Bill Mitchell — The EU outdoes itself in the madness stakes

One of the themes I exercised when speaking in Europe recently, particularly when presenting at the French Senate Commission and the Ministry of Finance, was that by pushing European integration into an unworkable currency union and refusing to budge, the European political class was undermining the valid aspects of the ‘European Project’, which the likes of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman saw as a way of bringing peace to the Continent after several attempts by Germany to usurp the rights of citizens in other European nations through military endeavours. Research released by the The PopuList Project – is a UK Guardian motivated attempt to bring together academics and journalist to study shifts in European voting sentiment since 1989. It is overseen by Martin Rooduijn at the University of Amsterdam. The latest results are rather alarming for those who hang on to hope that the European Union is capable of progressive reform. And the latest shenanigans in the European Commission and the Council over the ‘Budget’ is indicative of why the PopuList Project is generating such results. If there was foresight among the leaders in Europe they would take a step back and restore national currencies and restore the quality of European democracy, which has been significantly compromised since the 1990s....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The EU outdoes itself in the madness stakes
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — European Union–business as usual as the madness continues

At the weekend, the German Social Democratic Party elected a new leadership from the Left of the Party, in the hope of resurrecting their disastrous political standings (Source), In rejecting the other main contender, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the decision has apparently threatened the GroKo (Große Koalition), the coalition between Merkel’s CDU/CSU union and the SPD, which, arguably, has been the reason for the declining fortunes of the SPD. They have, in effect, abandoned their charter and become part of the neoliberal, austerity machine. The new leadership rejects the basis for the GroKo. At present, the SPD is only marginally ahead of the far-right AfD with the Union and Greens ahead of them. The same political dislocations are happening throughout Europe although the antagonism to the neoliberal austerity orthodoxy is more manifesting in chaos than a defined direction away from the major political parties (Britain is currently a good example of that). Meanwhile, the orthodoxy continues in the European Commission and in its – Autumn 2019 Economic Forecast: A challenging road ahead – they are requiring the majority of Member States to inflict more austerity on their nations even though a recession is looming. That is, business as usual as the madness continues.

Looking like the West is doing its best to blow itself up. Whom the Fates would destroy they first drive mad. (source)

This is in part the consequence of abandoning liberal values based on virtue ethics for neoliberal values based on bourgeois liberalism.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
European Union – business as usual as the madness continues
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

China’s growing presence on the Russian market and what it means for the European Union — Alicia García-Herrero and Jianwei Xu

Russia doesn’t just look West, it looks East – and increasingly so. China’s economy has developed very rapidly over the past two decades, becoming the world’s largest exporter from a low base. Its goods have flooded Russia, eating into the EU’s export share. The changing global environment has helped re-orient Russia’s economic relationships eastwards, especially towards China. Chinese-Russian ties are also developing in the context of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.

This raises the question of the extent to which China might be able to displace the EU in Russia, in terms of trade, investment and lending. In a Bruegel working paper (written with the support of the EU Russia Expert Network on Foreign Policy), we assessed the deepening of Russia’s economic ties with China and what this might mean for the EU.

The data sheds light on some key issues EU policymakers should pay attention to. Since 2002, the EU’s share of Russia’s imports has dropped from 53% to about 40%, while China’s share has risen from less than 3% to 21%. Therefore, the EU still dominates, but what China exports is changing – and that should also give cause for concern. The share of domestic content in the goods China sells to the world has been increasing, and Chinese exports are increasingly substituting EU exports on the Russian market, especially in capital-intensive sectors. Notable overlaps are vehicles, industrial machinery, electronics and metal components.…

Bruegel

China’s growing presence on the Russian market and what it means for the European Union
Alicia García-Herrero and Jianwei Xu

Bill Mitchell – Euro policy elites deliberately destroyed jobs and income to achieve erroneous fiscal goals

