Greek welcomes its new masters, led by a German!!

Within the month the new Government of Greece will arrive and take up their positions,

The European Commission has set up a task force to oversee the implementation of austerity measures and structural reforms, according to documents seen by Kathimerini.

The task force, an initiative of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, is to have two headquarters - in Athens and Brussels - and direct contact with Barroso’s office and that of Prime Minister George Papandreou. The Athens office will be the point of reference for all visiting inspectors currently offering technical advice to different ministries.

An additional 25 officials, members of the new task force, are to start arriving in Athens in the second half of August.

Make no bones about it, this team of 25 is the new Government of Greece,

According to sources, the decision to create the task force was prompted by the government’s failure to implement measures pledged in exchange for the first 110-billion-euro bailout in May last year. Greece’s creditors - the EC, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - clearly deemed that a foreign task force would help push through a new slew of measures approved.

After all if the Greeks vote against the measures being demanded of them this new body seems to have the power to overule them.

Astonishingly the Commission has decided that the person to run this new Government will be a German, Horst Reichenbach. The decison to take a long time Commission official who hails from Kiel, will no doubt be greeted by the Greeks with all the equaminty that such a decision requires.

After all there is no bad blood between the two nations.

I can only guess that this was done to placate Mrs Merkle. I cannot be persuaded that Barroso would be so cloth-eared himself.

Whither Euro?

Anatole Kaletsky's comments hidden behind the Time's paywall today are depressing but oh so likley. The fact is that the political will within the EU has no intention of lettuingthe financial crisis ringdown the Euro, and the only other option is, as Kaletsky puts it fundamentally undemocratic.

"Voters must not be asked to give their verdict directly on the euro programme. Even assuming substantial fiscal convergence, German taxpayers will never vote for their money to be spent on supporting Greece, Portugal and Spain.
But luckily for the euro's survival, German voters will never be asked this question. The construction of a federal Europe has never relied on democratic support, merely on acquiescence and the force of habit. The creation of a viable single currency, backed by a European federal budget, will merely be the next stage of this non-democratic process."

Some straws in the wind that back up this dismal prognostication can be found today,

The outgoing Spanish EU Presidency will be remembered for overseeing the first steps towards a ''necessary and absolutely essential'' evolution from monetary union to economic union, Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo, Spanish ambassador to Berlin

He then points out the only problem with this is democracy,

However, he noted the lack of political discourse accompanying the proposals and acknowledged that a huge obstacle to achieving economic union remains – member state governments thinking in national terms.
''These substantial steps are still not accompanied by a clear political discourse, a
positive political vision – not only of what Europe is avoiding by doing this, but of what it can achieve: much more solid economic performance, a better capacity to compete with other parts of the world, an awareness that our economic interests demand common answers and in the end, something which will have inevitable implications towards political integration,'' stated the ambassador.

Of course minor issues like national democracy can always be overcome, after all they always have in the past.

Then we have Angela Merkle telling us,

"The federal government is aware of Germany's role as an example in the euro area. We have an essential interest in a strong euro, because a stable currency is indispensable for citizens' trust in the social market economy,"

Make no bones about it, she and the rest of them have no intention in failing in their manifest destiny to ensure a Euro fit for Government.

Angela wants a brand new pig bag

Much to the EU'S consternation the EU Treaty does not allow Germany and others to bail out Greece. So now they want another Treaty.

Fressh from the success of driving through the Constitution, ooops sorry Lisbon Treaty, they now want a new Treaty in order to do away with the Maastricht rules about bailing out incontinent economies.

But she added that a full-scale negotiation of the EU's 27 member states would be needed to set up a European Monetary Fund, which would be able to bail out eurozone members subject to strict budgetary conditions. "Without treaty change we cannot found such a fund," Ms Merkel told foreign correspondents in Berlin yesterday.

The Tories will no doubt say that they have already made a commitment not to allow another Treaty to pass without a referendum, so if what she was proposing was a new Treaty then this would smash against the rocks of British intrancigence.

Nobody really beleives if there was a new Treaty, and it was put to the people they would vote on the case in hand. Not this time. They would be votiong for the whole caboodle, and I have no doubt that the UK would reject such a thing. So this cannot be what she is suggesting.

And sure enough it isn't. What she is suggesting is merely an amendment. And here we have in the simplified revision procedure of the Lisbon Treaty how be done.
Simplified revision procedures, Article 48.

6. The Government of any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the European Council proposals for revising all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union relating to the internal policies and action of the Union.

The European Council may adopt a decision amending all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Council shall act by unanimity after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, and the European Central Bank in the case of institutional changes in the monetary area. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

The decision referred to in the second subparagraph shall not increase the competences conferred on the Union in the Treaties.

7. Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or Title V of this Treaty provides for the Council to act by unanimity in a given area or case, the European Council may adopt a decision authorising the Council to act by a qualified majority in that area or in that case. This subparagraph shall not apply to decisions with military implications or those in the area of defence.

The key is point 7.
A change would need unanimity, but they could agree in secret at the Council to pass it on to QMV, and thius get it passed without a Treaty change, merely an amendment. Westminster would not have to be infornmed, and as the meetings of the Council are in secret we would never know. And the creation of an EMF and the greater control of European economic policy would not have specific defence implications.