The fiscal compact and Euro-federalism… March 7, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, European Politics, Irish Politics.trackback
Frank Barry, Professor of International Business and Economic Development at Trinity College Dublin, had an interesting piece in the SBP this weekend on federalism and the EU. He’s clearly in the federalist camp, but that doesn’t negate what he writes. For example he’s sceptical about the fiscal compact:
The new EU fiscal compact, on which we Irish have now been called to vote, does not address the major design flaws in the euro project. It is, at best, a sticking plaster designed to provide the dominant eurozone players with the political cover they require to take the steps necessary to defuse the current crisis.
This is to be valued, though it may itself store up trouble for the future. A European Commission study from the 1990s showed that several of the most severe recessions of the preceding decades would have led to violation of the Stability and Growth Pact deficit limits by some member states, even if they had started from zero deficit positions.
It’s good to see someone call the compact as it is. A political mechanism to carry France, but more particularly, and Germany across their own political hurdles, rather than a inevitable or necessary socio-economic framework that the eurozone can simply not do without.
The cynicism of this is pretty breath-taking when one stops to consider it for any length of time.
And worse still it simply doesn’t address either the current or future problems:
Under the compact, countries in this position would be required to pile austerity on austerity unless the rules are applied sufficiently flexibly. There is no rule, of course, as to how much flexibility might be forthcoming.
But other crises will follow in time, in the absence of more fundamental change. The fiscal compact does nothing to address the failures that led to the Irish and Spanish crises. The eurozone gave these countries much lower interest rates and provided their banking systems with much easier access to external finance with which to fund the resulting housing booms.
And Barry makes a point that needs to be articulated loud and clear. Currently neither the Eurozone, nor the EU proper, has the tools in place to mitigate the negative outcomes of its very structure. He notes that there were warnings that national economies and banking systems were simply unfit for purpose in fending off ‘turbo-charged internationalisation of finance’. But these were not listened to. But logically – given the weakness of dissenting forces – the only game in play is the EU/eurozone.
But in order to shore up the EU and the eurozone the means necessary…
… clearly move[s] us further towards a federal Europe. But now consider the role that the US federal budget plays in cushioning regional recessions in that jurisdiction. Tax payments to Washington fall sharply, and there is some reallocation of federal expenditures towards the region. Some analysts estimate that as much as 40 per cent of a regional downturn is cushioned in this way, which serves as a substitute for currency realignment.
Europe’s Structural Funds are insignificant in comparison. The absence of such mechanisms is particularly damaging for those eurozone regions whose business cycles are out of sync with Germany’s, since the latter largely determines interest-rate policy. Unsurprisingly, this group includes Ireland, Portugal and the Mediterranean economies (as well as Britain).
And therein is illustrated the essential disconnect at the heart of what we are being asked to vote on this year – though isn’t it interesting how the vote itself is now up for question by the Government with some wanting a later poll and others earlier. This fiscal compact addresses none of this. Barry notes that ‘The fiscal compact will not prevent future crises because it does not address the fundamental design flaws of the project, which have little to do with fiscal incontinence’. As he further notes, the EU and eurozone, to survive must become a genuine transfer union. One may agree or disagree with that notion. Genuine federalism underpinned by democratic accountability would not be something I’d have an enormous problem with. But whether that is possible in this new Europe we appear to inhabit is another question.
But then for that to happen would need levels of political courage and will quite distinct from what has been on offer from EU and national leaderships during this crisis.
It is not just true, WBS, that the extreme austerity strategy which the current conservative majority in the EU Council of Ministers insist on putting at the heart of the Fiscal Compact conflicts with the goals of a federal European Union. It also threatens existing European integration as well and is fueling a revival of the populist far right in too many EU countries.. Which is why the battle to force a switch in EU macro-economic policy to a strategy for economically, socially and environmentally sustainable growth now lies at the heart of the EU political debate. The details of such a strategy are set out by the Euro-Memorandum group of socialist and green economists from across the EU – http://www.euromemo.eu/
We may be witnessing the beginning of a broader left/right split over the future of EU economic policy which has no real precedent. Just how bitter this promises to become is reflected in the refusal of the German, British and other European conservative government leaders are refusing to even meet with Francois Hollande, the socialist candidate – and likely winner – in the French Presidential election because he wants to renegotiate the Pact to insert stronger pro-growth and employment commitments.
In this he has the strong support of the French Green party. And in Germany – which faces a general election next year – the Greens, the Left Party and even the Social Democrats – have adopted a similar stance. Of course none of this guarantees delivery if and when the right loses power in Paris and Berlin. But it is an important start and reflects the growing pressure for action coming from both the European trade union movement and from a growing network of civil society protest movements. For the left everywhere surely the lesson is for increased engagement with the political struggle at EU level – not disengagement and the dangerous illusion that devaluation and the break up of the EU offers a way forward.
John Palmer
A question to John, who makes many valid points – do you favour an Irish No to the fiscal compact / austerity treaty in the soon-to-be-held refwrendum?
I’m going to savour the answer to this question.
I will admit to taking some pleasure at Fintan O’Toole’s piece the other day. There’s something inherently amusing at these EU cargo cultists finally having to force themselves to call for a No vote after decades of pro-Yes drivel.
100 per dissociation from the nasty tone in Mark P’s comments on John Palmer and Fintan O’Toole ~ A voluntary author deletion welcome
No.
I fully intend to come across as hostile to the likes of John Palmer and Fintan O’Toole, because I am in fact hostile to them.
Arrah Mark, would you not give it up, even just for Lent?
I could hide what I think, Smiffy, but I’m not sure what purpose such dishonesty would serve.
Minus 1 to Mark P
Sensitive flower is sensitive.
The fiscal compact treaty is an attempt to make German neoliberalism,-ordoliberalism-the law of the land.
The fictitious entity, the structural deficit, has received by now much derisive comment from left, right and center.
But if the treaty is implemented, the imaginary structural deficit, concocted by right-wing ideological technocrats, will be used to attack social programmes and diminish government intervention.
The prospect for a more Keynesian expansionist policy emerging from social democrats at European level is unlikely; social democracy in Greece, led by the president of the Socialist International, has collapsed, and in Ireland the Labour Party is implementing and advocating even further austerity.
I think its right to characterise the Fiscal Compact Treaty as political cover, but it’s important, I think to stress that it ‘s not only political cover in Germany for Angela Merkel. The Fiscal Compact is being treated differently in different countries. This treaty is a nonsense in political and economic terms and is highly unlikely to be implemented as described. However, it provide political cover in Ireland for those who want to rapidly increase the level of privatization of public services. The blackmailing tactic might work to get people to agree simply to keep the show on the road. Once they have that they can blame all future decisions on the fiscal compact – so once the IMF/ECB/EU program is over, and I have no idea when that would be, the further privatization will be copper-fastened and the politicians will say when it goes wrong “it wasn’t our fault – it was the fiscal compact that made us do it”.
Tomas: I would not vote “No” myself since I wish to see a stronger EU level economic governance, although with very different policies. But having said that I respect the position of some on the Far Left who would prefer to abstain. Mark P’s “hostility” is neither surprising nor resented by me.
Now I do not privilege quotations from the past classics of socialism over evidence from the present but these words of L.D. Trotsky may still have an echo for Mark:” The present crisis, in which are synthesized all the capitalist crises of the past, signifies above all the crisis of national economic life. How may the economic unity of Europe be guaranteed, while preserving complete freedom of cultural development to the people living there? How may unified Europe be included within a coordinated world economy? The solution to this question can be reached not by deifying the nation, but on the contrary by completely liberating productive forces from the fetters imposed on them by the national state. But the ruling classes of Europe ….. attempt by force to subordinate economy to the outdated national state” (LDT “Nationalism and Economic Life” Foreign Affairs, April 1934.
Let’s get some clarity here John. You oppose a No vote. You “respect” the position of those who would abstain, which seems to place you outside that camp too. So can we take it from this that you advocate a Yes vote?
It’s truly remarkable to encounter a cargo cultist whose faith is stronger even than that of Fintan O’Toole.
Fortunately most of the real fightng left in Ireland rejects the fiscal compact and is already co-operating to achieve a No Victory in the referendum.
What’s this about “most”, Tomas? I’m unaware of anyone on the left, real, fighting or otherwise, who takes any stance other than opposition to the treaty.
OK – all the fighting left
You can Mark. But when the suicidal austerity policies of the right wing majority in the EU Council have to be abandoned, progressives will still need a stronger and more effective EU wide economic governance system to implement alternative sustainable growth strategies.
I’m just going to drive a gleeful coach-and-horses through Godwin’s Law here, for the craic. I know that Trotsky was in favour of a United Socialist States of Europe. A great believer in pan-European unity he was indeed, as long as it took place under the right conditions. However, I do not believe that he would have welcomed the (temporary) unification of Europe under Hitler’s New Order.
The fiscal treaty is, of course, not remotely comparable to what was imposed on occupied Europe during the war. But nor does it contain one ounce, one drop, one cent of progress towards the kind of pan-European co-operation that the Left should favour. I’m genuinely startled that John is claiming otherwise (and he is, otherwise his last comment makes no sense).
And I can assure John that nobody on the radical left is thinking about ‘abstaining’ from this fight, even for a moment. I’m living and working outside Ireland at the moment, but as soon as the date is announced I will be booking my flight home to cast a vote against this Treaty as a good European citizen, not just for the sake of the Irish working class, but for the sake of workers in every European country who will suffer if this hocus-pocus is enshrined in law.
Great Post Ed – but what is Godwin’s Law? Looking forward to the fighting left No Victory Party?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
I recommend Ed’s Godwin’s Law link to all Cedar Lounge friends – plus 1 to Ed – it makes you think again
With respect John, that’s incoherent. This treaty doesn’t strengthen ‘EU wide economic governance’ in some sort of neutral way: it seeks to enshrine a particular kind of governance for ever. Attempting to retro-fit it in some future social democratic era would be a lot more trouble than simply rejecting it now.
+1
John, I value your insights but your line seems a triumph of hope over experience.
It would seem to me to require a revolution of some kind.
It is with genuine sadness that I learn that John Palmer would not vote against the Fiscal Compact. That he advocates a vote for it. I had placed my hopes in his social democracy and that it, though alloyed with a devotion to the development of a unitary European state (even under capitalism), would win out.
Social democrats and trade union leaders identified with “the European project” when it promised and often delivered social progress. They have stubbornly maintained that adherance in the face of a shift in the EU to it being a spearhead for neoliberaism. Ambiguities were possible until 2008. Since then the EU, with the IMF etc., has become the driver of austerity and the producer of a series of measures to implement it. The Fiscal Compact is the latest and, furthermore, attempts to embed austerity constitutionally and indefinitely.
A clear choice presents itself. During the crisis some social democrats and some trade union leaders have turned against the thrust of the EU. The ETUC opposes this Treaty. In Ireland the leadership of the traditionaly ‘European’ trade union, SIPTU (the biggest), have painted themselves into condemnation of the Treaty without, so far, opposing it.
Fintan O’Toole, a man who deserves no abuse on this site, has recognised that it is precisely his social democracy that is targetted by the Fiscal Compact. He has, despite his strong previous support for the EU (not repudiated) produced for the benefit of the electorate (and Mark P’s benefit too) a devastatingly simple demolition of the Treaty from a humanistic, social, social democratic, and (it being sufficiently general and obvious) socialist position.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0306/1224312849769.html
I am happy that my respect for Fintan has been justified and sad that my memories of John and his articulate expression of a radical alternative, must remain merely that, happy memories.
The suicidal austerity policies of the right wing majority in the EU Council and of the EU bureaucracy generally are a) implemented through the Treaty b) preservational rather than suicidal for the ruling elite and c) increase the suicide rate in Greece and throughout Europe.
Des Derwin
I think you’re right about FOT. I think his position is credible precisely because it is positioned from a leftish social democratic critique. Also agree abuse against him, or indeed John, is not appropriate on this site.
Sorry meant to say ‘leftish social democratic critique coming from a pro EU position’
Grand for those who are previously EU critical but FOTs position is perhaps worth a few per cent added to the No side.
Exactly what “abuse” has either O’Toole or Palmer been subjected to here?
It’s a matter of tone, Mark P. As always.
I haven’t actually been abusive towards either of them or you’d have quote the abuse back to me.
I’m certainly hostile towards Palmer’s politics, his Guardian journalism and his persistent attempts to misrepresent the nature of Irish opposition to Lisbon, but that’s quite distinct from being abusive towards him.
I think it’s important to be clear when one says one is hostile to ‘x’ that it is indeed to ‘x’s’ politics and not to them personally. Contextually it’s a problem of the internet. No offense is intended, but it can read otherwise.
