Germany After the EU and the Russian Scenario - future of the European Union and Poland

I'm ignoring anything before September 2015, because that changed things too much. I've personally seen the number of students learning German (in an insitution devoted to teaching many languages) fall by 90% or so over the last 10 years.

And again, how many popular German authors are there in the EU? Or movies or tv shows? Denmark and Sweden have bigger cultural footprints at present. All Germany has is economic force.


To me Economics are the hardest power going in the modern world.


Not sure if that counts because it went against Polish public wishes as well (it was a disaster for PiS domestically).


Demanded and enforced by Germany (which de facto overturned the results of two elections, which is as hard as power gets).

Greece lost 30 % of its GDP with not real prospect for recovery ever because the Euro is not a currency*, it's a loan shark scheme that benefits manufacturing and tax haven economies. It can never work in a service economy. Anyone who knew anything about economics knew that Greece (and Portugal and Spain and Italy did not belong in the Euro).

*and wont' be until there is a common fiscal policy (which no one wants) or monetary transfers from north to south (which Germany doesn't want).

Absolutely. It was by far the biggest failing of the Euro that it should never have been extended to many of the countries. I can only count Ireland, France, Germany, Benelux and Austria as really being ready in 1999 for it. Maybe Finland, but it's a judgement call after the collapse of their economy in the early 1990's.

Even today, who else really belongs? Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Malta, that's about it.

I maintain that German has not lost its hegemony on the European scene, regardless of how hated or reviled both the language and people remain!

Vietnamese who survived America's unprovoked, undeclared war on their country doubtless hate American, Americans and American English with equal passion as much as anyone who survived the Shoah hates Germany, the former realizing though that American English as well as the United States is/are their economic as well as their social future:-) German and Germany represent the future, not the past, to those scores of "unwanted" migrants.

The analogy does hold up if one stops to think about it!

Yes, the right word for sheer economic brute force. But.... that's all Germany has at present. I wish that weren't the case, but it is.


No. I've known a number of Vietnamese in Poland who were alive and in Vietnam then (including a good friend who once had to hide in rice paddy while the Americans were bombing) who do not hold grudges about that period. Winning against the US might have something to to with that. I've also had colleagues from Iraq who were able to distinguish me from US military policy.


I think you'll find that Germany represents government benefits to the great majority of the Merkel-jugend who don't want to be stuck in miserly Poland when generous Germany is next door (with an uncontrolled border). How many 'refugees' have found work so far? Let me know when the number reaches six (or even five) figures. How many of them know the first thing about German culture (and how many of them will reject it completely when they realize how much pork Germans eat and how much alcohol they consume and how casual they are about nudity etc etc etc).

Her 'refugee' policy was a giant stinkbomb that German citizens will be paying for for decades and Germany can deal with the consequences of her poor judgement all on their own as far as I'm concerned. She didn't ask the opinion of any of her allies before opening the border so.... they're hers. All hers.

1) Austerity was demanded by all of Greece's creditors. In fact several countries were far more keen on punishing Greece than Germany.

Poorer than Greece: the EU countries that reject a new Athens bailout

theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/09/poorer-than-greece-the-eu-countries-that-reject-a-new-athens-bailout

2) You (and many Greeks) seem to have a very strange understanding on how negotiations between two countries work. Tsipras promised that he would end austerity and Euro would keep the Euro if the Greeks voted No in the referendum. All European politicians stated this was not an option. Greece could either accept austerity or leave the Euro. Tsipras was simply dishonest about how the situation looked like. He told the Greeks that they could have their cake and eat it. No country was willing to make any concessions to Greece, and if they had held a referendum in any European country, probably a majority would have voted to kick Greece out of the Euro.

Of course, Tsipras could have drawn the conclusion that having failed to get any concessions, in order to respect the referendum, he'd have to lead Greece out of the Eurozone. However since polls indicated that the Greeks also wanted to keep the Euro (which in return just shows you how bizarre that whole referendum was) he decided to agree to the demands. That was his decision, no one else.


The Greek economy was artificially bloated by reckless public spending and other measures, it is now closer to what it actually produces. It will take Greece many years until it recovers to the standards it held pre 2009, but this time, it will be honesty earned. And as a bonus, it looks like they have learned how to properly fight tax evasion and organize a proper bureaucracy. I just pity the young Greeks who have to pay the price of their parents excesses.

A fellow Greek student of mine told me an interesting story about his small home town. A few years ago, he passed the very difficult test to get a job in the Greek bureaucracy. Yet there are currently no positions open. The one spot he could have applied for is held by a middle aged man who got his job two decades ago because he was friend with the local mayor. The position requires a university education, yet the man hasn't even finished high school. According to proposals by the Troika, such obviously unqualified civil servants should be fired, but consecutive governments have refused to do so. My fellow student decided to leave the country eventually because he has given up hope that anything will change.

