Will the European Union Survive?

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

That, or something like it has been the argument of those asserting the European model can continue. I have two reservations about it; (1) It isn't happening. [...] Moreover many who are employed serve under temporary labor contracts which don't provide the social protections of other. "normal" workers.

Social Law as well as Labour Law is national law (with EU law giving some minimum standards).

The social protection (what do you mean exactly here?) is the same for workers under temporary contract (during the time the work under this contract) as for anyone else, in Germany.

But I do agree that working under such temporary contracts nearly is the same as working in the USA - thus the common saying that we nearly got an "American situation" for those.

0 Replies

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Just out of pure curiosity: what do you call "the European model" of welfare systems?

It is a rather well-known term much used by European commentators in contrasting labor law and government social welfare programs in Europe from those that exist here. You yourself used something like it in your subsequent reference to 'working in the American situation'. The reference is generally to the more generous social welfare programs, more restrictive laws regulating employment, greater involvement of the government in the economy, higher taxation and income equality that prevail in Europe, compared to America. It is often contrasted in various writings with "The American Model" less restrictive employment law, less powerful (until recently) unions, greater income inequality and lower taxation that exists here (though our current idiot in chief is trying hard to end it).

The basic law for employment here is "employment at will" which simply means that the employee or the employer can terminate the arrangement at will (though gradually new restrictions are creeping in to the system all the time), and for any reason not explicitly prohibited by law.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

The basic law for employment here is "employment at will" which simply means that the employee or the employer can terminate the arrangement at will (though gradually new restrictions are creeping in to the system all the time), and for any reason not explicitly prohibited by law.

Actually, our labour law doesn't have any 'basic law' (Basic Law is the English term for our Constitution, the 'Grundgesetz') but is part of several 'law books': Civil Code (mainly §§ 611"630), Employment Termination Act, Holidays Act, Collective Agreement Act, Codetermination Act and the Labour Courts Act.

Labour has little to nothing to do with "welfare system".
That is regalated in the various books of the Social Code (SGB 1 - 12) and the courts are the Social Courts (similar to Labour Courts with the Federal Social [Labour] Court of Germany at the top).

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Labour has little to nothing to do with "welfare system".

That should read:

Labour law has ...

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

Answering directly to the initial post, without having read the rest of the thread yet:

georgeob1 wrote:

Will the European Union Survive?

Yes, it will. I agree with you about one thing that won't survive in the long run. That's the combination of a single currency and 25-or-so separate fiscal policies. This combination is a recipee for failure when the Eurozone is hit with an asymmetric shock to its economy, as it happened over the last two years. (American economists, unattached to the political symbolism of the Euro, have been predicting this ever since the system was proposed in the early 1990s.) But there are several ways in which this can resolve itself. All of them qualify as "survival", regardless of your semantics.

One scenario is that the European Union changes into something more similar to the United States of America: a central government with a big-enough budget to shift substantial amounts of spending from zones in recession to zones who are fine, or even in danger of overheating. If that's the way it goes, this crisis will have strengthened, not weakened, the European Union.

Another way this can play out---more likely in my opinion---is that countries who cannot keep up leave the Euro, get back their national currencies, and devalue them. This will give them some stimulus to grow their economies. In the most extreme version of this scenario, all countries abolish the Euro and go back to the pre-1999 status quo. Even so, that would still constitute survival of the EU. There was a European Union in 1998. And in any event, not all EU countries have the Euro even today. So I don't see why the survival of the EU---a customs union, a free-migration zone, a common labor market, and many other things---should depend on the survival of the Euro.

Finally, I don't think that Europe's welfare states have anything to do with it. Of course I understand why you, George, want to make this a Victorian morality play about the virtues of thrift and the vices of being too generous to slackers. That is to be expected from an American Republican. But this is the real world, not a Victorian morality play. Welfare states are no threat to financial systems as long as taxpayers pay for them. Even welfare states taxpayers don't pay for are no more threatening than tax cuts for which the government doesn't pay in spending cuts. This is what America did during the falsely-glorified presidencies of Reagan and Bush II---presidencies that you, George, both supported. Where was your Victorian frugality then?

For a few cases in point, notice that financial systems are doing just fine in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland, which have generous welfare states but aren't part of the Eurozone. Conversely, consider Slovakia and the Baltic states, which have lean welfare states, flat taxes, and all that, but are parts of the Eurozone. They suffer as badly as the rest if not more. Therefore I predict that the Eurozone's welfare states will be just as fine after this financial crisis is over.

I have plenty of issues with the European union. Its agricultural policies are pathetic. I always thought the Euro was a bad idea. I disapprove of reforming the EU from a loose confederation of nations into a federal, constitutional republic. But none of my issues, of which there are many more, reaches the level of questioning its survival as an institution.

2 Replies

@Thomas,

I've said so before: 11 countries, namely Denmark, Sweden, the UL, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania are in the European Union but do not use the Euro as their (national) currency.

Thoma wrote:

I have plenty of issues with the European union. Its agricultural policies are pathetic. I always thought the Euro was a bad idea. I disapprove of reforming the EU from a loose confederation of nations into a federal, constitutional republic. But none of my issues, of which there are many more, reaches the level of questioning its survival as an institution.

I've only a different opinion re the Euro here (which I really like since its introduction), mainly because we had had the ECU before, with the major difference that the ECU wasn't a coin or bank note ...

0 Replies

@Thomas,

I agree with your points about an ambiguous political union combined with a single currency. I also suspect historians are likely to find that everyone would have been better off if they simply detached Greece from the Euro zone, allowing them to delate a new currency as a means of facilitating their overdue economic transformation.

As for the rest I believe you are making superficial arguments in support of fixed ideas, There IS a difference between Norway, Sweden, Denmark & Switzerland, compared to Germany, Poland,Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Spain, & Portugual: the former countries have moderately high birth rates, and stable or rising populations: the latter countries have extermely low birth rates, ageing and declining populations.

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

As for the rest I believe you are making superficial arguments in support of fixed ideas,

I assure you the feeling is mutual. Smile

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

As for the rest I believe you are making superficial arguments in support of fixed ideas, There IS a difference between Norway, Sweden, Denmark & Switzerland, compared to Germany, Poland,Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Spain, & Portugual: the former countries have moderately high birth rates, and stable or rising populations: the latter countries have extermely low birth rates, ageing and declining populations.

Great! That elimiates your concern about American Democrats introducing the European welfare state to America. America, too, is enjoying high birth rates.

(I'll take your word on the difference in birthrates you're asserting. I haven't checked them myself lately.)

2 Replies

@Thomas,

There are many sources for the demographic data. The CIA annual factbook is among the easiest to use. A modified Gini coefficient, obtained by taking the ratio of the population percentages above 65 to that below age 14 is very revealing. For Germany, Italy, Hungary, Spain etc the ratio is about three times the ratio for the United States. The median age in Germany is now more than seven years greater than that here.

I appreciate your clever comment that, in view of our demographic advantage, we can now fearlessly adopt the European Model. Unfortunately, due to a political paralysis similar to that infecting Europe we have already pissed away whatever advantage we had with our own programs. Moreover, we appear to be working hard to duplicate the European model right now with increasing government intrusion into economic matters and individual economic choices, the prospect of higher taxes, more regulation and exploding deficits. While a a small dose of economic poison is less harmful than a large one it is poison nonetheless, and we appear intent on increasing the dose..

Every new government "benefit" creates a new (usually well-organized) cadre of beneficiaries who work hard to preserve "their" benefits, no matter how little goor or how much harm they may do. That's why in a world awash in a surplus of sugar we still have protective quotas for domestic producers. That is the secret of the real "European Model" in which a contemporary class of permanent government functionaries preserves its power in an unspokem bargain with voters that it will preserve the "benefits" to which they have become addicted: in exchange they get to remain in power.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

That is the secret of the real "European Model" in which a contemporary class of permanent government functionaries preserves its power in an unspokem bargain with voters that it will preserve the "benefits" to which they have become addicted: in exchange they get to remain in power.

Do you really think that we have had since the late 19th century only governments which stood in power due to those 'benefits'? And that our constitution was created in 1947/8 only under this topic?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

(I'll take your word on the difference in birthrates you're asserting. I haven't checked them myself lately.)

From today's
Belfast Telegraph:

Quote:

[...] Ireland has the highest fertility rate in the European Union with an average of 2.05 children per woman, although this still wouldn't be enough for the population to replace itself in the long run if it wasn't for immigration.

Nearly one-in-five births in Ireland was to immigrants, the figures reveal.

After Ireland, France has the highest fertility rate at 1.98, followed by 1.92 in the UK and just 1.3 in Poland.
[...]

And earlier TIME had an article about Germany's low birth rate:

Quote:

[[...] According to a preliminary analysis by the Federal Statistics Office, 651,000 children were born in Germany in 2009 - 30,000 fewer than in 2008, a dip of 3.6%. In 1990, German mothers were having on average 1.5 children each; today that average is down to 1.38 children per mother. [...]

"The German birth rate has remained remarkably flat over the past few years while it has increased in other low fertility countries, like Italy and the Czech Republic," Joshua Goldstein, executive director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, tells TIME. "Women are continuing to postpone motherhood to an older age and this process of postponement is temporarily lowering the birth rate." According to Goldstein's research, Germany has the longest history of low fertility in Europe.

0 Replies

@Walter Hinteler,

You are responding to a general statement I made about European politics by reference to Germany only. I believe my original statement was generally accurate with respect to the various Christian Democrat and Socialist political parties that have dominated most Western European governments since WWII. France is perhaps the most obvious example of an enduring dominant political class most of which attended the government-run national school of administration in Strasbourg and which dominated both Gaullist and Socialist parties today.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Well, yes. Or no.

I mean, what do you want more than getting different poltical parties from the left as well as from the right of the centre? Add the Greens and the Liberals ...

Who else should run elected governments?

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

It's not a dodge. If you knew anything of the history to which i referred--and you obviously don't--you'd never have claimed that the original thirteen states had no experience of independent existence, of exercising the status of an independent state. Just because you didn't understand the answer doesn't make it a dodge.

*******************************************

Please, gentlemen, continue your fascinating squabble about European social welfare systems.

0 Replies

I believer there are other as yet unnoted factors at work here as well.

The first is the evident and growing divergence of Franco German positions on issues inportant to the EU. Until recently a carefully orchrestrated unanimity between the two dominent continental powers of the EU have been a constant and impotrrant unifying factor. Now, principally in the growing divergence over the steps needed to control the growing debt/government spending crises in the Union, and in the public positions and actions of Germany with respect to the Lybian intervention, that unanimity appears to be gone for the forseeable future. Underlying this is the growing economic interests of Germany with a Russia that still threratens the eastern states of the EU. Continuing German support for a trans Baltic pipeline that would send Russian Gas directly to them, bypassing both Ukrane and Poland is a significant and not unnoticed action.

The second factor is a growing loss of confidence in NATO, both in terms of the committment of the various European members and the committment to them of the United Stares.

I velieve the recent decisionm of the Visegrad Group (Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) to create a military command and force, independent of both NATO and the EU is a very significant indicator of all this.

The success heretofore enjoyed by the EU in bypassing political issues like the referenda rejections of the precussor to the New Lisbon Treaty and the subsequent decision of the EU to simply ignore them and bypass the expresse d views of electorates in Ireland and France is likely not to continue under these new conditions.

0 Replies

I believer there are other as yet unnoted factors at work here as well.

The first is the evident and growing divergence of Franco German positions on issues inportant to the EU. Until recently a carefully orchrestrated unanimity between the two dominent continental powers of the EU have been a constant and impotrrant unifying factor. Now, principally in the growing divergence over the steps needed to control the growing debt/government spending crises in the Union, and in the public positions and actions of Germany with respect to the Lybian intervention, that unanimity appears to be gone for the forseeable future. Underlying this is the growing economic interests of Germany with a Russia that still threratens the eastern states of the EU. Continuing German support for a trans Baltic pipeline that would send Russian Gas directly to them, bypassing both Ukrane and Poland is a significant and not unnoticed action.

The second factor is a growing loss of confidence in NATO, both in terms of the committment of the various European members and the committment to them of the United Stares.

I velieve the recent decision of the Visegrad Group (Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) to create a military command and force, independent of both NATO and the EU is a very significant indicator of all this.

The success heretofore enjoyed by the EU in bypassing political issues like the referenda rejections of the precussor to the New Lisbon Treaty and the subsequent decision of the EU to simply ignore them and the expressed views of electorates in Ireland and France is likely not to continue under these new conditions. Underlying political differences will have to be facesd sooner, rather than later.

0 Replies

One now sees repeated speculation about the survival of the Eurozone and possibly even the EU itself in the financial press. Much of this is fairly obvious exploitation of the uncertainty surrounding the process for getting consent for a stabilization fund in sufficient amounts, and on the demands that may be put in it by Greece, Ireland and possibly Italy. However it does appear that the major EU powers face a fairly urgent choice between steps towards closer union and more shared sovereignty(or at least longer term financial committments), or the risk of sudden financial destabilization. On the face of it the major national leaders appear determined to preserve the Euro and the stability of the Eurozone. However, the strains of domestic politics in Germany and even France in some cases limit their permissable action.

It takes more knowledge and better intuition than I have to guess what may unfold in this area. I would be very interested to learn the perspectives of others here on these questions.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

It takes more knowledge and better intuition than I have to guess what may unfold in this area. I would be very interested to learn the perspectives of others here on these questions.

The expectation is that China will step in and be the lender of last resort and thus give Europe time to figure something out, but history shows that the Chinese never doing anything for charity, there will be something wanted in return. Taiwan would be my guess.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

I have a hard time seeing that the Europeans would want that on any terms acceptable to China. My impression is that the Europeans have the financial ability to save the situation with their own assets, if they can find the political will to do so. Events appear to be forcing them to either double down or fold, to use a betting metaphor.

0 Replies

Will the European Union Survive?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know