Recent events in Cyprus, give us an even clearer picture of which appears to be driven things so far in eurozone, but also the whole of Europe in general.
It is more than clear, that the policies of memorandum are leading to a dead end, and this is clear not only from the daily life of citizens in countries that adopted memorandum terms, not only from the financial data of these countries and bleak predictions particularly for growth and unemployment, but also, by statements from executives or former executives of IMF (Roumeliotis-Blanchard), which of course were made purely for distraction purposes, and by numerous analyses of many economists in Greece and abroad. This is also clear, from the destruction that these policies brought, under the pressure of IMF, in any area applied in the past.
The dogmatic adherence on these destructive policies, shows that the real goal is to impose certain conditions in favor of a dominant economic oligarchy. With its starring puppets Merkel and Schäuble, this financial oligarchy, imposes “by fire and sword” these conditions in heavily indebted countries, through a peculiar economic war. Although we must be wary about the results of the polls, the recent poll in Germany gave a big relief to Merkel, and makes things easier, in order to continue the implementation of harsh austerity policies on indebted eurozone periphery. The financial oligarchy rushes to launch a violent federalization of Europe, based on purely neoliberal standards.
Let's not forget that, just about five months ago, European officials were about to supposedly decide to secure the proposal of Monty for guaranteeing the bank deposits, but the events in Cyprus just show that this financial oligarchy rushes to use any mean, eliminating any condition, to cut any other source of funding for the eurozone member-states, which will fall one by one into the trap of the European Central Bank. This rather 'clumsy' imposition of destructive policies, which removes all pretences, is an indication that the economic and political elites attempt to prevent potential subversion of their projects.
Thus, the neoliberal European economic empire which is about to arise, must give something to buy time, which is to throw some money through the back door with specific funding programms, to give the illusion of rebooting the “precious” and “desirable” development and real economy. Another example of "payoff" is the allowances-tricks, such as that recently announced for independent small-medium business owners who lost their businesses in Greece, and the amounts announced by the European Investment Bank for the small-medium business sector up to 2015, which, in essence, are buying time for the neoliberal plan to be completed, preventing any “unpredictable facts” from undesirable governments or “uncontrolled” massive indignant citizens, at the same time the neoliberal policies are killing small-medium businesses and help multinational corporations. The fully controlled big media are coordinated in this direction, presenting news of business deals - type, which will supposedly help the country to get out of the crisis and bring growth and jobs, which they never come.
Recently, European Central Bank took over the reins of propaganda, making deliberately coarse comparisons by announcing through its own study that, for example, citizens of the Republic of Cyprus is on average more than three times richer than Germans, or that, of the countries which have joined in bailout programs, only citizens in Greece and Portugal held less wealth than countries with AAA, while citizens in Spain and Italy are significantly richer. The ECB through this study, not only attempts to prevent convergence and consensus among all peoples of the eurozone against austerity policies, but also "points" quite clearly the next possible targets, Italy and Spain, which are not yet entirely dependent on the ECB.
Regarding Germany, as Frankfurt is the financial center of gravity of the eurozone, bankers are using the German leadership, and they begin to fully control the flow of money across the eurozone and thus enforce the desired policies in favor of big capital.
The German political class is ready to give “earth and water” to the German economic elite in order to avoid the latter to emigrate permanently to other markets with very cheap labor. Since, however, at least for the moment, it is impossible to throw salaries in Chinese or Indian levels, politicians must give something more. Expensive gifts are oil, natural gas and land, at excruciating prices in all countries that have not yet been privatized or remain unexploited, such as Greece. Sellout in other parts of eurozone, since everything in Germany has been sold and there are no fields of oil and natural gas. If someone wants to see an example, could only have to take a look at the relatively recent past and how former West Germany behaved against former East Germany, with the fast and massive privatizations and companies that passed into the hands of the West Germany's economic elite under excruciating prices. German oligarchs are organizing a new "Treuhand" throughout Europe. Other multinationals will follow to take advantage, and preparing for big party on potential oil and natural gas fields. Maybe this explains the absence of France in recent decisions on Cyprus and the... nap of Moscovici in recent Eurogroup.
The destruction of welfare state is another enticing gift to financial oligarchy, marking the “relief” from “annoying” additional taxes, but gives also the signal for full privatization of health and education sectors with great opportunities for “big business”. In fact, the U.S. and Europe are engaged in a competitive race on who will give more to large corporations and banks. This explains the recent statement by the U.S. Secretary of Treasury, speaking about growth through consumption, criticizing indirectly the austerity policies in Europe, and the expected reaction of Schaeuble, as the U.S. rely heavily on consuming power, and they do not want for the moment to cut wages and labor rights in extent. They see that Europe is moving rapidly to the degradation of welfare state and dissolution of labor rights, which means that it will quickly become more "attractive", even for big companies based in their territory.
Bilingualism of larger media is also characteristic, even in Greece, regarding Merkel and Schäuble, as on the one hand are presented as a representative sample of German intransigence, insisting on the destructive policies of austerity and cuts and putting at risk the cohesion or even the survival of eurozone, with decisions such as those for the “haircut” of deposits in Cyprus, and on the other hand, another picture begins to propagate, that, which displays them nearly as pioneers of purge against the "sinner" tax havens, among other things. Perhaps this is an explanation for their high rates in recent polls, if we should believe in them of course.
Summarizing, we could say that in order to consolidate the neoliberal European economic empire, German oligarchs promote another "haircut" of multiple dimensions across Europe. They proceed into a violent cut of salaries and pensions, trying to equalize them in a first phase with those of countries of the former Eastern bloc, and disolving the welfare state. Federalism means however, that the same policies will be applied totally, definately and very soon, also against German citizens and workers.
