Elections in France may lead to a change in the EU

[MarkK]

Angela Merkel is not happy, as she is the driving force behind the austerity programs in Europe, not to mention her hands on the checkbook.

The election of a 'socialist' President in France may lead to renegotiation in the EU agreements on bailouts. Personally, as someone on the front line of the EU economies, I think austerity has probably gone too far. Yes, Greece is probably out of the EU, but Spain and Italy are not. And the business climate in those countries is simply terrible. No one is spending any money and further cuts in spending won't help

Hollande to Discuss Growth With Merkel

By GABRIELE PARUSSINI, WILLIAM BOSTON and WILLIAM HOROBIN




French voters elected François Hollande as president, who has pledged to shift the burden of hardship onto the rich and resolve the euro sovereign-debt crisis. David Gauthier-Villars has details on The News Hub. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

PARIS—France's President-elect François Hollande will be inaugurated next Tuesday and head to Berlin soon after that to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel to deliver his proposal for resolving the euro-debt crisis by complementing the current austerity regimen with growth-boosting measures.


President-elect Francois Hollande waves from the balcony of the Socialist Party headquarters in Paris Monday.

The meeting will offer early clues on how far the two leaders are ready to go to reconcile their differing approaches to restoring confidence in the euro zone.

Mr. Hollande shaped his election bid squarely on the theme of changing the bloc's response to its deep sovereign-debt crisis. From the beginning of his campaign, the French Socialist said he would seek to renegotiate the fiscal treaty agreed by European leaders last year, in order to promote Europe's struggling economy and create jobs. Ms. Merkel and her government, fearful of popular resistance in Germany, have made clear in recent weeks that they won't soften their austerity demands, a point the German leader made again on Monday.

"We in Germany, and me personally, are of the opinion that the fiscal pact is non-negotiable," Ms. Merkel told reporters at her party's headquarters in Berlin. "I consider the fiscal pact to be right, and I think there is a basic process in Europe that we agree that after elections, whether in big countries or little countries, we cannot just put everything up for discussion that was negotiated previously."


Francois Hollande spent election day in the small town where he had held the post of mayor in contrast to Nicolas Sarkozy who five years ago celebrated in a posh restaurant in Paris. Inti Landauro reports on Mr. Hollande's strategy to become President.

But Ms. Merkel said she would "work well" with Mr. Hollande, whom she spoke to for the first time on Sunday night after his victory, which will return a Socialist to the Elysée presidential palace for the first time in 24 years. "German-French cooperation is essential for Europe," Ms. Merkel said. "Germany will welcome François Hollande with open arms. And then we will work together."

Ms. Merkel and Mr. Hollande got off to a rocky start, with the chancellor openly supporting the re-election bid of her center-right ally President Nicolas Sarkozy, with whom she formed the "Merkozy" couple steering the euro zone through its protracted crisis. Ms. Merkel refused to make any face time in her calendar for Mr. Hollande while he was campaigning, clearly irked by his criticism of the austerity that forms the heart of her response to the crisis.

"The Germans will be happy if it is only saying the word growth, everybody wants growth," said Mr. Chaney. "So a compromise is possible, but not on the fiscal part of the treaty."

Investor reaction Mr. Hollande's election was hard to gauge with U.K. financial markets closed for a holiday and investors also digesting Greek elections, which recorded a surge in popularity for extremist parties that prevents the two main parties forming a coalition. "For now at least Greece appears to be the bigger problem—and one which has caught the markets unawares," said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura. The jury is also still out for Standard & Poor's Ratings Service, the firm that stripped France of its prized triple-A rating in January. There is "no immediate impact" on France's double-A rating and the negative outlook, S&P said. Like economists, S&P said it will analyze the policy choices of Mr. Hollande, taking into account the outcome of parliamentary elections in June.

Even the outgoing finance minister François Baroin—a senior member of Mr. Sarkozy's UMP party—showed a willingness to accord Mr. Hollande the benefit of the doubt. Speaking on French television Monday, Mr. Baroin said it is too early to say how markets will react, noting France benefits from exceptional low borrowing costs on markets, both historically and relative to euro-zone peers. And last week, Mr. Hollande himself dismissed the possibility of a fallout on financial markets. "The markets aren't moving. … And I don't doubt that it will remain like that the day after our victory," Mr. Hollande said at a campaign speech in Toulouse.

Messrs. Hollande and Sarkozy agreed Monday on May 15 as the date of the transfer of power in France. The French people will get their first glimpse of the president-elect in an official role on Tuesday, as Mr. Hollande will attend national memorial ceremonies to commemorate the end of World War II in Europe, alongside Mr. Sarkozy. A few days after his inauguration, Mr. Hollande will cross the Atlantic to meet President Barack Obama before a summit of Group of Eight leaders set for May 18-19 at Camp David. From there, he'll travel to Chicago on May 20-21 to announce to allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of his intention to hasten the withdrawal of French combat troops from Afghanistan.

Between this month and next, a stack of economic data on growth and employment will also give Mr. Hollande a better idea of the state of the French economy, which is now going through a soft growth patch, with gross domestic product expected to expand 0.7% this year.

[MarkK]

FYI, the Fascist party in Greece got 7% of the vote

Golden Dawn: leader of far-right party lashes out at Greece's 'traitors'

Party which campaigned hard against illegal immigration set to win 7% of parliamentary vote

• Associated Press
  
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 May 2012 21.36 BST
• Article history

Supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn party raise flares as they celebrate election results in Thessaloniki. Photograph: Grigoris Siamidis/Reuters

The leader of an extreme-right, anti-immigrant party on course for shock success in Greece's general elections has lashed out at those he described as "traitors" responsible for the country's financial crisis and said his party was ushering in a "revolution".
The far-right Golden Dawn party is set to win 7% of the parliamentary vote, according to early projections, as Greeks punished the traditionally dominant parties who backed harsh austerity measures tied to debt-relief agreements.

Parties must exceed a 3% threshold of the vote to be represented in Greece's parliament. In the last general election in 2009, Golden Dawn received only 0.29%. It has seen its support jump as a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment has spread in financially devastated Greece.
Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos said his party had delivered a blow against the country's corrupt leadership.
"They slandered us, slung mud at us and shut us out of all the news media – the TV channels of the corrupt elite – and we beat them," the 55-year-old leader said as the votes came in.

"The day of national revolution by the Greeks has begun against those who are selling us out and looting the sweat of the Greek people."
Golden Dawn campaigned hard against illegal immigration, and its supporters have been blamed for a recent spike in inner-city street attacks against mostly Asian immigrants.
The party's supporters, routinely seen intimidating immigrants in run-down parts of the capital, wear black shirts, and its emblems resemble Nazi insignia.
But Michaloliakos has rejected the neo-Nazi label widely used for his party, stressing that it is staunchly nationalist.

Referring to immigrants, Golden Dawn's campaign slogan in TV ads was: "Let's rid this country of the stench."
Javad Aslan, a spokesman for Greece's Pakistani immigrant community, urged other political parties to work together to isolate Golden Dawn.
"This is dangerous for everyone who is living in Greece," Aslan said. "This [result is] unbelievable for me. It is very serious, very dangerous.
"I can never believe a political party that comes with knives and bars against us, that hurts people and puts them in hospital."
Golden Dawn says Greece should reject its bailout commitments and write off its debt.

"No one should fear me if they are a good Greek citizen. If they are traitors – I don't know," Michaloliakos said.
Flanked by two muscly aides, he later told a news conference: "Those who betray this country – it's time for them to be afraid. We are coming."
He did not elaborate, but added: "We will fight to free Greece from the global loan sharks, for a Greece of dignity and independence, and for a Greece that is not a social jungle with all these millions of illegal immigrants that were brought here."

• © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

[Pete_ is_ niccce]

Wow things are about to jump off over there

[dag]

speaking of merkel and elections, her party has been losing votes in state elections.

[Detroitbootybass]

[MarkK]

Ngeso, this echos a lot of what you have been saying re: Germany

May 6, 2012
Those Revolting Europeans
By PAUL KRUGMAN

The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time.

Both countries held elections Sunday that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing.

Needless to say, that’s not what you heard from the usual suspects in the run-up to the elections. It was actually kind of funny to see the apostles of orthodoxy trying to portray the cautious, mild-mannered François Hollande as a figure of menace. He is “rather dangerous,” declared The Economist, which observed that he “genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society.” Quelle horreur!

What is true is that Mr. Hollande’s victory means the end of “Merkozy,” the Franco-German axis that has enforced the austerity regime of the past two years. This would be a “dangerous” development if that strategy were working, or even had a reasonable chance of working. But it isn’t and doesn’t; it’s time to move on. Europe’s voters, it turns out, are wiser than the Continent’s best and brightest.

What’s wrong with the prescription of spending cuts as the remedy for Europe’s ills? One answer is that the confidence fairy doesn’t exist — that is, claims that slashing government spending would somehow encourage consumers and businesses to spend more have been overwhelmingly refuted by the experience of the past two years. So spending cuts in a depressed economy just make the depression deeper.

Moreover, there seems to be little if any gain in return for the pain. Consider the case of Ireland, which has been a good soldier in this crisis, imposing ever-harsher austerity in an attempt to win back the favor of the bond markets. According to the prevailing orthodoxy, this should work. In fact, the will to believe is so strong that members of Europe’s policy elite keep proclaiming that Irish austerity has indeed worked, that the Irish economy has begun to recover.

But it hasn’t. And although you’d never know it from much of the press coverage, Irish borrowing costs remain much higher than those of Spain or Italy, let alone Germany. So what are the alternatives?

One answer — an answer that makes more sense than almost anyone in Europe is willing to admit — would be to break up the euro, Europe’s common currency. Europe wouldn’t be in this fix if Greece still had its drachma, Spain its peseta, Ireland its punt, and so on, because Greece and Spain would have what they now lack: a quick way to restore cost-competitiveness and boost exports, namely devaluation.

As a counterpoint to Ireland’s sad story, consider the case of Iceland, which was ground zero for the financial crisis but was able to respond by devaluing its currency, the krona (and also had the courage to let its banks fail and default on their debts). Sure enough, Iceland is experiencing the recovery Ireland was supposed to have, but hasn’t.

Yet breaking up the euro would be highly disruptive, and would also represent a huge defeat for the “European project,” the long-run effort to promote peace and democracy through closer integration. Is there another way? Yes, there is — and the Germans have shown how that way can work. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the lessons of their own experience.

Talk to German opinion leaders about the euro crisis, and they like to point out that their own economy was in the doldrums in the early years of the last decade but managed to recover. What they don’t like to acknowledge is that this recovery was driven by the emergence of a huge German trade surplus vis-à-vis other European countries — in particular, vis-à-vis the nations now in crisis — which were booming, and experiencing above-normal inflation, thanks to low interest rates. Europe’s crisis countries might be able to emulate Germany’s success if they faced a comparably favorable environment — that is, if this time it was the rest of Europe, especially Germany, that was experiencing a bit of an inflationary boom.

So Germany’s experience isn’t, as the Germans imagine, an argument for unilateral austerity in Southern Europe; it’s an argument for much more expansionary policies elsewhere, and in particular for the European Central Bank to drop its obsession with inflation and focus on growth.

The Germans, needless to say, don’t like this conclusion, nor does the leadership of the central bank. They will cling to their fantasies of prosperity through pain, and will insist that continuing with their failed strategy is the only responsible thing to do. But it seems that they will no longer have unquestioning support from the Élysée Palace. And that, believe it or not, means that both the euro and the European project now have a better chance of surviving than they did a few days ago.

[Armento]

Fuck i love France!!! Mark, find a way for me to move there man :( Hit me up with your ex's info lol .

[ngeso]

Ngeso, this echos a lot of what you have been saying re: Germany

I'm rather pleased with the outcome of the elections, if only so that the German position gets challenged. The attitude of this place is becoming unbearable.