryn: And Davos man has power through the European Council?
WHEN ONE THINKS OF THE DISGUSTING, OBSCENE HORROR OF WAR, I DON’T KNOW HOW PEOPLE WHO ARE IN FAVOUR OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT
Bernard: Well, the European Council and the Council of the European Union, and naturally these two things are easy to confuse, but the European Council is the coming together of ministers in a specific area, in foreign affairs, in economics or transport or whatever. The European Council is the summit at which the heads of state or government gather whenever they do and stay up all night and drink coffee and come to so-called deals. But neither of those two processes has any democratic legitimacy. Neither the formal decisions of the Council of the European Union, nor the decisions of the European Council.
The European Parliament was rightly said by the German Federal Constitutional Court as long ago as 1993 as not having the potential to be the basis of a democratic system, and the reason the German Constitutional Court said that, was that for there to be a democratic system, there should be a demos. You know, in effect a community which is neither on the one hand just a collection of disparate individuals or groups, cults, sects, tribes, gangs, regiments, religions or whatever, nor on the other hand an empire.
And where the European Union is heading is towards a sort of very unfortunate amalgam of the two models. It is heading towards an anarcho-imperial state of which there have been several examples in history. Perhaps one of the most pertinent being the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it was the clash of empires and particularly anarcho-imperial empires that produced the First World War. And when one thinks of the disgusting, obscene horror of war, I don’t know how people who are in favour of the European Union can sleep at night. Because what they are doing is creating a set of social tensions… By eliminating a political sense of national identity they’ve forced human beings, I’m not saying they do it deliberately. Perhaps they do. But certainly it has the effect…
Merryn: We hope they don’t.
Bernard: Of forcing human beings to seek a sense of belonging in something else. Whether it’s an ethnic sense, a racial, a religious, linguistic or whatever. And we’re starting to see that unfortunately happening.
Merryn: So we would say that the rise of nationalism in various countries across Europe is a direct result of that. The rise of various what we would consider to be extreme political parties is a direct result of the way the EU is working to eradicate cultural differences between nations.
Bernard: Well, I’m not sure it’s seeking to eradicate cultural differences. What it’s seeking to do is to eradicate the right of people to order their own existence. And in doing so, you know, people say: Why should I bother? I mean, what does it mean to be Swedish any more? What does it mean to be Danish? And they’re two very good examples at the moment. Do I define my Swedishness by the fact that I have a Swedish government which Sweden makes its own laws and makes laws only for itself? No, that doesn’t happen any more. What am I? Oh, perhaps I’m white Caucasian, and I don’t like all these Somalis who are coming into Sweden.
Now, whatever one thinks morally of that set of attitudes, it is a plain, observable, undeniable fact that those attitudes are quite directly related to the European Union’s attempt to abolish democratic legitimacy and the feeling that we run ourselves. If I’ve got no say in the way how things are run, let me forget about the political process. Let me forget about democracy. Let me define myself in terms of what I’m not. That I’m not a Somali. I’m not a Muslim. I’m not white. I’m not Christian. I’m not whatever I am. And one can see it, one can feel it, it is just happening in front of our eyes.
full interview here.
What was not under scrutiny were the candidates, Bush and Gore. These candidates were known to be the candidates for the new president and 250 or whatever million Americans knew this.
In 2016 President Trump won the election against Hillary Clinton. Whatever doubts and rumors some disappointed quarters had or still have about the outcome, every American knew the names of the two candidates for the White House.
Enter the shithole EU. It held an election for the new leader of the the next President of the European Commission. Here is the Wikipedia page with the candidates running. Nowhere will you find the name Ursula von der Leyen! She was never mentioned as a candidate even in Germany at the time before and during the elections. "... she has emerged from the shadows as the EU member states' nominee for the top job, after initial compromise deals collapsed". Even the alcoholic and former chief of the EU Commission Juncker said: "Naming of von der Leyen as EU executive chief not transparent".
Enough said. Here is, again, the interview with Bernard Connolly in 2016. Boy, was he right:
The EU is an “explicitly anti-democratic”, crony capitalist state.
Merryn: Hi, I’m Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of Money Week magazine. Welcome to another one of our video interviews. Today we are extremely privileged – we have with us Bernard Connolly, who is one of only four economists who Mark Carney named in 2008 as having correctly anticipated and analysed the great financial crisis. He’s also the author of this particularly brilliant book: The Rotten Heart of Europe, which I have talked about many times, so regular readers will, I hope, have read it by now. If you haven’t, go out, get it and read it.
What we’re going to start by talking about today is a subject which is covered at some length in this: the European Union and, specifically, should Britain be leaving the European Union. There’s a big question for you.
Bernard: It’s an easy one to answer, Merryn. Yes, of course it should. And it should do that because the European Union is explicitly anti-democratic. It aims at eliminating the rule of law. It aims at instituting initially a sort of crony capitalism state that would quite quickly transmute into a bureaucratic socialist state.
It is oppressive. It is hypocritical. It has inflicted enormous misery on all its subject countries, most obviously of course through monetary union, which was presented as an economic mechanism but was always intended… And we have a former Commission president, Romano Prodi, to vouch for this. It was always intended to create economic crises which would push people into giving up more of their sovereignty, democracy, legitimacy, freedom. And sad to say it’s been very successful in that regard if in no other.
Stalin’s Soviet constitution of 1938 was the most perfectly democratic ever devised on paper. But Stalin ran an empire. The European Union is an empire.
Merryn: Well, let’s go back a bit to what you first said. It’s explicitly anti-democratic. Now, a lot of people will say: How can that be? We vote for MEPs. Our MEPs go and sit in the European Parliament. It might be not as directly representative as perhaps the Westminster Government but, nonetheless, that’s a democracy.
Bernard: Well I think there are three levels of an answer there. One is, if you like, the debating point answer to say: Stalin’s Soviet constitution of 1938 was the most perfectly democratic ever devised on paper. But Stalin ran an empire.
The European Union is an empire. It has imperial ambitions, which extend beyond its present borders. It has the ambition to create a multi-national army which, as John Stuart Mills said on representative government 150 years ago, has been the executioner of liberty throughout the ages.
Merryn: OK, but who is It, then? You talk about the EU as if it is not the parliament, what is it?
Bernard: It increasingly is Angela Merkel. Leaving that question aside for the moment – perhaps we’ll come back to it – it is a nomenklatura. It is a nomenklatura consisting of politicians, but even more so of bureaucrats, of bankers, of a certain number of academics, of media people. It’s Davos man with power rather than just a good lunch.
Merryn: And Davos man has power through the European Council?
WHEN ONE THINKS OF THE DISGUSTING, OBSCENE HORROR OF WAR, I DON’T KNOW HOW PEOPLE WHO ARE IN FAVOUR OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT
Bernard: Well, the European Council and the Council of the European Union, and naturally these two things are easy to confuse, but the European Council is the coming together of ministers in a specific area, in foreign affairs, in economics or transport or whatever. The European Council is the summit at which the heads of state or government gather whenever they do and stay up all night and drink coffee and come to so-called deals. But neither of those two processes has any democratic legitimacy. Neither the formal decisions of the Council of the European Union, nor the decisions of the European Council.
The European Parliament was rightly said by the German Federal Constitutional Court as long ago as 1993 as not having the potential to be the basis of a democratic system, and the reason the German Constitutional Court said that, was that for there to be a democratic system, there should be a demos. You know, in effect a community which is neither on the one hand just a collection of disparate individuals or groups, cults, sects, tribes, gangs, regiments, religions or whatever, nor on the other hand an empire.
And where the European Union is heading is towards a sort of very unfortunate amalgam of the two models. It is heading towards an anarcho-imperial state of which there have been several examples in history. Perhaps one of the most pertinent being the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it was the clash of empires and particularly anarcho-imperial empires that produced the First World War. And when one thinks of the disgusting, obscene horror of war, I don’t know how people who are in favour of the European Union can sleep at night. Because what they are doing is creating a set of social tensions… By eliminating a political sense of national identity they’ve forced human beings, I’m not saying they do it deliberately. Perhaps they do. But certainly it has the effect…
Merryn: We hope they don’t.
Bernard: Of forcing human beings to seek a sense of belonging in something else. Whether it’s an ethnic sense, a racial, a religious, linguistic or whatever. And we’re starting to see that unfortunately happening.
Merryn: So we would say that the rise of nationalism in various countries across Europe is a direct result of that. The rise of various what we would consider to be extreme political parties is a direct result of the way the EU is working to eradicate cultural differences between nations.
Bernard: Well, I’m not sure it’s seeking to eradicate cultural differences. What it’s seeking to do is to eradicate the right of people to order their own existence. And in doing so, you know, people say: Why should I bother? I mean, what does it mean to be Swedish any more? What does it mean to be Danish? And they’re two very good examples at the moment. Do I define my Swedishness by the fact that I have a Swedish government which Sweden makes its own laws and makes laws only for itself? No, that doesn’t happen any more. What am I? Oh, perhaps I’m white Caucasian, and I don’t like all these Somalis who are coming into Sweden.