As Mario Draghi’s tenure at the helm of the ECB draws to a close, he becomes (slightly) more pointed and looser with his public statements. On Friday (October 11, 2019), he gave a speech – Policymaking, responsibility and uncertainty – at the Università Cattolica in Milan on the occasion of receiving the Laurea Honoris Causa (honorary degree). He broadened the scope of his policy ambit by saying that “I will not focus strictly on monetary policy or the business of central banking, but I would like instead to share my thoughts on the nature of policy responsibility.” In the same week, the Eurogroup (the European Finance Ministers) of the European Commission released a press release – Remarks by Mário Centeno following the Eurogroup meeting of 9 October 2019 (October 10, 2019) – which announced that they had agreed to a “a budgetary instrument for the euro area – the so-called BICC”. Don’t get too excited. The BICC will only achieve the status of an “Inter-Governmental Agreement”, meaning it will not be embodied in the Treaties. Also, the Member States will have to contribute funds in advance and must “co-finance” withdrawals. And, as usual, there was no mention of the fund size, which will be miniscule if history tells us anything. But this is all context for Mario Draghi’s Speech....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Euro policy elites deliberately destroyed jobs and income to achieve erroneous fiscal goals
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — The EU pronouncement of a Greek success ignores the reality

I keep reading ridiculous articles about Brexit in the UK Guardian. The latest was comparing it to pre-WWI Britain and suggesting there were no signs of a “Damascene moment remainers hoped for”. I thought that reference was apposite – given the reference invokes St Paul’s conversion after he was struck blind. Good analogy – blind and remainer. The Brexit imbroglio is all the more puzzling because it seems to be a massive mismatch of scale – a currency-issuing nation and an organisation with no currency and no democratic legitimacy. And that is before one even contemplates the nature of that organisation. On August 20. 2019, the European Union provided us with a perfect example of why no responsible government would want to be part of it. In its – Daily News 20/08/2019 – there were three items. The last item told us that construction output in the EU28 had declined by 0.3 per cent in June 2019. The first item was a sort of cock-a-hoop boast about how great Greece is after the EU saved it from disaster. Parallel universe sort of stuff. Britain will thank its lucky stars after October 31, 2019 when it goes free from that madness. Even though the remainers remain ‘blind’ without their Damascene moment”….

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The EU pronouncement of a Greek success ignores the reality
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — Germany is now suffering from the illogical nature of its own behaviour

Last week (August 9, 2019), the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) – GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2019 – told us that the UK economy contracted by 0.2 per cent in the June-quarter 2019 after having grown by 0.5 per cent in the March-quarter. The UK Guardian pundits and the Remain cheer squad all screamed Brexit and were heard to be walking around in circles saying “see, we told you so”. Meanwhile (August 7, 2019), not far away (according to the Remain crowd’s much-loved gravity trade models), Germany’s Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) press release – Production in June 2019: -1.5% seasonally adjusted on the previous month – told a sorry tale. In annual terms, Germany’s industrial production has contracted by 5.2 per cent. We also learned that Germany is probably in recession. According to the Remain-logic, that must be Brexit too, n’est-ce pas? Meanwhile, just a bit further south, Italy is in turmoil. Obviously, Brexit uncertainty. I jest of course (well a bit). But in a real sense, this is all tied into Brexit in one way – and it is not the way the Remain camp would like us to believe. In fact, what I have in mind gives more weight to the Leave position and reflects on how intransigent the European Union elites are in dealing with the Member States....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Germany is now suffering from the illogical nature of its own behaviour
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — That progressive paradise (aka the EU) does it again!

