quarta-feira, 28 de janeiro de 2015

Desunião Europeia - Texto de George Friedman



George Fridman, fundado do excelente site Stratfor Global Inteligence, escreveu sobre a crise na Europa. É realmente um texto bem interessante.

Vou colocar parte do texto aqui, leiam todo no site

The European Union, Nationalism and the Crisis of Europe


Last week, I wrote about the crisis of Islamic radicalism and the problem of European nationalism. This week's events give me the opportunity to address the question of European nationalism again, this time from the standpoint of the European Union and the European Central Bank, using a term that only an economist could invent: "quantitative easing."

European media has been flooded for the past week with leaks about the European Central Bank's forthcoming plan to stimulate the faltering European economy by implementing quantitative easing. First carried by Der Spiegel and then picked up by other media, the story has not been denied by anyone at the bank nor any senior European official. We can therefore call this an official leak, because it lets everyone know what is coming before an official announcement is made later in the week.

The plan is an attempt to spur economic activity in Europe by increasing the amount of money available. It calls for governments to increase their borrowing for various projects designed to increase growth and decrease unemployment. Rather than selling the bonds on the open market, a move that would trigger a rise in interest rates, the bonds are sold to the central banks of eurozone member states, which have the ability to print new money. The money is then sent to the treasury. With more money flowing through the system, recessions driven by a lack of capital are relieved. This is why the measure is called quantitative easing.
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The European Central Bank is providing the mechanism for stimulating Europe's economy, while the eurozone member states will assume the responsibility for stimulating it — and living with the consequences of failure. It is as if the Federal Reserve were to print money and give some to each state so that New York could buy its own debt and not become exposed to California's casual ways. The strangeness of the plan rests in the strangeness of the European experiment. California and New York share a common fate as part of the United States. While Germany and Greece are both part of the European Union, they do not and will not share a common fate. If they do not share a common fate, then what exactly is the purpose of the European Union? It was never supposed to be about "the pursuit of happiness," but instead about "peace and prosperity." The promise is the not right to pursue, but the right to have. That is a huge difference.

The anthem of the European Union is from Beethoven's 9th Symphony, which contains these lines from the German poet Friedrich Schiller:
Joy, beautiful sparkle of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, fire-drunk,
Heavenly one, your shrine.
Your magic binds again
What custom has strictly parted.
All men become brothers
Where your tender wing lingers.
I wrote in my new book, Flashpoint: The Coming Crisis in Europe, that Europe is about:
"…the joy of joining men into a single brotherhood, overcoming the divisions of mere custom. Then there would be joy. Brotherhood means shared fate. If all that binds you is peace and prosperity, then that must never depart. If some become poor and others rich, if some go to war and others don't, then where is the shared fate?"

A Crisis of Brotherhood

Europe's crisis is not ultimately an economic one. Everyone — families and nations — has economic problems. The crisis is not war, which tragically is as common as poverty. Europe's problem is that it promised a joy beyond custom, a joy yielding brotherhood and abolishing war, and a promise based on prosperity, which is a promise so vast it is beyond anyone's hope to make perpetual. Neither perpetual peace nor perpetual prosperity can be guaranteed, therefore the joy that would overcome custom and bind men in brotherhood is a base of sand.

In the European Central Bank's compromise with Germany, we can see not only the base of sand dissolving but also the brotherhood of Europe falling apart. At the heart of this promise is the idea that Germany will not share the fate of Greece, nor France the fate of Italy. In the end, these are different nations. Their customs can be overcome by the joy uniting them in brotherhood, but absent that joy, absent peace and prosperity, there is nothing binding them together.

The test of the American Republic came when the idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights was juxtaposed with the brutishness of slavery. Prior to the revolution, these United States were divided into sovereignties so profound that many states saw themselves as individual nations not bound by the promises of the Declaration of Independence. They believed themselves free to withdraw from the federation if displeased by others' moral interpretations of the Declaration. What ensued was the Civil War, which was fought, as Abraham Lincoln put it, to test whether a nation so constituted could long endure.
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In Flashpoints, I wrote the following:
"We are now living through Europe's test. As all human institutions do, the European Union is going through a time of intense problems, mostly economic for the moment. The European Union was founded for "peace and prosperity." If prosperity disappears, or disappears in some nations, what happens to peace?...That is what this book is about. It is partly about the sense of European exceptionalism, the idea that they have solved the problems of peace and prosperity that the rest of the world has not."
But if Europe is not exceptional and is in trouble, what comes next? The history of Europe should give us no comfort.

Editor's NoteThe newest book by Stratfor chairman and founder George Friedman, Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, will be released Jan. 27. It is now available for pre-order.

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