I went back and re read your comments and it seems to me that offense is intended by you. The problem there is that that implicitly dissuades people from discussion. I have no problem with John commenting here. He’s entirely welcome. Simply because he takes a different analysis to you is no reason to be snide or attempt to shut down discussion and frankly that’s what you do when you admit to hostility.
Fine. If you want hostility there’s plenty of online venues that cater to that. If someone comes on here in good faith it is incumbent on people to treat them reasonably. By all means critique an approach, no one here has been shy about disagreeing with him, myself included, but to discuss this in terms of ‘hostility’ is to disregard and disrespect the often reiterated approach of this site. It’s also a futile way to engage with issues as if every answer is already known.
+1 WbS
I would be a lot closer to Mark P than John Ps (at least on this issue), but what John P has to say provides an insight into how a certain section of broadly progressive individuals (who have been, as Mark P might say, cargo-culted by the EU) envision the EU developing.
I am extremely doubtful about the progressive potential of the EU (certainly on the basis of its existing Treaties), and I am more than sure that this Treaty has absolutely no redeeming qualities, but I do believe in good manners.
Just to add to your point, I was one who for years would also have taken a line almost indistinguishable from John’s, and now like you and Mark P would be highly vpcrituxal, but the past half decade or a little bit more has been an hard education. The point being that as you say there’s a progressive cohort who still find it difficult to impossible to set aside a certain view of the EU. It’s not held out of malice or reaction, but it is one that has to be explored and engaged with. And people do change their minds.
Des, I am happy to be judged by events. The current austerity obsession will not survive for long. In the months ahead. Watch for the step by step retreat by the right under the pressure of the crisis. Even some on the Dutch right are already beginning to question the counter-productive imposition of deflation. An Hollande election in France in a month or two will increase that pressure. If Merkel suffers defeat in the election next year, the retreat will accelerate. The question – as always – is what alternative can and should be agreed across the EU/Euro-area? The programme developed by Euro-Memo (see above) is one which (I would have thought) the serious left should be able to unite around.
John,
That’s a very interesting point, but I wonder if you could expand a little (I must confess, I wasn’t previously aware of the Euromemo initiative, but will certainly read the documents).
In terms of a retreat from the current, blind rush to austerity, certainly the election of Hollande and defeat of Merkel would be helpful. But would it not equally be helpful for at least one signatory of the Treaty to fail to ratify, to wobble – if not halt – its implementation?
I suppose my main question – sincerely put – is that would it not be better for the left (defined broadly) to implement an alternative approach to the current austerity strategy without the Fiscal Compact in force and, if not, why not?
Thanks
+1
John
The EU adopts or amends Treaties by unanimity.
Are you seriously suggesting that there will be left (or even vaguely progressive) governments simultaneously in all EU member states at some point in the foreseeable futre? (bearing in mind that even the vaguely progressive or leftish governments of the day have signed up to this one)
Smiffy – You raise a genuinely complex and difficult question. I can see that there is a case for a “No” vote if it was specifically linked to a concrete European alternative strategy. But I do not think this is the case at present. Some “No” voters will simply want out of the Euro/European Union on grounds of “national interest.” That would not be true of the far left “No” voters but (to the best of my knowledge) they have nowhere engaged with a concrete European alternative based on sustainable growth/jobs etc. In the Irish case there is another problem.
Moreover on this occasion an Irish “No” victory will not have any effect on the Pact coming into force: it only needs two thirds of the states to ratify it. But a “No” would exclude Ireland from the decision making process as well as from accessing financial support – neither helpful to the development of an alternative to the right’s austerity strategy. That said I accept this is a complex issue for which there are no easy or simple answers.
What are the odds that SIPTU and ICTU will come out (guardedly) in favour of a ‘Yes’ vote? Highly likely I’d say.
Interesting question.
More likely they’ll say that the Treaty “doesn’t address the need for growth in order to create employment” and then go into hiding until it’s all over.
The reason I raised the question because I think John Palmer’s thoughts on the matter are a good reflection, whether intended or not, of what way the Irish unions leaders, who will make the decision on whether to endorse or reject, are going.
Despite the huffing and puffing about the Euro Plus Pact, the war on Greek workers, and now this Fiscal Treaty the union leaderships, with the possible exception of Unite, will come out in favour of a ‘Yes’ vote, drawing upon the reasoning you sketch above.
