Special Is As Special Does

 
France thinks it's special. Nothing new here. But this is just one of the reasons the European Union is doomed to crumble like the walls of some ancient city.

The EU as currently constructed is humorless. None dare criticize it let alone it's Commission. The whole idea from the beginning that this disparate tribe of people called countries would subscribe and heed to an arbitrary guideline for debt smelled from the beginning like the uncollected trash now stinking of parts of Rome.

Back to France. They're the second largest EU economy. Rank is suppose to impose obligations. In France's case the same applies to special privilege. Here's an example. France and it's leaders think they are special. We don't know whether France caught the American disease or the other way around. One thing, however, remains clear. The entrenched in both nations think they're special.

Now, the eurocrats are not just falling into despondency and despair, they’re beginning to turn on each other.

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker tried to convince a hall packed with French mayors of the need for austerity à la carte in France. The linchpin of his argument was that France has been allowed by the Commission to repeatedly break Eurozone fiscal rules, not just due to its size and influence over EU policy but also its “reflexes, its internal reactions, its multiple facets” — an oblique reference to the tendency of its workers to bring the national economy to a halt whenever the government introduces measures that are not to their liking, as is happening right now.

The irony is that Juncker — who is famous for saying that when things get tough, “you have to lie” — is right on this point. Since 1999 France has broken the Eurozone’s 3% deficit limit during non-recessionary years 11 out of 16 times. That’s one more time than Greece and Portugal, three more times than Italy, and seven more times than Spain (which has broken the limit eight times but four of which were during years of recession, with the Commission’s blessing). wolfstreet.com/2016/06/05/eurocrats-turn-on-each-other-internal-strife-divisions-in-euro-land/

The key term is non-recessionary years. Hard times are one thing, special privileges another.