Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

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MDeen
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Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by MDeen »

Taken from nu.nl:
Bolkestein wants parallel currency alongside euro
There should be a parallel currency alongside the euro to be used in creditworthy countries like the Netherlands and Germany said VVD celebrity Frits Bolkestein Wednesday at Pauw and Witteman [Dutch topical talkshow].

France should not be allowed to participate in the parallel currency, because the country is "virtually bankrupt" and "badly led".

The plans for the currency for the creditworthy countries (call it'' mark'') will have to come from the German Bundesbank. Bolkestein does recognize that this will not happen immediately, but it will one time be reality. ''In about five years they'll think otherwise.'' According to him we are only at the beginning of the problems. It is about time to ''bring order into the chaos''.

With a parallel currency, the creditworthy countries can protect their own financial position. ''The deficit countries will resist this plan fiercly, expects Bolkestein. But eventually an strong 'northern coin' will be good for their competitiveness.
I am especially interested in how everybody outside "the north" (like Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece) see this. IMHO if this should become reality then it is the end of the euro. No idea however if this will solve anything (or what other measures should be taken to prevent events like Greece and Cyprus to happen again).
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ART
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by ART »

Simply absurd.
The problems will not be solved by dividing Europe, to think it is a very dangerous illusion. The European integration process isn't a toy that can be thrown away when not working well, that's what Bolkestein and some others doesn't seem to understand. What happened in Greece and Cyprus should instead be a lesson to understand that time has come to move forward politically, because the current system doesn't work... and it certainly will not work better than before forming "two Europes". The problems aren't resolved running away.
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by MDeen »

I'm interested to know what you see as going forward. Even more Brussels-led legislation? Going to one country? IMHO that does not solve anything either, except on paper. The outcome of that will still be that the countries with the strongest economy have to support (=give money to) the countries with the weakest economy.
And frankly, I'm still not that european to agree to that. I think biggest issue is to make the weaker economies get their economy in check before you start talking about a further integration.
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by an-148 »

MDeen wrote:I'm interested to know what you see as going forward. Even more Brussels-led legislation? Going to one country? IMHO that does not solve anything either, except on paper. The outcome of that will still be that the countries with the strongest economy have to support (=give money to) the countries with the weakest economy.
And frankly, I'm still not that european to agree to that. I think biggest issue is to make the weaker economies get their economy in check before you start talking about a further integration.
maybe, but imo, only further integration will give the power to "brussels" to control better the budget of the single countries: if decisions (and controls) are to be made on an european level and not in every single country, it will be finished for them to edit budgets with money they don't have; it will also be finished to have categories of citizens excluded from paying taxes like Onassis-like shipowners or Orthodox church, or whichever national relief ! The economy of the whole EU-entity will be decided at upper level with no distorsions in tax rates (income tax, btv, ...)
the present situation is actually due to a lack of integration: they made a common currency on top of an uncommon socio-economic, still national minded decision authority !
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

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an-148 wrote:if decisions (and controls) are to be made on an european level and not in every single country, it will be finished for them to edit budgets with money they don't have; it will also be finished to have categories of citizens excluded from paying taxes like Onassis-like shipowners or Orthodox church, or whichever national relief ! The economy of the whole EU-entity will be decided at upper level with no distorsions in tax rates (income tax, btv, ...)
the present situation is actually due to a lack of integration: they made a common currency on top of an uncommon socio-economic, still national minded decision authority !
The problem is: that is impossible. It effectively means dissolving every country's parliament. I agree that in the current constellation it is the only possibility to resolve the problems, but I also think it is impossible to do and therefore the current situation has already grown out of control.
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by ART »

Isn't necessary to "dissolve" anything, we just need the means to correct the situation, having a European level with enough power to overcome the difficulties. We have to take logical and fast decisions as we couldn't do actually because there isn't one "brain" that thinks in the interest of all but 27 brains that tend to do as they like, often on the basis of simply domestic electoral interests.

The global crisis has inevitably damaged the economy, but the economic crisis sooner or later it comes out: the real problem we have isn't economic, it's political. In Italy it was a political class of "criminals" with its management to create the huge public debt that we have; in Greece has been the ruling "criminal" class to fake the public accounts. You don't need support (= give money to) anyone: you need that the european economy is really joint managed. If it was, no one could implement a hidden or easy-crazy policies that lead countries to have accounts at failure danger. If in Italy we had the euro and a joint management economy in 1970 (for example) wouldn't be in a current situation, because no government of idiots could have implement the policy of continuous devaluation of the Italian lira and "full throttle debt" there has led to the current situation.

Impossible to solve this problem? Before you surrender and go back on our usual steps, which we know where they lead, it's best to try differently: the alternative is the final collapse of Europe. The autarkic illusions are fatals, those have always brought to our (European) self-destruction.
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by an-148 »

absolutely !
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Re: Former Dutch MP Frits Bolkestein wants parallel currency

Post by tabbs »

MDeen wrote:The problem is: that is impossible. It effectively means dissolving every country's parliament.
No, you would "simply" have to make decisions about which level has what competences. Here in Germany for example each of the 16 states has its own parliament, its own constitution, etc. - and yet there's the "feds" in Berlin as well. Similarly, it would be necessary to shift certain core competences to the EUropean level.

So much for the theory. Practically the European Union is primarily governed and "lead" by the Council, a body which consists of representatives of the member states who will only care about the voters "back home". Why would Angela Merkel or Mark Rutte feel any responsibility with regard to voters in, say, Finland or France? (Just two examples; works with others too, of course.) Well, I just cannot imagine that they would give this comfortable position up. And I suppose that the voters in some member states (the UK is a hopeless case anyway :wink: ) would not want that either. So we'll continue to have what we have ... as long as it is there.

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