A depressing thought: just when you thought the union leaders could not go any lower they find that if you spend 25 years scraping the bottom of the barrel you end up deepening the barrel.
I see where you’re coming from CMK. And the tragedy is that it could turn out as you suggest.
But as far as I can see it would be difficult for them to come out with a straight Vote Yes. It they do then presumably it will be on the basis of government promises over something unrelated.
-The true structural deficit is unknowable.
Consider the political and legal implications. Would elected governments accept the guesstimates of unaccountable technocrats? How, moreover, are judges to reach a decision? Are they to evaluate the merits of alternative econometric models? Since huge changes in estimates of structural deficits are likely, how is a government to adapt? Putting an unmeasurable concept into the law seems mad.-Martin Wolf (Martin, its not mad at all if those inventing estimates of the unmeasurable will be those trained in conservative economic ideology as they will be)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/the-pain-in-spain-will-test-the-euro/article2361182/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2361182
The size of the structural deficit will be invented by ideologues for ideological reasons.
It strains credulity to suggest that such a compact, based on regressive economic ideology, with right-wing political anti-working class objectives, has any progressive or social democratic aspects.
dilettante – IF the “Compact” was a legal EU treaty what you say about the unanimity procedure would be true. But it is not such a treaty: it is an “Inter-governmental Agreement” so unanimity does not apply.
I did not reply to Smiffy’s question about whether it would be easier to mobile for an alternative – sustainable growth oriented alternative policy – on the basis of rejection of the Compact. But that would take Ireland out of the forum where these decisions would be taken and it would be weakened by the loss of financial support (were this to be needed again). More seriously it would weaken the development of a common left programme of alternative demands which should link not only the trade union and civil society fighting unemployment and cuts but also the main centre left parties which are at present barely represented in any EU national government.
For example I believe it essential that pressure is put – in the first instance – on the French and German social democratic and Green parties to adopt in a common platform – as much of the Euro-memo programme as possible (ie Euro bonds to finance investment in sustainable growth, higher taxes on the rich, commitments on the trade” surplus” EU states to expand demand, prioritisation of urgent EU investment in the weaker EU economies struggling with the debt crisis generated by the banks, property developers etc).
Over time such an initiative would trigger growing support across the EU/Euro-area especially because the austerityitis of the current EU conservative governments cannot and will not work and can only deepen the crisis. Where I most disagree with Mark P. is his implicit assumption that nothing can be achieved this side of a revolutionary change. I used to be believe that. I no longer do. Indeed I am convinced that we live in an era of transitional politics between an increasingly bankrupt capitalism and a new economic/social system waiting to be born,.
John, you’re last sentence is, not a little delusional. What political forces across Europe are mobilising to carry through this ‘transitional phase’ between bankrupt capitalism and the promised land of a ‘new economic/social system’. I presume by the latter you are referring to a reformed version of the EU?
Those forces who, from your comments above, you believe are the agents of this transition, or if not agents then catalysts, that is the Social Democratic and Green parties, are willing collaborators in the imposition of vicious austerity. It was a Green Party in Ireland which voted, time and again, for regressive budgets, the creation of NAMA etc. It was social democrats in Spain and Greece who forced austerity onto their populations and in the latter state who refused to put it up to Merkel and Sarkozy and hold a referendum. The Irish representatives of the ironically titled ‘Socialist International’ who are the most enthusiastic implementers of austerity here.
Whoever ushers in this ‘transitional phase’ it sure as hell won’t be the utterly debased Social Democratic and Green parties, that’s for sure.
What you’re engaging in is the same sort of thinking that is clear from Fintan O’Toole’s writings and the utterances of the Irish trade union leaders. You posit an ideal EU focusing on solidarity, jobs, secure employment, sustainability all the nice things, while simultaneously ignoring the real, living EU the one which is intent on forcing austerity on its periphery, in the first instance, and then on the rest, in time. The real nightmare for the view that you espouse, from what I can see from comments here on both this thread and on others, is the current far left gaining popular traction (such as is nearly the case in Greece) and combining with mass, Europe wide, strikes and protests which sideline the polite Left and the current trade union leaderships. Faced with the latter, controlled austerity with the unions and Social Democrats as accomplices is to be preferred and that’s what will lead, I believe, to the unions here endorsing the Fiscal Pact and urging a ‘Yes’.