Now, whatever one thinks morally of that set of attitudes, it is a plain, observable, undeniable fact that those attitudes are quite directly related to the European Union’s attempt to abolish democratic legitimacy and the feeling that we run ourselves. If I’ve got no say in the way how things are run, let me forget about the political process. Let me forget about democracy. Let me define myself in terms of what I’m not. That I’m not a Somali. I’m not a Muslim. I’m not white. I’m not Christian. I’m not whatever I am. And one can see it, one can feel it, it is just happening in front of our eyes.
full interview here.
7/05/2019
Andrew Neil on the recent shenanigans in the EU
This is brilliant. “How can Europe be safe in these people’s hands?”.— Voice of Reason (@brexitblog_info) July 5, 2019
Andrew Neil destroys a pro-EU journalist’s attempts to defend the disastrously bad appointments of new EU officials. Brutal, but hugely watchable....Neil at his best. pic.twitter.com/AmBBRuZCBW
7/01/2019
Bernard Connolly: the EU is an “explicitly anti-democratic”, crony capitalist state
As the EU is putting up yet another show of fiercely contested unity this might be a good time to post a video from 3 years ago with Bernard Connolly, author of the superb book 'The Rotten Heart of Europe'. Followed by one from 2018 and 1997.
Bernard Connolly on The great Euro debate, 27.01.97
12/07/2018
Greek austerity – a denial of basic human rights, penalty should be imprisonment
This is based on Bill Mitchell's post with the same title which dives deeper into economics. The occasion is somewhat fitting in that German chancellor Merkel gave up the leadership of her party CDU. It was the EU, i.e. she and her government that brought unspeakable hardship on the Greek people. It shows what the EU is all about.
Here is the executive summary of the report by the Transnational Institute. The full report is here.
Democracy Not For Sale
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Age of Austerity in Greece
AUTHORS: (in alphabetical order): Stephan Backes, Jenny Gkiougki, Sylvia Kay, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Emily Mattheisen, Christina Sakali, Eirini Tzekou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Pietje Vervest.
Executive summary
This report examines the impacts of austerity in Greece on the right to food. It concludes that the Greek State and the Eurozone Member States violated the Greek people’s right to food as a result of the austerity measures required by three Memorandums of Understanding (2010, 2012 and 2015). In other words, the austerity packages imposed on Greece contravened international human rights law.
In August 2018, the European Council celebrated the end of the third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), praising the Greek’s efforts and European solidarity. Yet, as this report shows, there is little to celebrate. Not only did austerity measures increase poverty and food insecurity, it further consolidated an agri-food business regime that will perpetuate inequalities in access to and control over food.
The report examines the impacts of austerity on food producers and consumer/cooperative initiatives as well as social impacts on the Greek population in general. By focusing on the human right to food, the report highlights the impact of the Greek economic crisis that has touched every aspect of people’s lives. The focus on food producers and rural areas also draws attention to an overlooked aspect of Greece’s crisis as these sectors and regions often lack voice and recognition in national politics and decision-making.
The findings are based on direct interviews and original fieldwork, supplemented by interviews (including with high-level State officials) as well as macro-economic data analysis and literature reviews of key texts.
The findings of the report are startling.
1. Austerity measures increased rural poverty and food insecurity.
• An estimated 38.9 % of rural citizens in Greece in 2017 are at risk of poverty*.
• Rural unemployment soared from 7% in 2008 to 25% in 2013 while rural income per capita dropped by 23.5% during the crisis years (2008–2013).
• Food insecurity across Greece has also increased – with food prices increasing at faster rates than prices in the Eurozone during the crisis, despite the sharp fall in domestic incomes and labour costs. This led to a drop in food expenditure in total terms but an increase in food expenditure as a share of total monthly expenditure from 16.4% in 2008 to 20.7% in 2016.
— The proportion of households that cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day, for example, doubled during the crisis from approximately 7% in 2008 to more than 14% in 2016.
* The EU defines this as someone severely materially deprived, below the poverty line after social transfers, or living in households where adults are employed less than 20% of the time.
— The share of households with children unable to afford a protein-based meal on a daily basis doubled from 4.7% in 2009 to 8.9% in 2014. EU statistics estimate that 40.5% of children in 2016 faced material and social deprivation.
— Overall the crisis prompted a noticeable change in consumption patterns with the substitution of higher cost food items with more inexpensive foods.
2. Austerity measures impacted particularly severely on small-scale food producers and traders.
The adverse measures on farmers included:
• Higher taxes and increased costs of production due to the replacement of a separate income tax regime for farmers with a standardised income tax system, higher VAT rates on agricultural inputs including on fertilizer, pesticide, feed and seed, and diesel; and the introduction of a new tax on farmland. Taxes as a proportion of agricultural net value added soared from 4% between 1993 and 2010 to 15.4% in 2016.
