The bankrupt Socialist rulers of France are under attack by the monster they helped create and empower. This week, French officials are facing off against European Union finance bosses over a bloated national government budget — EU bosses say the numbers must be slashed before they can be “approved” by Brussels, but French politicians are refusing. Without a resolution to the conflict, the European Commission — a sort of hybrid legislative and executive branch run largely by armies of unaccountable bureaucrats — might overrule Paris and reject its proposed spending spree for next year.
The emerging showdown illustrates just how much power the EU has seized from its formerly independent member governments. In many respects, the unchecked powers of so-called “eurocrats” now go beyond even the authorities usurped so far by the U.S. federal government from the states. For instance, Washington, D.C., at least thus far, does not claim to have any authority whatsoever to meddle in the budgets of state governments, which are decided upon by the people’s elected representatives in their state legislatures.
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By contrast, under relatively new European powers usurped last year from the formerly sovereign eurozone governments, budget deficits may not exceed three percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Big government-loving politicians in France — despite having previously pledged to bring deficits under control by last year — are so far refusing to comply with the dictates from Brussels. In a pathetic spectacle, the French political class is now groveling for more time to cut its wild spending — with a new target date of 2017 to bring deficits under the EU-imposed cap.
The European Commission and other powerful EU forces, though, seemed unmoved by the ham-handed efforts. “The figures we are hearing from Paris are not very hopeful,” complained controversial Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem amid a gathering of eurozone finance ministers he chairs in Luxembourg. “There are certainly concerns there. It would be a good thing for Europe if we find a solution for all the budgets within the rules.”
Referring to the bloc’s budget regime purporting to oversee spending and taxes by national governments as an “anchor of confidence in the EU,” Dijsselbloem emphasized yet again that there should be “no deals outside the pact.” According to numerous news reports citing “European officials,” the EU was even preparing last week to reject the French budget — demanding either tax hikes in a nation already suffering under a crushing taxation regime, or so-called “austerity” measures from Big Government politicians who refuse to acknowledge reality and instead believe government spending produces prosperity.
If the Socialist Party-dominated government in Paris refuses to comply with the EU’s demands to cut spending or hike taxes further to shrink the deficit, it could face censure, massive fines, or worse. EU bosses have also said exceptions to the rules should not be made for larger nations when smaller EU members must abide by the same regime. However, German officials — ironically being urged by the same eurocrats to increase government spending that the EU comically refers to as “investment” — are reportedly trying to play the role of peacemaker between Paris and Brussels amid the budget dispute.
“We will wait until France has presented its budget and structural reforms,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was quoted as saying in media reports. “The European rules are there to be stuck to.” However, Schäuble, whose government played a key role in imposing the controversial EU budget regime on eurozone members to begin with, said he was “confident that a solution can be found in the case of France.” That remains to be seen.
Politicians in France, outraged over the EU’s demands, are calling for more “respect” from eurocrats. Apparently still infatuated with failed Keynesian economic theories, Paris claims it needs to continue wildly borrowing and spending to avoid sinking further into recession. Its proposed budget must be submitted to Brussels for review by Wednesday, October 15. As of early this week, the deficit amounted to about 4.5 percent, well above the three percent cap imposed by eurocrats.
“We decide the budget,” claimed French Prime Minister Manuel Valls over the weekend, demanding that the EU and fellow neutered national leaders “respect France, a big country.” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, meanwhile, sounding meeker, noted that the French people’s elected lawmakers in Paris still had a “major say” in their government’s budget despite Brussels’ oversight. “There will be time for discussion and for thoughts on the situation on the eurozone to ripen,” Sapin was quoted as saying in media reports, understood by analysts to mean that French politicians could surrender rather than face further humiliation.
Ironically, the latest dispute between the overbearing apparatus in Brussels and the increasingly unpopular Socialist rulers of France is almost certain to fuel further opposition to the EU among the outraged people of France. The anti-EU National Front, inaccurately described by much of the establishment press as “far right,” will likely be the biggest winner from the spat after having recently crushed the “mainstream” parties in elections this year to the European pseudo-“Parliament.”
Even while furiously demanding “respect” from the EU, French officials are begging the outfit for more money, seeking at least EUR10 billion from a recently unveiled “New Deal” slush fund aimed at further consolidating the supranational regime’s authority over the continent. Sounding like a typical out-of-touch politician, French “Economy Minister” Emmanuel Macron celebrated the gargantuan new plot. “That would represent about €10 billion of extra investment in France each year,” he said without elaborating.
Beyond budget authorities, as The New American has documented extensively, the EU has been usurping more and more power from its formerly sovereign member nations — and even from countries such as Switzerland, where, unlike most of the continent, voters’ decision not to join with the Leviathan in Brussels was actually respected. The overwhelming majority of laws and regulations across the bloc, for example, now come down from eurocrats at the top to be imposed on Europeans either directly or by servile national governments.
Despite decades of lies to the contrary, EU bosses now openly celebrate the fact that they are imposing a “federal” regime on the peoples of the continent — whether the peoples like it or not. Last year, reiterating previous statements, former Maoist revolutionary and current European Commission boss José Manuel Barroso declared that a federal Europe would be a “reality within a few years.” “We will need to move toward a federation,” he said previously. “This is our political horizon.”
What the peoples of Europe think is essentially irrelevant, as Barroso and other unelected commissars have made abundantly clear. Even when voters reject EU schemes at the polls — the European “Constitution” being a perfect example — Brussels and its lackeys in national capitals simply impose it anyway, sometimes renaming it for PR purposes. Indeed, the trend has become so extreme that then-Czech President Vaclav Klaus warned that the EU was on the verge of finally crushing sovereignty and self-government across Europe.
Until the recent spat over the budget and a crushing blow in elections this year, the French Socialist Party and the government it controls were fully onboard with the EU’s plotting to form what former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev approvingly described as “the new European Soviet” in 2000. “We don’t have a choice, but to march toward the destiny that is ours, march toward a unified Europe,” Socialist French President Francois Hollande declared during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a key force behind the EU’s usurpation of power over the budgets of national governments.
Of course, dramatically slashing government spending would serve the struggling French people well. Since the Socialist Party seized power in 2012, the economy of France has been among the worst performing on a continent full of basket cases, with capital, businesses, and citizens fleeing abroad in massive numbers to escape crushing levels of taxation and regulation. Investment in France has plummeted as unemployment continues to surge — and the situation is growing increasingly dire.
However, for the EU, widely viewed as illegitimate across Europe, to dictate budgets to national governments is perhaps even more troubling than the Socialist government’s refusal to stop destroying the economy. And unless the peoples of Europe rise up, it will only get more extreme going forward. For the rest of humanity, which is right now being shackled with similar regional regimes modeled on the EU, the ongoing fiasco ought to serve as a valuable lesson in why preserving national sovereignty is so important.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected]
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