Austerity does not cure economic crises, it deepens them. The whole goal is to weaken the economy so much that the government has to sell everything. It's essentially a mafia bust out.

Greeks do have a lot to answer for but the policies recommended don't really address the big problem which is their horrible delusion that they can stay in the Euro. There are models on how to change currencies and Greek needs to dump the Euro as fast as it can. It's toxic and can never work for them.

Letting the diaspora vote (as required by the constitution IIRC but never employed by Greece's horrible politicians) would also be a step in the right direction as politicians would have to campaign on something other than direct patronage.

But in the Euro all Greece can do is borrow and hope that (somehow) it can become more productive than Germany or the debts will simply keep piling up (that is the math). Greece will NEVER be more productive than Germany (because who can?) so its future in the Euro will simply be more debt and austerity and selling more and more of the country to private interests.

In a country where at more people own Porsches than declare a taxable income of €40k, I would say definitely yes.

Oh no, hiring Goldman Sachs to cook the books doesn't pay off?. Who would've thunk.

Or having an island supposedly full of blind people...

Well the thing about the Greek government lying for years is that EVERYBODY KNEW THEY WERE LYING! But the governments of other countries pretended to believe them because they wanted that big roll out for the Euro (which wasn't even especially needed by the time it came into being, but that's another story).

It wouldn't have been nice diplomatic form to say "Sorry, we don't believe you. No Euro for you" but everybody would have been better off if they had. But their hubris was such that they didn't build any escape mechanisms into the Euro (quite the opposite). The architects of the Euro should be in prison for economic malfeasance.

True it is possible that some politicians suspected that the Greek numbers were altered. That being said it is very unlikely that they supected how bad they looked in reality, nor could they have known that given how far Greece went to falsify data. And even then, who could have expected that Greek politicians would act increasingly more stupid and spend money so recklessly?

It is also worth pointing out that back then therr were hardly any ways to check the national deficite independently from the data the national governments provided. You had to somewhat trust them on this.


I agree. Germany was btw. initially against Greece's membership, but relented when Greece mentioned the 2WW and after France pushed for it.


It is always possible for a country to leave the Euro, they just need to start printing their own money. Greece had plans for reintroducing the Drachme, but backed out after thinking about it. I have asked my fellow Greek student why the Greeks want to keep the Euro despite its' difficulties, he told me that many are afraid Greece could end up as Venezuela with the Drachme.

I distinctly remember hearing politicians during the run up to the Euro say "of course the Greeks are lying" about their debt levels but it was thought that Greece couldn't do much damage to the Euro (with no thought given to the damage the Euro would eventually do to Greece).


So they're ending up like Venezuela with the Euro.... had they backed out of the Euro in 2010 they woud be in far better shape now. I think it's just national vanity,

@Maf, I take your point and doubtless numerous Germans share your deep dissatisfaction with Merkel's clearly failed migrant policies! However, when you mention that the populace were never "consulted" regarding such policies aka were never allowed a plebiscite vote, for example, as exists (or at least existed) in , for example, Switzerland with their "Volksentscheid", I must remind you that almost never are citizens consulted directly concerning their government's policies!! It surely doesn't exist at present in today's America. It must therefore be regarded as a that rare exception, rather than the rule:-)

The Greeks called it "creative accounting", if I recall correctly. Not really lying, but shuffling money around to make the significant economic data look good.


Lock up the French then. The Germans certainly didn't want it as they were more than happy with their Deutsch Mark, but they had to pay a price for the reunification. I remember vividly how the French media were celebrating a new "Versailles" after Germany agreed because the French somehow got access to the reserves of the German central bank after that (can't remember how exactly anymore).

And to be fair, all governments can be creative with their accounting. France's current budget deficite would probably look worse without it. It can also take different forms, for example, most European defence budgets would look even worse if pensions were not included, which many governments do.

But what Greece did was unprecedented in scale.


As bad as the situation in Greece is, it is far worse in Venezuela. At least basic products like toilet paper are still available. The fact that Greece heavily depends on imports is another reason why they dont want to lose the Euro.

I don't care about the GErman public (well I care some, but a little less every day she stays in power). My biggest problem with her policy was that she did not consult any other European country with her policy to take on all comers and then wants to drag them into her mess to make the decison look slightly less terrible. I know she built her career by never admitting mistakes and finding other people to blame (she was from the DDR after all) but the time for European Solidarity is before you invite a million unvetted foreigners from the worst countries in the world into your country, not after.