• The abolition of the specialised Agricultural Insurance Organisation (OGA) and its merging with a generalised system of social security has led to higher contributions for many farmers.
As well as direct impacts, a number of structural reforms significantly tipped the balance in favour of larger food retailers and private traders to the detriment of small-scale producers. These reforms included:
• Retail trade liberalisation, such as the lifting of restrictions on particular goods sold in supermarkets, flexibilisation of labour laws, and a move towards Sunday trading.
• Wholesale trade liberalisation, specifically the privatisation of the formerly publicly administered and profitable Central Markets and Fishery Organisation, the country’s prime wholesale food operator, responsible for the country’s 2 major food markets and 11 fish markets.
• Privatisations, including the privatisations of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE) and the major dairy cooperative AGNO. The results have been increased costs for farmers less access to rural credit, specialised financial services, and agronomic advice.
3. The austerity measures hit an already weakened rural food sector made vulnerable by long-term trends.
Agriculture in Greece remains a significant part of the economy, making up nearly 4% of the country’s GDP (more than double the EU average) and providing 12% of the country’s jobs in 2016, but it has been in a state of decline since the early 1980s. Greece’s entrance into the European Economic Community in 1981 and later the EU – and the Common Agricultural Policy – opened up Greece’s small-scale farmers to greater competition. This led to a number of vulnerabilities in the Greek agri-food system prior to the crisis including:
• A steady fall in domestic agricultural production and an increasing reliance on food imports that led to a negative food trade balance. Between the late 1980s and the beginning of the crisis in 2008, the food trade deficit frequently exceeded 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while in the period 2005–2011, imports accounted for nearly 40% of domestic consumption.
• Increasing reliance on food subsidies with subsidies rising as a share of net value added in agriculture from 23% in 1993 to 81% in 2008.
• A growing supermarket sector that intensified monopolistic conditions in relation to producers and consumers alike.
These trends have undermined Greece’s food sovereignty, turning Greece from a net food exporter to a net food importer. Yet rather than remedying these vulnerabilities, the three MOUs (2010, 2012 and 2015) accelerated these trends. Examining the structural requirements of the memorandums suggests a deliberate ideological project of transforming the State and restructuring the Greek economy in favour of certain sectors of capital such as large (trans)national supermarket chains. The crisis provided a means to implement it.
4. The Greek government’s social safety net was insufficient to prevent food insecurity and poverty.
The Greek government enacted a number of social programmes seeking to provide a safety net against the fallout from austerity and to address urgent food insecurity concerns. These included the passing of a humanitarian assistance law that provided food, rent and electricity subsidies for low-income individuals and families. This was later replaced by a Social Solidarity Scheme which provides low-income households with a monthly allowance.
While addressing the most basic needs, the Scheme’s support has been limited in scope, providing only €30 to €200 per household per month, with an additional €100 for every adult and €50 euros per child. The strict eligibility criteria limits support to the most severe cases of material deprivation, while the means testing requirements exclude many who would be entitled due to its restrictive and bureaucratic stipulations. Coverage in rural areas has also been limited.
As a result, private foundations, charities, NGOs, and the Greek Church have had to fill some of these gaps – offering among others free school meals, food banks and soup kitchens, and ‘social grocery’ stores that provide food, clothing, cleaning materials, and other basic goods for low- income individuals and families.
While some of these programmes receive support from local municipalities, and in the case of the school meals programme also central government backing, they are little more than sticking plasters. Human rights-based responses, such as supporting jobs and just wages, that would deal with the root causes of hunger and food insecurity need to be much more centrally foregrounded.
5. Community-led popular responses provide real solutions and point to the emergence of a new food politics.
In the face of Troika-enforced government policies undermining food sovereignty – and a failure to adequately ameliorate its impacts - a range of grassroots community initiatives have emerged to help secure people’s access to food.
These reflect different political tendencies, vary in terms of infrastructure and engage differently with States and markets. They include solidarity kitchens, food cooperatives, ‘No intermediaries’ markets, food self-sufficiency collectives and networks, Community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes, as well as a range of other agricultural cooperatives, alternative farm models, and producers’ ventures.
The call for a ‘solidarity economy’ has become a key framework within which many grassroots responses have articulated their demands and aspirations. This Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) has grown massively during the years of the crisis: in 2013, 372 social enterprises were registered while in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 these rose to 585, 714 and 907 respectively.
In building up such counter-power from below based on innovative practices, social experimentation and people-controlled infrastructures, this movement is paving the way not only for a popular resistance to austerity, but also a new, transformative, just food system. This extends beyond demands for affordable food prices and farmer protection towards genuinely challenging the structural power of the corporate agribusiness sector and advancing popular alternatives.
6. The right to food has been violated in Greece.
The right to adequate food is strongly enshrined in international human rights law and its normative content notes several elements (availability, accessibility, adequacy, sustainability) that need to be safeguarded. The right to adequate food also correlates closely with other economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), meaning that the violation of one right often leads to the violation of other rights. The right to health, life, water and adequate housing are underlying determinants of the right to food.
Several austerity measures - including changes to agricultural taxes and social security regimes and the drive towards privatization and trade liberalization - contributed directly to undermining the right to food in Greece. Other measures such as minimum wage reductions and pension cuts also affected this fundamental human right and contravened other economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to work, housing and health.
States have the obligation to realize human rights. This obligation includes the progressive realization of socio-economic rights with the maximum available resources, which prima facie prohibits retrogressive* measures that would limit or reduce existing levels of enjoyment of enshrined rights. Retrogressive measures can only be taken under very limited circumstances and based on key conditions – such as careful monitoring and evaluation, consideration of all rights, ensuring no disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable – none of which was applied by the Greek government. The wide array of retrogressive measures taken, combined with the increasing cost of living, are sufficient proof that the right to food was violated in Greece.
* Retrogressive measures means any measure that implies a step back in the level of human rights protection due to the intentional decision by a State.
7. Accountability for violations of the right to food rests both with the Greek government and the Eurozone Member States, with the latter arguably taking a greater share of the responsibility.
When a human right is violated, it means there has been a breach in the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill this human right. Many actors were involved in the negotiations leading to the three MoUs. Human rights obligations exist territorially and, under certain circumstances, extraterritorially.
As a result of the austerity measures, Greece has violated the human right to food of people living in Greece. Yet, Eurozone Member States, as direct lenders are also responsible as they signed the MoUs and likely pressured the Greek government to do so. Eurozone Member States – as States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and other international human rights instruments – have therefore breached their extraterritorial obligations to respect the human right to food in Greece. Not only should Eurozone States have refrained from requiring measures that affected the right to food, they should have also conducted human rights impacts assessments of the Memorandums. These HRIAs are required prior to, during, and after the passing of MoUs, but were never done.
Furthermore, all European States have failed to comply with their human rights obligations when acting and taking decisions in Intergovernmental Organisations and International Financial Institutions, such as in the International Monetary Fund. As part of the UN system, the latter is obliged to comply with the UN Charter which includes a commitment to the progressive realization of human rights. It certainly should not take any action that would constitute a human rights violation.
Troika members claim that the sole responsibility for the impacts of the MoUs lies with the Greek State. This argument is false because they, with Greece, were joint signatures of the three MoUs. Therefore, the responsibility for violations of the right to food is a shared one too. Indeed it can be argued that the responsibility of the Eurozone Member States is much bigger, given the evidence of direct interference or even coercion by the Member States of the Troika on Greece to sign the MoUs.
The focus of this report is on Greece, but its findings are relevant internationally. Greece is not an exception. Many other countries, in and outside of Europe, find themselves in similar situations, forced to implement austerity-driven, technocratic policies which lead to violations of economic, social and cultural rights including the fundamental right to food. Greece’s experience also shows that the violations of these fundamental rights are not only issues of the global South. They are happening in the global ‘North’. Hunger, food insecurity, poverty and material deprivation are European issues. Human rights are universal, which means all governments have obligations to fulfill them. It is time now for the EU to act in accordance with these obligations and put human rights above the needs of financial markets.
The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. For more than 40 years, TNI has served as a unique nexus between social movements, engaged scholars and policy makers. www.tni.org
FIAN International was founded in 1986 as the first international human rights organization to advocate for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition. FIAN’s mission is to expose violations of people’s right to food wherever they may occur. www.fian.org
Agroecopolis is a young, grassroots non-profit, non- governmental organisation. It is the Hellenic Network for Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Access To Land. www.agroecopolis.org
Bill Mitchell's post here
Here is the executive summary of the report by the Transnational Institute. The full report is here.
Democracy Not For Sale
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Age of Austerity in Greece
AUTHORS: (in alphabetical order): Stephan Backes, Jenny Gkiougki, Sylvia Kay, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Emily Mattheisen, Christina Sakali, Eirini Tzekou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Pietje Vervest.
Executive summary
This report examines the impacts of austerity in Greece on the right to food. It concludes that the Greek State and the Eurozone Member States violated the Greek people’s right to food as a result of the austerity measures required by three Memorandums of Understanding (2010, 2012 and 2015). In other words, the austerity packages imposed on Greece contravened international human rights law.