+1
I saw Joschka Fischer in TCD recently argue for the treaty on pretty much those grounds: the *left*’s sacred duty to save the EU from the austerity fetishists by, er, giving them what they want.
That’s it really isn’t it, the fine line between patience and exasperation, between faith in the future of the internationalist project and evidence that the project is going in the wrong direction and has been with fits and starts for a long time (without getting into the debate on whether it was doomed from the start).
There’s an excellent slogan from another context which I believe applies to the EU at this stage: “Just say no”.
Yes John, but…
The Austerity Treaty itself says that it should be integrated into EU Treaties wtihin 5 years. (In this way the great and the good hope to avoid the ordinary revision procedure for the EU Treaties.)
Do you agree with this by-passing of the EU Treaties by putting an EU Treaty amendment clause into an international treaty which is outside the EU Treaties?
Do you agree with the idea of an international treaty outside the EU Treaties binding the EU institutions to a certain course of action (and in this case a particularly reactionary course of action) without the EU structures as a whole (also, let’s face it, a pretty reactionary bunch) being given the opportunity to pronounce themselves on the issue.
Do you agree with an open-ended EU Treaty amendment (on the ESM) which effectively places governance of the Euro outside the EU Treaties and exercises no EU control over future changes to that system of governance?
Do you agree with the creation of a multi-tiered Euro governance system which allows some countries to continue to operate inside the EU Treaties (such as Ireland if we reject the Austerity Treaty) while others join a “coalition of the willing” of masochistic Austerity measures? A two speed Euro?
Do you believe that this treaty is helpful to the architecture of the EU and the Eurozone?
In policy terms the Treaty does little that cannot be done by the usual legislative procedure of the EU (within existing EU Treaties) – a large part of which has already been done in legislative terms by the economic governance “six-pack”
http://www.irishleftreview.org/2012/03/07/labour-austerity-treaty/
The big difference is that the reactionary policy is being put into Treaty (or constitutional) form, which means that changing it entails Treaty (and constiutional) change rather than just a shift of political majority.
Do you have a theory as to why people should oppose the legislative proposal (the six pack) but stand up and salute the constututional proposal? (Did you oppose the economic governance six-pack? And if not then why not?)
Fundamenally John, you say that you are opposed to right-wing policy. But do you not see the constitutionalisation of right-wing policy as being a problem?
John Palmer’s reference to a progressive movement, ” waiting to be born” has a clear echo in the values of fundamentalist Christians where faith in the second coming replaces actual evidence. The actual evidence in Ireland, for example, would be the Labour Party Leader telling the US Ambassador a very different story than he was telling the Irish people on his attitude the the Lisbon Treaty. Now the Labour Party supports the use of Shannon Airport by the US in its imperial wars having opposed it for 10 years in opposition. It supports perpetual war as well as perpetual austerity. Those of us in the party who joined it because it was founded by James Connolly are a very small minority. The reality is that the Green and Social Democratic Parties throughout the EU, including Ireland, bought into the idea that the EU was progressive despite clear evidence of its hatred of democracy by forcing the Irish people to vote again on exactly the same treaty and more recently forcing the Greek and Italian PM’s to resign and replaced them by Goldman bankers.
However, the reality is that this Austerity Treaty can and will only be defeated if it is a European battle fought on Irish soil which is why those of us who oppose the actual way the EU has developed, rather than some sort of “faith” are very pleased to see O’Toole take a different view than his usual EU fanaticism hope that it reflects a broader growth in opposition to the Empire throughout Europe
“EU was progressive despite clear evidence of its hatred of democracy by forcing the Irish people to vote again on exactly the same treaty and more recently forcing the Greek and Italian PM’s to resign and replaced them by Goldman bankers.”
I just finished an article on my blog at
http://gfmurphy101.wordpress.com/
that might interest you on that topic. It looks at privatization in greece as seen from the hacked emails at Stratfor, and elaborates on what many of these hacktivists are exposing! The Fiscal Compact at its heart is a framework for austerity, that will mean more attacks on the welfare state and definitely the selling of, of state assets to greedy capitalists. Many seem to miss this point that the compact will ensure that states will have no other option than to sell state assets as the only other options to raise cash will be tax increases or cutbacks! It is a sneaky way of ensuring privatization! Faced with tax increases or cutbacks or privatization which do you think the public would be conned into accepting! As I say in my article the media will tell you about the arrest of the hackers, but will tell us little about what the hackers are exposing!!