I saw a Tweet overnight suggesting the so-called progressive British Remainers had been a little quiet in recent days following the comical display of anti-democratic, corporatism aka filling leadership positions in the EU and the Eurozone. Where are they? Why aren’t they out there in the media (social or otherwise) extolling the virtues of their much-loved European Union, where progressive policies are the norm and the peoples’ interests are held above the narrow corporate interests? The problem is that they cannot show up at present. The EU has managed to appoint a cabal of new leaders, many of whom are plagued by past scandals, allegations of nepotism, convictions for negligence in public office, and the Presidential nominee is under investigation in the Bundestag and has been acknowledged as a failure in her management of the German defense department. Come to think of it they seem perfect for the top jobs in the EU. And how was this motley lot selected? By denying even the limited sense of democracy that has been present in this process in the past. It is beyond a joke. But then this is the Europhile cosmo left’s vision for the future. One could not dream all this stuff up one they tried.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
That progressive paradise (aka the EU) does it again!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — The European Union once again reveals why it should be dissolved

While the Europhile progressives are publishing papers and holding talkfests to discuss their latest EU reform proposals, the on-going reality of the European Union continues to reveal itself – the pretense that there is a rule of law operating – as laid out in the Treaties and the idea that all are equal under that law. When I was researching my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale – and over the long period I have studied the concept of European integration it was obvious to me that despite the chimera of a strict, rule-based system that is run by technocrats, the actual practice of the Union is vicariously ad hoc – rules applied in cases where doing otherwise would present ideological problems, abandonment of the rules and outright illegal behaviour when there the interests of the corporate elites are at stake or the existence of the Union is threatened. And while law breaking, relevant officials produce complicated justifications of their behaviour as if what they are doing is within the boundaries specified by the Treaties. The Europhile progressives, meanwhile, continue to hold this embarrassing monstrosity out as the exemplar of freedom, globalism, cosmopolitanism and sophistication. They have reached such a state of denial that what is obvious to those looking in from the outside escapes their attention, or, in the mould of the European technocrats they just ride along with the spurious justifications for the unjustifiable. Europe in 2019….

The Left is hopelessly lost, and that leaves the field to the Right to deal with neoliberalism. I am seeing less on economics and finance per se, and more on the political fight going on among different camps, including those that are promoting the MMT POV as the optimal way to approach policy. While am encouraged by the strides that MMT has made in breaking into the political ring, with the highly competent Stephanie Kelton is public face, the MMT position is as yet far from strong, since it is mostly allied with a Left that is fractured and largely incompetent.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The European Union once again reveals why it should be dissolved
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Europe’s Silent Majority Speaks Out George Soros

Important because of who said it.

Project Syndicate.
Europe’s Silent Majority Speaks Out

George Soros

Pepe Escobar — The EU bows to ‘systemic rival’ China

Slowly but surely, the EU is shifting its priorities to the East

Asia Times
The EU bows to ‘systemic rival’ China
Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar — All roads lead to Rome for Xi

Backgrounder on Italy and BRI (and more). China marches (and sails) west.

Asia Times
All roads lead to Rome for Xi

Pepe Escobar

Bill Mitchell — German growth strategy falters – exposes deep flaws in the EU architecture

Last week (February 14, 2019), Eurostat released its latest national accounts estimates – GDP up by 0.2% and employment up by 0.3% in the euro area – which confirmed that EU growth rates have declined significantly over the course of 2018. Moreover, the December-quarter data confirmed Italy is in official recession and Germany recorded zero growth (thereby avoiding the ‘technical recession’ category after contracting by 0.2 per cent in the September-quarter). Export expenditure accounts for nearly 50 per cent of Germany’s GDP – a massive proportion. It has adopted a growth strategy based on impoverishing its own residents through flat wages growth and a sustained proportion of low-paid, precarious jobs and setting its sail on sucking out expenditure from other nations (in the form of their imports). This has been particularly damaging to the Eurozone partners but also exposes Germany to the fluctuations in world export markets. Those markets are softening for various reasons (economic and political) and, as a result, German growth has hit the wall. The solution is simple – stimulate domestic demand, push for higher wages for workers, outlaw Minijobs, and start fixing the massively degraded public infrastructure that the austerity bent has starved. Likelihood of the German government adopting that sort of responsible policy. Zero to very low. There is the problem of the Eurozone from another angle. The main economy cannot play the game properly....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
German growth strategy falters – exposes deep flaws in the EU architecture
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — The EU is neoliberal to its core and captured by corporate interests

