Europe – Are the EU and Euro on the Verge of Collapse?
Global Research, April 07, 2016
This article is dedicated to Greece, to the Greek people, as they have been victimized by a set of white collar criminal organizations – nothing less than the European Union (EU) with its unelected European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) – which is not really a Central Bank, but a mere instrument to serve the FED and Wall Street plundering Europe’s social safety nets and physical assets, plus the Washington controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF) – altogether, the so-called troika.
The Eurozone Made in America
The EU and its currency, the euro are doomed to collapse. It’s just a question of time. The EU is a purposeful miss-construct and its currency, the euro as fake and hollow as is the US dollar. As such they are bound to crash. How long can the Emperor of Chaos, the United States of America, and his European minions postpone such an implosion? And why is the US interested in preserving the EU? Because they created the EU for their economic and geopolitical / strategic purposes. That’s why.
The European Union is an invention of the United States. It was never a European idea. This Machiavellian self-serving concept of Washington was conceived after WWII under the command of the Anglo-Zionist-dominated financial oligarchs – Wall Street and the FED, both of which are linked by a revolving door. The Federal Reserve (FED), representing the US Central Bank, is unlike other central banks around the world, entirely privately owned. This financial oligarchy is heavily stained by the Rothschild and Rockefeller families. The FED and Wall Street, and the globalized worldwide (western) banking system constitute the one money-printing and money-making apparatus that (still) controls the world, the fiat dollar economy. It is debt-driven and operates like a pyramid Ponzi scheme.
After WWII, Europe was to be rebuilt under the command and strict control of the United States of America and under a series of iron-clad macro-economic and geopolitical strategies which would leave down-trodden Europe little alternative than being forever thankful to America, its purported savior and new partner (in crime) and ally, or better, their new masters. Part of this strategy was the Marshall Plan (also called the European Recovery Program), named after then Secretary of State, George C. Marshall. The Plan was a revolving fund, consisting of a donation by the US of US$ 13 billion, or about US$ 130 billion in 2016 terms.
Implementation started in 1948 and officially lasted for 4 years, benefitting 18 European countries. Most funds were on-lent as loans, reimbursed and lent again and again – the revolving fund principle. The initial 4-year implementation period was largely exceeded. In fact, some of the Marshall Plan funds are still in circulation, managed and lent to poor regions of Europe by a special department of the German Bank for Reconstruction (German acronym: KfW – Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau), the development bank, created to administer the Marshall Plan funds on the European side.
A precursor to the Marshall Plan was the foundation in 1944 of the Bretton Woods Institutions (Bretton Woods meeting, image above), the World Bank and the IMF. Both of them are dominated by the US having the only veto power. The objective of both organizations was to gear Europe in the ‘right direction’. The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) was to administer the Marshall Plan from the US side and the IMF was to regulate and control the ‘hard currencies’, meaning, enforcing the gold / dollar parity of mostly European countries. Tying the ‘hard currencies’ to the US dollar was a key strategy to be managed by the IMF – that prevails almost without fail as of this date.
Other than reconstructing Europe, the Plan’s objectives had to help eliminate trade barriers, ‘deregulate’ Europe – and, foremost, prevent communism from spreading. The Marshall Plan was part and parcel of the US concept of a European Union. It was a first attempt to link Europe together by a common development fund.
Also part of the geopolitical strategy was to make Europe into a ‘buffer zone’ facing the Soviet Union, militarizing the Continent by NATO under the pretext of defending war-weakened Europe against a possible invasion from the Soviet Union. French President De Gaulle was the only European leader who recognized the scam, withdrew France from the Anglo-Saxon dominated NATO and called on Europe to build its independent defense force. De Gaulle was a visionary who foresaw that NATO was nothing but an occupation power, engaging Europe in aggressively confronting the Soviet Union, thereby enhancing and promoting the Cold War.
The Cold War too was a construct ‘made in USA’. It was based on false propaganda and fear mongering; on the pretense the Soviet Union was on a course of expansion and therefore meant a threat for Europe. This lie allowed the US military industrial complex to steadily expand, forcing Europe as a NATO partner to invest ever more of its economic gains in armament, causing an arms race between the US / NATO and the Soviet Union, an arms race that was zapping all the energy of developing and re-industrializing a war-torn and broken Soviet Union. Within the US the Cold War justified an ever growing weapons industry, with ever growing profits, with a steadily growing dependence on conflicts around the world, to the point where the American economy today could not survive without armed conflicts it foments and nurtures throughout the globe. Europe, the EU, driven by NATO, is fast moving into the same direction.
