The EU Spring

How ironic it now is that two years after the Arab Spring, we are on the brink of what promises to be a European Union Spring, a looming social catastrophe caused by a double-dip banking and ensuing financial and economic crisis, a meltdown of the economic and social model before our very eyes and the beginning of a completely new era.

Ironic because the European Union sat back and applauded while armed terrorists destroyed the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, backed by EU member states illegally taking sides in an internal armed conflict either actively, or else, like cowards, saying nothing watching from the sidelines as the bullies, the same ones as usual, did their dirty work. And now, two years after EU media agencies spread barefaced lies, two years after the Libyan water supply was bombed "to break their backs", two years after the Libyan electricity supply was strafed with military hardware, two years after the Gaddafi grandchildren were massacred, as "military targets", the buck stops at the feet of the European Union, whose prize for the illegal imperialist murderous jaunt in Libya was a squeaky clean Nobel Peace Prize.

And what is the EU Spring? It is where the system collapses amid the social chaos it has caused, just after the Cypriot-style Great Bank Robbery is copied by countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy, pushing their populations over the edge of the precipice, their patience having snapped after years upon years of sacrifices, more sacrifices and yet more sacrifices in return for fewer jobs, less money and no future.

The EU Spring has started in Cyprus where people's bank savings are literally about to be robbed before their eyes - people who spent their lives obeying all the rules, paying their taxes, working hard, studying, trying to build up some savings and then through no fault of their own see their hard-earned nest-egg smashed by what amounts to daylight institutional robbery.

After Cyprus who is next? The future belongs to visionaries but a possible scenario is Portugal, whose Constitutional Court is due to deliberate on the norms used by the Government (PSD/CDS-PP) in the State Budget, involving also a reduction in public expenses by four billion Euro (in an economy screaming out for investment). Should the Court declare the measures (cutting salaries, reducing pensions) anti-Constitutional, which they are, a possible scenario is for the Government to present its resignation, given the impossibility of finding other measures to support its policies.

Should the Portuguese State be forced to reimburse what it has taken from its citizens, a second bailout would be necessary and the responsibility for negotiating this would belong to the new Government (possibly a coalition between the Socialists, PS and the Conservatives, CDS-PP). Extremely tempting for a Government in either scenario (the current Government or a new one) would be to meddle with the bank accounts of the citizens, whose only option is to take the money from the banks and hide it under the bed (not a safe option), place it abroad (the elite few who can have already done so) or else rent a safe deposit box and keep it in a bank coffer in cash.

Such a nightmare scenario in a country such as Portugal, population 10 million, which saw 200,000 workposts extinguished in 2012, which has a youth unemployment rate of some 40 per cent, whose real adult unemployment rate is nearing 20 per cent if the figures are not cooked, whose agriculture, industries and fisheries were decimated under the anti-democratic Euro waves as norms and even a currency were imposed top-down without even the (democratic) courtesy of a Referendum... would surely create shockwaves reverberating deep into the heart of other struggling economies such as Spain's (to a certain extent tied up with Portugal's) and Italy's, not to mention the dry tinder wood in Central Europe eager to burn.

Am I just dreaming? If I am, it's a nightmare... Next time round,  just ask the people what they want and let common sense rule above the caprices and fantasies of a political class composed of detached elitists who never did a serious day's work in their lives.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru