Friday, September 02, 2011

An insight into the Euro-elite's mindset

Katinka Barysch is a senior figure at the Centre for European Reform, the Eurocrats think-tank.

She ticks all the right boxes with a masters from the LSE, European Commission work, a bit of journalism and various advisory EU related roles.

And she doesn't like democracy much. Here she is talking to Reuters about the Finnish collateral demand. (That is Finland's agreement with Greece about getting collateral for their bailouts and loans)
...if Finland gets its wish for collateral to back loans to Greece under a new 109 billion euro (97 billion pounds) rescue package.
Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform in London said the Finnish attitude was harmful for Europe.

"That is an attitude that if it materialised in Germany would be very dangerous," Barysch said. "The only good solution I can imagine is to get rid of this. If the Greeks were able to give collateral for all the bonds they issue or for the money we lend them, they wouldn't need us anyway."
The only solution, according to the svelte Ms Barysch is to 'get rid' of the Finnish position. That's a position that has come about because the Finnish government responded to the huge vote for Timo Soini's recently renamed Finns party in this year's general election.
Her solution would be to do what precisely? To get rid of the awkward democratic descision of the Finnish Parliament?

You see Finalnd is a bit of a problem for the lesser spotted Eurocrat,
Finland had said it could drop out of the Greek aid programme if its demands were rejected.
Although Finland's share of the package is tiny, it punches above its weight because of its top-notch credit rating -- which it shares with Austria and the Netherlands -- and the fact that its parliament is empowered to vote on funding issues.
There it is. You see all the other Eurozone countries (and ourselves included) just require the Head of Government to agree at the Council of Ministers. In Finland it is the Parliament that makes the decision. How inconvienient for all good Europeans.


2 comments:

TomTom said...

It is worse than that. Apparently there are clauses in the Sovereign Bonds issued by Greece that waive Collateral Requirements UNLESS any one party demands it, then all bonds require it.......and Greece does not have enough Collateral so it is in automatic default.

Then again, none of Britain's fiduciary issue is backed by Gold....we gave that up in 1931 so we could play wargames again and inflate ourselves to prosperity

Andrew K said...

You would though, wouldn't you?

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