Europe, a natural partner of the Soviet Union, today Russia, was – and still is – obliged to follow Washington’s dictate in becoming an ‘enemy’ of its real liberator from Hitler-Germany. The Soviet Union lost about 25 million people in WWII most of them in defeating Germany to the point of surrender. The western allies at the end of the war, when the dirty work was done and the dice were cast, walked in and claimed victory. Nothing had changed in 70 years. The EU obeys blindly the wishes of the US caliphate, ordering it to impose sanctions on Russia, that damages Europe more than Russia.
Churchill’s “United States of Europe”
In 1946, shortly after the end of WWII, and just before the reconstruction of Europe began, Winston Churchill, the self-styled European ruler (sic) over the beaten Continent called already for a “United States of Europe”. The UK played then and still plays today, the US mole in Europe, clandestinely defending American interests. While WWII was devastating Europe, secret US-Zionist think tanks (sic) were concocting the way a common Europe may be shaped so as to later enslave it to serve the United States of America.
The corner stone for a future European Union was set by the foundation of the Council of Europe in 1949, followed by the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), hence, establishing the first US-dominated transatlantic trading link. Already in 1955, the Anglo-Zionist led Bilderberg Society pledged for a common currency and a common, integrating European market which emerged from the 1958 Treaties of Rome as the ‘European Economic Community’ (EEC).
Successive pacts, all driven by Washington, of course with Europe’s subservient consent, up to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, followed by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, made Europe into the world’s largest economic union of US vassal states in the world. At no point a political European federation was foreseen. That would have been too dangerous for America, possibly threating their world hegemony. For that reason, the EU does not have a Constitution. As can be testified by Greece and Cyprus, as well as Ireland, Portugal and Spain, today there is no solidarity between the 28 EU member states, let alone between those 19 nations that share the same currency, the euro.
The ECU (European Currency Unit), created in 1979, was a virtual currency of account (a common monetary measuring unit for goods, services and liabilities) among the then eight participating European states. It was the first currency to link the major European economies. The ECU was followed on January 1, 1999 by the euro, a hard currency. Like the dollar, the British Pound, Yuan, Yen and more, the euro is fiat money, not based on anything, other than a basket of the member countries national currencies. Their weight within the basket was based on the weight of the member countries’ relative economies. Likewise, the euro is produced at will, and increasingly so, as the neoliberal doctrine is debt über alles (debt above everything), an instrument for enslavement.
The economic crash of 2007 / 2008 / 2009 – and ongoing – in the US reflected an over-speculated sub-prime housing market. It was not a coincidence. Banks led by Wall Street, reaped in high profits before they collapsed – just to be ‘bailed-out’ by the state (tax-payers). Common wisdom goes that the ‘financial crisis’ that hit Europe at the same time, was intimately linked to the US man-made housing collapse.
In reality, however, the European economic downturn was and is a different cattle of fish. The crisis was manufactured, because the euro was strong, reflecting the state of the European economy. It steadily gained strength vis-à-vis the US dollar, thereby gradually replacing the dollar as reserve currency around the world – hence, endangering the dollar hegemony. That, of course, was not allowed to happen. The euro had to be weakened and subdued. And so the manmade crisis was born. The Greek ‘debt crisis’ was the finger-pointed and highly propagandized culprit. The ‘crisis’ lowered the value of the euro against the dollar, so that international markets were regaining confidence in the dollar. The ‘crisis’ offered also an exclusive opportunity to ‘experiment’ with countries of more vulnerable economies, to what extent they could be subdued, raped and looted – with nobody protesting, so to speak. It was a test on European non-solidarity – and it succeeded.
Living examples were Cyprus and Greece. In Cyprus, in March 2013 the banking system was made to collapse; but instead of rescuing the TBTF (too big to fail) banks with tax-payers’ money, a new concept was tested, the ‘bail-ins’, where rotting banks helped themselves, stealing depositors and shareholders’ moneys. Protests within the un-solidary Europe were not too loud; they were tolerable. Hence, the bail-in concept was born, now institutionalized within the US and Europe. The totally illegal institutionalization was done stealthily so as to avoid a run on the banks – which could still happen, if and when people wake up.
Cyprus was followed by Greece, a southern European highly strategic NATO country, that had arguably the highest debt in Europe in 2010 of about 140% of GDP. Although relatively high, the debt would have been manageable from within. In a country that contributes less than 2% of the European Union’s economic output, a debt of this size is insignificant in the context of Europe as a whole – and even less so in a EU that was supposed to be bound by solidarity. Instead, the mainstream presstitute media went in overdrive demolishing and demonizing Greece for living above its means – therefore she had to be reined in for her own good – no, for the salvation – of Europe.
This justified the heavy boots of the nefarious troika – ECB, EC and IMF – that started in 2011 demolishing the country with unwanted and un-needed way above hundred of billions of euro ‘rescue packages’ – debt at usurious interest rates and the harshest imaginable austerity programs. The country is gradually being strangled and looted to death with Germany on the forefront on behalf of the EC. Behind it all are the Anglo-Zionist financial masters which pull the strings on Washington which pulls the strings on the EU through the troika. Greece’s debt today is 180% of GDP and is expected to rise to 190% or higher by the end of 2016. GDP has contracted by a third since 2011. The official unemployment figure lays between 25% and 30%, and close to 70% for young people. Pensions have been cut 6 times so far.
The Greek centre-right New Democracy party’s interim leader Yiannis Plakiotakis described the new austerity budget as “anti-growth” and quipped, “They are getting ready to turn the pensions into tips.” The remaining country’s assets are offered at fire-sales prices, mandated by the troika.
The EU: An American Colony
Today it is fair to say that Europe’s monetary and economic policy is made by Wall Street and the FED. The intermediary to do so is the ECB (sic) led by former Goldman Sachs exec, Mario Draghi. Europe is geared to be used to ‘rescue’ the US economy, whenever needed, i.e. through the Washington 2008 / 2009 instigated and ongoing financial crisis. Indeed, there is no hope and no interest of the powers that be to stop ‘their’ highly profitable crisis – which carries on at the detriment of the people, the common people of Europe.
Europe is already largely, and increasingly more so, becoming a colony of the US of A. The infamous TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), secretly negotiated behind closed doors, would be (god forbid!) just the final nail in Europe’s coffin. Europe’s once excellent social infrastructure is successively being raped, privatized and its assets being stolen by the western Anglo-Zionist led financial oligarchy.
The strangulation of Greece is a case in point for a successful experiment on how to rob Europe of its social and physical assets, putting the population into extreme poverty, too weak to even protest. A left-wing government in the most strategically located NATO country was an absolute no-go. No doubt, Tsipras himself, his family and his government were criminally blackmailed into submission. Examples around the world abound (John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man). Not obeying may lead to death.
Just read up on Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran, assassinated by the CIA in 1953; Patrice Lumumba, Congo (Kinshasa), murdered by the CIA in 1961; Salvador Allende, Chile, murdered by the CIA, in 1973; Saddam Hussein, Iraq, assassinated by the Bush / Blair murderers, in 2006; Muammar Gaddafi, Libya, by NATO thugs in 2011, under orders of Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, today leading Democratic US Presidential contender – and the list goes on.
In many of these cases the CIA’s / Mossad’s dirty and blood-stained hands played a role. Today, intimidation, torture and fear mongering are the standard tools of the white collar criminal neoliberal oligarchs, with the help of the US armed forces, NATO, as well as the secret services and police throughout the US and Europe. Unaligned leaders who don’t follow the Master’s orders are at high risk of simply being eliminated and replaced by puppets.
Greece and the Greek People
Greece and Greek people – be aware – the euro is and will continue ever more enslaving you. This is the case for all of Europe. Today Greece is burning and crumbling because of the euro. Who will be next?
A common fiat currency – the euro – in an artificial union that has no political cohesion, no common political objective, is NOT sustainable. The European Union itself without solidarity between the states, without a Constitution and without geopolitical cohesion and objectives, is NOT sustainable. The EU and its currency are bound to fail. The sooner the better – for a restructuring and rebuilding of individual economies, for a sovereign and independent rethinking of a European concept – for a new beginning, and certainly without interference from Washington. A Grexit could be a signal, a lead event for such a new Europe.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, CounterPunch, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2016
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