Thursday 19 February 2015

Europe needs counselling


Forget game theory, what is going on in Brussels is an acrimonious divorce with Germany playing the stoical male role while Greece is the emotional wife trying to get the best for her kids. The passion has gone and it is a relationship that has been reduced to mere financial dependence, a situation that will be familiar with many frustrated spouses. The eurozone is a dysfunctional family that is in desperate need of reconciliation counselling if it is not to pull itself apart causing generations of bitterness and trauma.


If this divorce goes through, the Fatherland will keep the house and cars.
Twitshot


She just won't listen!
We, especially in northern Europe are are conditioned to rely on the head to make important decisions, logic is good. The financial institutions are playing this role, crunching numbers and coming up with plausible reasons why Greece is being histrionic and unreasonable to expect concessions that might allow the family to flourish as a stable and contented union. Wifey just doesn’t understand the pressure that he is having at work and needs to get on with keeping a thrifty home. But Dad’s work has become an obsession with him and while it was originally intended to be a good source of income to feed and clothe his family, it is now beginning to take the place of the family. He has become so defined by this role that it has blurred all perception of purpose. The Euro is a medium of exchange, a facilitator existing only to service the family unit and yet as it fails to satisfy this purpose it is the family who are made to adapt, it has become the only thing of importance.

In 2011, I had he pleasure to meet the now Belgian finance minister, Johan Van Overtveldt. In his 2011 book The end of the Euro, he points out that the single currency was doomed from the outset as an economic union was foisted on a group of nations that had not established a political union on which to base it. Like a marriage of convenience where the couple had not had adequate time to establish a sound understanding and mutual admiration before deciding that his job prospects were sufficient to base a life long bond. So arrogant have the world’s bankers become that they really feel that money makes the world go round. They expected the common currency to be the leverage in European political unification under the logical auspices of the German banking system. This, as Overveldt predicted is blowing up in their faces now and Greece is being offered up as the unstable mother, unfit to care for her children.

The Fatherland is presenting a face of maturity that casts aside the humanistic aspect of government as folly and whimsy. Their focus is on balance sheets and policy that has been (badly) designed to support a currency system that will eventually condition the population of Europe to serve it. This is an autistic mindset that cannot contemplate the uncountable. We are being expected to side with the validity of this argument as it is irrefutable with logic.

The mother of democracy is harping on about how badly she has been treated and that she cannot support her children. She is not getting the right kind of support from her partner. Yes, he gives her money for the home but it’s how he gives it, the demands he makes on her, the disapproving frowns when she tries to make herself nice, the silence at the dinner table when she serves something a little simpler because she has evening classes. She has a point but her argument can get a little confused with ideas that are less easy to quantify as they are off-balance sheet considerations.

We sympathise with Mum but Dad makes more sense because he is logical.


What is needed is a mediator who can reconcile this difference of language. Yanis Varoufakis is arguing socio-political aspect of the relationship, a strategy for growth while the Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem insists on strict adherence to the austerity programme, a financial paring intended to support the medium of exchange at all costs.

Relationships of all kinds are dependent on understanding and evolution. I spoke to psychiatrist, Dr. Alexios Lappas, he said that successful relationships are based on similarities and differences, the prior form the core of shared goals while the differences maintain interest. However, as the responsibilities and strains of routine bite, the interest begins to wane and they regress into survival mode. The differences begin to be viewed as betrayal, by the anxious survival mode mind and they look for endorsement from friends (common ground relationships) who will tend to agree with their friend and support an exit from the relationship. It will not be long before irrevocable differences are cited and the family will split into those on dad’s side and those who support mum.



It is too late to impose a retro-fit political framework to underpin the eurozone’s fiscal policies but if the relationship is to develop through the present crisis it will need to be forward facing. The present negotiations in Brussels is an opportunity for growth but in order for that to happen Dad is going to have to loosen his tie and open himself up to some uncomfortable new feelings.  

Follow me on Twitter @acropof and like me on facebook you won't regret it for long! 

No comments:

Post a Comment


“In a hyper-real postmodern world, fact and fiction have become confusingly indistinguishable” Hunter S. Thompson

Throw in your two-pennies worth

From Under Dark Clouds

The Century of DIY