They really so have the worst ideas (like the idea of using the ARab world as a catspaw to stop American hegemony - how's that one working out?) The irony is that thanks to computerization the whole justification of the Euro (problems with constantly shifting exchange rates) wasn't really a problem by the time the infernal thing was rolled out.

And it's evolved from whatever it was supposed to be originally into the Deutschmark writ large - so it works great for Germany and few others, is harmless to some other countries but deadly to southern service economies who have to deal with de facto German fiscal polcy while holding a simulacrum of sovreignty.


Well the real problems wasn't the Greek tendency toward patronage and small time dishonesty toward the government, for a few years the Euro created the illusion that high risk Greek bonds were as safe as German bonds (because they denominated in the same currency) and private investors glutted the economy with euros. When a Greek government finally told the truth about the debt all hell broke loose (So no government has an incentive to be truthful, unintended consequences that will doubtless come home to roost).

I see now, Maf! That she didn't consult Juncker or the rest of those Eurocrats in Bruxelles is what's galling you about Merkel. Well, she's far from the only politician to "go it alone", and somehow, I don't expect she'll be the last either:-)

No. She didn't consult ANY OF THE COUNTRIES THAT WERE DIRECTLY AFFECTED!!!! Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Greece.... she tried to force them to follow her policy with zero consulation. Not the mark of a real leader (I could care less about the stinking drunk Juncker or the rest of his foul ilk.... but it would very hard).

So since she didn't consult the leaders of any other European countries before inviting a horde of unemployable and unassimilateable young men.... she's in no position to try to fost off her unwanted rejects. She's welcome to them!

I have that sinking feeling we're looking toward a PEGIDA-AfD coalition come end of autumn '17 if Merkel's party doesn't spruce up their act some!

They get very few votes and this is unlikely to change.

The AfD might not even make it into the parliament. Ever since they revealed that their leader have schown sympathy with openly racist and revanchist ideology, the AfD has lost massively in popularity, and Trumps election also reminded many Germans what happens if you vote for guys like this. Merkel on the other hand benefited from this.


Those countries (with the exclusion of Austria) had been begging for help since the start of 2015. Merkel provided them with relief, and particulary Greece was grateful for this.

Don't lie, they were not begging for Germany to give hundreds of thousands of people to cross borders illegally. They wanted help in stopping the flow, not increasing it.

But if it was such a great thing I'm sure no other country wants to steal the spotlight from her so she can keep all of them and Poland won't get any. Too bad, we'll just have to muddle on through. Enjoy them, they're on your welfare rolls!

This is very likely. It seems that Germans prefer migrants to brownshirts.

Good! Then they can stop trying to send any migrants to Poland! Win Win!

Poland could certainly benefit from some new blood, and as it becomes more affluent things will certainly develop nicely.

You sound like a vampire. It not Poles who are/were plagued with inbreeds.


Right, sure, so you say but no one listening, try it in the west Africa.

Oh dear. You still miss the point about this issue that affects Europe - you would do well to read what Papież Franciszek had said on the matter. And of course you're an immigrant yourself, not to Germany, but top a different continent.

@Tacitus, you may be correct. The SPIEGEL however might not agree entirely, as apparently even your chancellor's fellow Coalition supporters have not been, what one might term, "uncritical" of her, for instance Gabriel, von der Leyen etc. I'm not even talking here about the conservatives, such as Horst Seehofer.

Oh well, as we say, politics makes strange bedfellows:-)

By the by, did you perchance receive my last two Forum e-mails?

@Lyzko

This is hardly surprising. The SPD wants to distance itself from Merkel because they intend to win the election and have their own cancellor. Usually the SPD is the strongest rival of the CDU, it only has happened twice before that they formed a government together.

Der Spiegel is Germany's most respected news magazine, but they are also since their inception fundamentally against the CDU and want the SPD to govern.

It is only natural that not every party member agree to everything Merkel does, we are living in a democracy after all. That being said, it is important to note that Merkel's biggest advantage is that she is still irreplacable for the CDU. There is nobody who comes even close to her approval ratings or her reputation as chancellor, the CDU needs her to win the election this year. Von der Leyen, while often cited as her likeliest succesor, is often seen as boring and less likely to attract votes.

I'll anser your emails properly later, once I have the time. :)

Thanks, Tacitus! A serious and well-written response to my prior post. To be sure, nobody's ever accused DER SPIEGEL of being (horrors!!) "objective" in her news reportingLOL Having lived in Germany myself, you know that when someone refers to said magazine aka "SPIEGEL-Deutsch", it's probably not a compliment, to say the least.

:-)

Much appreciate your giving my e-mails some attention and look forward to reading your reactions as soon as you have the time.