In August 2018, the European Council celebrated the end of the third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), praising the Greek’s efforts and European solidarity. Yet, as this report shows, there is little to celebrate. Not only did austerity measures increase poverty and food insecurity, it further consolidated an agri-food business regime that will perpetuate inequalities in access to and control over food.
The report examines the impacts of austerity on food producers and consumer/cooperative initiatives as well as social impacts on the Greek population in general. By focusing on the human right to food, the report highlights the impact of the Greek economic crisis that has touched every aspect of people’s lives. The focus on food producers and rural areas also draws attention to an overlooked aspect of Greece’s crisis as these sectors and regions often lack voice and recognition in national politics and decision-making.
The findings are based on direct interviews and original fieldwork, supplemented by interviews (including with high-level State officials) as well as macro-economic data analysis and literature reviews of key texts.
The findings of the report are startling.
1. Austerity measures increased rural poverty and food insecurity.
• An estimated 38.9 % of rural citizens in Greece in 2017 are at risk of poverty*.
• Rural unemployment soared from 7% in 2008 to 25% in 2013 while rural income per capita dropped by 23.5% during the crisis years (2008–2013).
• Food insecurity across Greece has also increased – with food prices increasing at faster rates than prices in the Eurozone during the crisis, despite the sharp fall in domestic incomes and labour costs. This led to a drop in food expenditure in total terms but an increase in food expenditure as a share of total monthly expenditure from 16.4% in 2008 to 20.7% in 2016.
— The proportion of households that cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day, for example, doubled during the crisis from approximately 7% in 2008 to more than 14% in 2016.
* The EU defines this as someone severely materially deprived, below the poverty line after social transfers, or living in households where adults are employed less than 20% of the time.
— The share of households with children unable to afford a protein-based meal on a daily basis doubled from 4.7% in 2009 to 8.9% in 2014. EU statistics estimate that 40.5% of children in 2016 faced material and social deprivation.
— Overall the crisis prompted a noticeable change in consumption patterns with the substitution of higher cost food items with more inexpensive foods.
2. Austerity measures impacted particularly severely on small-scale food producers and traders.
The adverse measures on farmers included:
• Higher taxes and increased costs of production due to the replacement of a separate income tax regime for farmers with a standardised income tax system, higher VAT rates on agricultural inputs including on fertilizer, pesticide, feed and seed, and diesel; and the introduction of a new tax on farmland. Taxes as a proportion of agricultural net value added soared from 4% between 1993 and 2010 to 15.4% in 2016.
• The abolition of the specialised Agricultural Insurance Organisation (OGA) and its merging with a generalised system of social security has led to higher contributions for many farmers.
As well as direct impacts, a number of structural reforms significantly tipped the balance in favour of larger food retailers and private traders to the detriment of small-scale producers. These reforms included:
• Retail trade liberalisation, such as the lifting of restrictions on particular goods sold in supermarkets, flexibilisation of labour laws, and a move towards Sunday trading.
• Wholesale trade liberalisation, specifically the privatisation of the formerly publicly administered and profitable Central Markets and Fishery Organisation, the country’s prime wholesale food operator, responsible for the country’s 2 major food markets and 11 fish markets.
• Privatisations, including the privatisations of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE) and the major dairy cooperative AGNO. The results have been increased costs for farmers less access to rural credit, specialised financial services, and agronomic advice.
3. The austerity measures hit an already weakened rural food sector made vulnerable by long-term trends.
Agriculture in Greece remains a significant part of the economy, making up nearly 4% of the country’s GDP (more than double the EU average) and providing 12% of the country’s jobs in 2016, but it has been in a state of decline since the early 1980s. Greece’s entrance into the European Economic Community in 1981 and later the EU – and the Common Agricultural Policy – opened up Greece’s small-scale farmers to greater competition. This led to a number of vulnerabilities in the Greek agri-food system prior to the crisis including:
• A steady fall in domestic agricultural production and an increasing reliance on food imports that led to a negative food trade balance. Between the late 1980s and the beginning of the crisis in 2008, the food trade deficit frequently exceeded 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) while in the period 2005–2011, imports accounted for nearly 40% of domestic consumption.
• Increasing reliance on food subsidies with subsidies rising as a share of net value added in agriculture from 23% in 1993 to 81% in 2008.
• A growing supermarket sector that intensified monopolistic conditions in relation to producers and consumers alike.
These trends have undermined Greece’s food sovereignty, turning Greece from a net food exporter to a net food importer. Yet rather than remedying these vulnerabilities, the three MOUs (2010, 2012 and 2015) accelerated these trends. Examining the structural requirements of the memorandums suggests a deliberate ideological project of transforming the State and restructuring the Greek economy in favour of certain sectors of capital such as large (trans)national supermarket chains. The crisis provided a means to implement it.
4. The Greek government’s social safety net was insufficient to prevent food insecurity and poverty.
The Greek government enacted a number of social programmes seeking to provide a safety net against the fallout from austerity and to address urgent food insecurity concerns. These included the passing of a humanitarian assistance law that provided food, rent and electricity subsidies for low-income individuals and families. This was later replaced by a Social Solidarity Scheme which provides low-income households with a monthly allowance.
While addressing the most basic needs, the Scheme’s support has been limited in scope, providing only €30 to €200 per household per month, with an additional €100 for every adult and €50 euros per child. The strict eligibility criteria limits support to the most severe cases of material deprivation, while the means testing requirements exclude many who would be entitled due to its restrictive and bureaucratic stipulations. Coverage in rural areas has also been limited.
As a result, private foundations, charities, NGOs, and the Greek Church have had to fill some of these gaps – offering among others free school meals, food banks and soup kitchens, and ‘social grocery’ stores that provide food, clothing, cleaning materials, and other basic goods for low- income individuals and families.
While some of these programmes receive support from local municipalities, and in the case of the school meals programme also central government backing, they are little more than sticking plasters. Human rights-based responses, such as supporting jobs and just wages, that would deal with the root causes of hunger and food insecurity need to be much more centrally foregrounded.
5. Community-led popular responses provide real solutions and point to the emergence of a new food politics.
In the face of Troika-enforced government policies undermining food sovereignty – and a failure to adequately ameliorate its impacts - a range of grassroots community initiatives have emerged to help secure people’s access to food.
These reflect different political tendencies, vary in terms of infrastructure and engage differently with States and markets. They include solidarity kitchens, food cooperatives, ‘No intermediaries’ markets, food self-sufficiency collectives and networks, Community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes, as well as a range of other agricultural cooperatives, alternative farm models, and producers’ ventures.
The call for a ‘solidarity economy’ has become a key framework within which many grassroots responses have articulated their demands and aspirations. This Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) has grown massively during the years of the crisis: in 2013, 372 social enterprises were registered while in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 these rose to 585, 714 and 907 respectively.
In building up such counter-power from below based on innovative practices, social experimentation and people-controlled infrastructures, this movement is paving the way not only for a popular resistance to austerity, but also a new, transformative, just food system. This extends beyond demands for affordable food prices and farmer protection towards genuinely challenging the structural power of the corporate agribusiness sector and advancing popular alternatives.
6. The right to food has been violated in Greece.
The right to adequate food is strongly enshrined in international human rights law and its normative content notes several elements (availability, accessibility, adequacy, sustainability) that need to be safeguarded. The right to adequate food also correlates closely with other economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), meaning that the violation of one right often leads to the violation of other rights. The right to health, life, water and adequate housing are underlying determinants of the right to food.
Several austerity measures - including changes to agricultural taxes and social security regimes and the drive towards privatization and trade liberalization - contributed directly to undermining the right to food in Greece. Other measures such as minimum wage reductions and pension cuts also affected this fundamental human right and contravened other economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to work, housing and health.
States have the obligation to realize human rights. This obligation includes the progressive realization of socio-economic rights with the maximum available resources, which prima facie prohibits retrogressive* measures that would limit or reduce existing levels of enjoyment of enshrined rights. Retrogressive measures can only be taken under very limited circumstances and based on key conditions – such as careful monitoring and evaluation, consideration of all rights, ensuring no disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable – none of which was applied by the Greek government. The wide array of retrogressive measures taken, combined with the increasing cost of living, are sufficient proof that the right to food was violated in Greece.
* Retrogressive measures means any measure that implies a step back in the level of human rights protection due to the intentional decision by a State.
7. Accountability for violations of the right to food rests both with the Greek government and the Eurozone Member States, with the latter arguably taking a greater share of the responsibility.
When a human right is violated, it means there has been a breach in the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill this human right. Many actors were involved in the negotiations leading to the three MoUs. Human rights obligations exist territorially and, under certain circumstances, extraterritorially.
As a result of the austerity measures, Greece has violated the human right to food of people living in Greece. Yet, Eurozone Member States, as direct lenders are also responsible as they signed the MoUs and likely pressured the Greek government to do so. Eurozone Member States – as States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and other international human rights instruments – have therefore breached their extraterritorial obligations to respect the human right to food in Greece. Not only should Eurozone States have refrained from requiring measures that affected the right to food, they should have also conducted human rights impacts assessments of the Memorandums. These HRIAs are required prior to, during, and after the passing of MoUs, but were never done.
Furthermore, all European States have failed to comply with their human rights obligations when acting and taking decisions in Intergovernmental Organisations and International Financial Institutions, such as in the International Monetary Fund. As part of the UN system, the latter is obliged to comply with the UN Charter which includes a commitment to the progressive realization of human rights. It certainly should not take any action that would constitute a human rights violation.
Troika members claim that the sole responsibility for the impacts of the MoUs lies with the Greek State. This argument is false because they, with Greece, were joint signatures of the three MoUs. Therefore, the responsibility for violations of the right to food is a shared one too. Indeed it can be argued that the responsibility of the Eurozone Member States is much bigger, given the evidence of direct interference or even coercion by the Member States of the Troika on Greece to sign the MoUs.
The focus of this report is on Greece, but its findings are relevant internationally. Greece is not an exception. Many other countries, in and outside of Europe, find themselves in similar situations, forced to implement austerity-driven, technocratic policies which lead to violations of economic, social and cultural rights including the fundamental right to food. Greece’s experience also shows that the violations of these fundamental rights are not only issues of the global South. They are happening in the global ‘North’. Hunger, food insecurity, poverty and material deprivation are European issues. Human rights are universal, which means all governments have obligations to fulfill them. It is time now for the EU to act in accordance with these obligations and put human rights above the needs of financial markets.
The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. For more than 40 years, TNI has served as a unique nexus between social movements, engaged scholars and policy makers. www.tni.org
FIAN International was founded in 1986 as the first international human rights organization to advocate for the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition. FIAN’s mission is to expose violations of people’s right to food wherever they may occur. www.fian.org
Agroecopolis is a young, grassroots non-profit, non- governmental organisation. It is the Hellenic Network for Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Access To Land. www.agroecopolis.org
Bill Mitchell's post here
3/16/2016
A sober assessment of the recent German elections from abroad
Here he goes:
Considering that such a big electoral upset can happen even in Germany – a country with very low unemployment, a still fairly strong economy and high stock prices – establishment politicians elsewhere in Europe have every reason to fear even more upheaval (it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch). We enjoy their discomfort as just much as the discomfort of the Washington elites in the face of Mr. Trump’s ascent, although we remain extremely wary of what is rising in their wake in many places.
Superficially the recent wave of migrants combined with Ms. Merkel’s tone-deaf reaction to the resentment it has caused appears to be responsible for this stunning political backlash. However, as we have mentioned previously, we believe there is actually a deeper underlying trend that is finding expression.
The refugee crisis very likely only proved to be a convenient trigger event – if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. After all, the AfD was originally founded in opposition to the EU and the euro. In short, one must try to differentiate between actual causes and mere symptoms. In all likelihood, a big influx of refugees wouldn’t have provoked a similar backlash in the 1990s, a time when optimism was generally still in an upswing, this is to say, “social mood” was still positive.
One thing readers need to keep in mind about all this is that growing disenchantment with the system and resentment against the established order is likely to greatly affect political and economic stability and with it financial market volatility in coming months and years. This is not a trend that is going to go away quickly or quietly.Just a year ago Merkel was at the peak of her power, front page TIME and crushing Greece from behind the curtain. These days she has to kowtow to Turkey. The times they are a changin'.
This resentment is by no means confined to “uneducated extreme right-wingers”. One often gets the impression that Germany’s mainstream press would dearly like its fast-dwindling readership to believe so, but it is simply not true. By way of anecdote, here is a remark we recently overheard that is worth relating in this context (it was uttered by a lawyer who can definitely not be associated with the “extreme right”). We are paraphrasing below:
“Western citizens have to put up with ubiquitous surveillance nowadays and are often treated like common criminals at airports. All of this is being done to ostensibly “protect us” from terrorists coming from the Middle East. At the same time, millions of people from the very same area are now crossing our borders and are essentially just being waved through. Our political elites have completely lost touch with reality and are treating us like total morons”.
The man has become so disgusted with the bulk of mainstream press reportage in recent years, that he insists on using the moniker “lying press” for it these days (which has become quite popular in Germany). This is just one example – the change in social mood epitomized by such opinions is palpable everywhere and across all social classes. It is by no means confined to so-called “radicals”.Full post here
 |
| Angela Mürkül |
9/03/2015
The Wonder That Was India - The Rotten Continent That Is Europe
 |
| India-Pakistan separation |
 |
| India-Pakistan separation |
Roughly 70 years later:
The Rotten Continent That Is Europe
 |
| Refugees Europe |
3/16/2015
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)