The aptly named – Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) – “is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making”. It is relentless in exposing the corporate scams that result in European Union laws being biased towards corporations at the expense of the well-being of the broader population. The research results they publish are diametrically opposed to the claims by the Europhile Left, especially those from Britain, that posit that the EU is the exemplar of global organisation, defending workers’ rights and all manner of good things, and with just a few reforms here and there is the hope for a progressive future. CEO’s most recent report (February 6, 2019) – Captured states: when EU governments are a channel for corporate interests – allow us to see how the EU machinery has turned the Member States into a “channel for corporate interests” – “middlemen for corporate interests”. My position is that CEO has it right and the Europhiles a dreaming....

The distinguishing factor between classical economic liberalism and neoliberalism is that the former is based on isolating government from economic influence with the later is based on government capture by the ownership class as an analog to the aristocracies and gentries under feudalism Neoliberalism is better characterized as neo-feudalism than a new form of liberalism.

Both classical economic liberalism and neoliberalism are supposedly manifestations of "capitalism." Classical economic liberalism is such as an ideal system but realistically it is no possible to either abolish the nation state or to limit the state to the role of "night watchman." Pure capitalism is based on perfect competition such that the operation of "free markets" eliminates economic rent as unearned gai. But this requires social liberalism in the sense of absence privileged entities and networks and political liberalism is the sense of absence of political power wielded by special interest.

Neoliberals realized this and set about capturing governments through representative democracies in which outcomes are determined largely by monied interests competing with each other factionally, but cooperating against the marks from whom economic rent is extracted. The result nationally is corporate statism and internationally in the attempt of transnationals to gain leverage over national governments through agreements and treaties that favor special interest rent-seeking globally.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The EU is neoliberal to its core and captured by corporate interests
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell – billy blog A progressive European superstate will never come to pass

The increasing uprising against Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in the media is salutory because it means our ideas are now considered to be a threat to the mainstream economics (for example, Paul Krugman now buying into the carping) and to the heterodox tradition (for example, the British economists who self-identify with that tradition). The high profile debate around the Green New Deal has been associated with MMT and this has brought all sort of crazy attacks on MMT from those who think they are ‘green’ but haven’t traversed out of ‘Monetarist-type’ economics thinking. And then I note that apparently the Green New Deal is being expropriated by Europhiles to wedge those who consider Lexit and Brexit to be the only way to re-establish progressive society and politics. 

Apparently, the Europhiles are arguing that you cannot be both Lexit/Brexit and support the Green New Deal. Curious logic. And, of course, a desperate attempt by the Europhiles to grasp at anything to discredit both Brexit and MMT, given that there is a high proportion of MMTers who prefer Britain leave the EU and that the EU disappears in its current form. And so it goes. Wolfgang Streek recently published an interesting academic article that bears on this discussion. That is what this blog post is about....

Well, never is a long, long time. Who knows what will happen in the future, but it fairly certain it won't be anytime soon and even more sure that it won't be the outcome of the present arrangements that are supposedly designed to make it happen. More liberal utopianism that disregards realities involving traditional values and national patriotism, for example, and social, political and economic asymmetry. Moreover, since liberalism is about freedom, it follows that attempts to impose it on the unwilling is illiberal.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
A progressive European superstate will never come to pass
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — The conflicting concepts of cosmopolitan within Europe – Part 2

In the blog post earlier this week – The conflicting concepts of cosmopolitan within Europe – Part 1 (January 29, 2019) – I juxtaposed two concepts of ‘cosmopolitanism’ which appeared to be part of the early moves to achieve European integration. On the one hand, there was a Kantian-style desire to create, through cooperation between previously warring states, a peaceful and prosperous future for a ‘one’ Europe. This construct would be welcoming to outsiders, progressive, and celebrate ethnic and cultural diversity. It was a rights-based conception of citizenship and democracy, which closely aligned with the growing popularity of the social democratic polity.

On the other hand, the early moves to overcome the resistance to creating a supranational entity that would increasingly compromise national sovereignty – the so-called “functionalist” approach of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, created a pragmatic, free market-based cosmopolitanism, which set the Member States against each other as competitors. As I demonstrated, over time, the economic cosmopolitanism channeled the burgeoning neoliberalism of the 1980s and compromised the rights-based, political cosmopolitanism, to the end that we now talk about democratic deficits as the European Commission and its unelected allies such as the IMF trample over the rights of citizens across the geographic spread of Europe.

Europhile progressives hanker for the first conception of European cosmopolitanism and proffer various reform proposals, which they claim will tame the economic dimensions and restore the ‘European Project’ as a progressive force in the world. In this second part of the series I will argue that from the outset the cosmopolitanism embedded in the ‘Project’ was deeply flawed and it is no surprise that democracy is now compromised in the European Union. I argue that reform is not possible such is the extent of the failures.

I have written previously of the paradoxes of liberalism, and Bill's observation is an example of it. Liberalism as a political theory generated by a thought-collective (German Denkkollektiv*) is idealistic in the sense of constructing a possible world based on principles as stipulated assumptions and wishing for its existence. It is a philosophical (principles-based) and ideological (normative) framework for a project that began in the West in earnest in the 18th century, although it is built on the Western intellectual tradition that begins with ancient Greek thought.

Being chiefly normative, universal and static rather than empirically derived and context-dependent, liberalism as a theory doesn't fit real conditions that are historical and dynamic very well, especially in cases of any considerable scale like states and, a fortiori, international affairs.

Thus, the paradoxes of liberalism arise as "internal contradictions." Capitalism is an economic expression of liberalism as democracy is a political expression of it. Significantly, neither has existed in "pure form" at a large scale historically. The devil is in the details — impurities or adulterations. The liberal project often involves attempts to purify the system of "imperfections," which then proves impractical in context owing to paradoxes that arise involving tradeoffs that undercut the enterprise.

The Left's version of liberalism based on rights is noble but out of touch, while the neoliberal view is the attempt to impose economic liberalism on liberalism as a whole. Neither are practical, owing to the dissonance of the model with reality. For a variety of reasons, liberty, egality and fraternity (community, solidarity) don't mesh automatically owing to natural order arising spontaneously given the "right" conditions.

In addition, liberalism is at odds with traditionalism, and traditionalism remains a powerful force to be reckoned with. Moreover, traditionalism as it manifests in a context is often based on local tribalisms.

While this certainly affects the European dynamic, it is not peculiar to Europe. In fact, the 21st century can be viewed as a dialectic between liberalism and traditionalism. Liberalism itself has elements of tribalism built into it since it is chiefly a Western construction.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The conflicting concepts of cosmopolitan within Europe – Part 2
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

* See Ludwig Fleck.

Bill Mitchell — The conflicting concepts of cosmopolitan within Europe – Part 1

In the past week, the UK Guardian readers were confronted with the on-going scandal of wealthy British politicians and ‘peers’ receiving massive European Union subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The article (January 27, 2019) – Peers and MPs receiving millions in EU farm subsidies – recounted the familiar tale –“Dozens of MPs and peers, including some with vast inherited wealth, own or manage farms that collectively have received millions of pounds in European Union subsidies”.

The story is not new and this scandal is just a reflection of the way in which the development of the European Union has contradicted the idealism that the Europhile Left associate with ‘Europe’.

As an aside, it would be telling, one imagines to map the EU payments (and well-paid job holdings) with Brexit support – one would conjecture a strong negative correlation.

This is a two-or-three part mini-series on the evolution of concepts of ‘cosmopolitanism’ in the European context. It is part of work I am doing for the next book Thomas Fazi and I hope to publish by the end of the year.

In this blog post, I introduce the conflict that is inherent in the European Union, and the way the Europhile Left has been seduced by a concept of cosmopolitanism that bears not relevance in the reality of modern Europe....

Bill branches out widely from MMT to encompass political economy, economic sociology, , economic geography, political theory, the EU and EU politics, the Left (such as it is) and more, exhibiting an awesome command of the material.

I have added some paragraphing.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The conflicting concepts of cosmopolitan within Europe – Part 1
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — EU deliberately subjugates prosperity to maintain its neoliberal ideology

While the Brexit shambles wound on in London, with the Prime Minister being walloped one day by her own party, and then the next given a victory, courtesy of some Labour Party bungling (the no-confidence motion), across the Channel things have been turning markedly sour. While the Europhile Left hold Europe dear to their hearts, the reality is that their dreamworld is falling apart. This is not only because of the incompetence of its polity but also because of the deliberate strategies of the polity to privilege ideology over economic reality. But if the Europeans continue down their ideological path, there mightn’t be much to exit from for the British. Late last week (January 14, 2019), Eurostat published their latest output data – Industrial production down by 1.7% in euro area – which as the title indicates is not good. Once again, the fiscally-starved Eurozone is trailing behind a sinking EU28. Over the 12 months to November 2018, industrial production in the Eurozone fell by 3.3 per cent and by 2.2 per cent in the EU28. The declines are across all product categories – capital goods, energy, durable consumer goods, intermediate goods and non-durable consumer goods. What we understand from this is that the policy makers in the European Union deliberately choose to subjugate economic prosperity and the well-being of people (jobs, incomes, savings, etc) to maintain an adherence to an ideology that purposely redistributes real resources and incomes to the top end of the distribution and provides lucrative paths for European Commission executives to move between these ‘political’ roles into highly paid banking and related jobs. It is neoliberal central, in other words, and is beyond reform....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
EU deliberately subjugates prosperity to maintain its neoliberal ideology
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

See also

CFE.co
Bill Mitchell: Saving Capitalism from Itself

Bill Mitchell — Some Brexit dynamics while across the Channel Europe is in denial

It is Wednesday and I am going to stick to my decision to ‘not publish a blog post’ on Wednesdays unless there is some new data (such as the quarterly release of the Australian National Accounts). I want to use this time to attend to other writing obligations. But a few snippets won’t hurt, will they? The first, looks at some extraordinary denial from the European Union bosses. The second, looks at evidence that the Brexit environment is already providing positive dynamics for British workers in low-wage areas of the labour market. And that is being presented by the Remainers as something negative! We move into 2019, just as we left 2018!...

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Some Brexit dynamics while across the Channel Europe is in denial
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Kit Knightly — The EU and the warning signs of Fascism

Sure sounds like incipient fascism to me. But, hey, it couldn't happen here, could it?

The Duran
The EU and the warning signs of Fascism
Kit Knightly | co-editor of OffGuardian (UK)

Bill Mitchell — EU Services Notification Directive will undermine democracy within cities

In a blog post last week – Financial services agreements – the EU as a neoliberal, corporatist project (November 13, 2018) – I wrote about the way the EU compromised the capacity of elected Member State governments to advance the well-being of their nations by the way they negotiate trade arrangements in services, particularly with respect to the financial services sector. For all those Europhiles that regularly deny the core agenda of the EU is to compromise democratic outcomes in favour of capital, that analysis, alone, should be sufficient to discourage those thoughts. Of course, that isn’t the only manifestation of this neoliberal, corporatist bias in the way the EU has developed over the last decades. I mostly conduct my analysis at the macroeconomic level but I am also interested (as my publication record demonstrates) in urban and regional analysis. At the level of the European city, the EU is behaving in the exactly the same way – to curb that ability of city authorities to render their cities favourable environments for the residents who live there....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
EU Services Notification Directive will undermine democracy within cities
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia