WESTERN EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST
European Parliament Moots Trade Cutoff to Israel
The European Parliament passed a resolution, 269 to 208, on April 10, urging the European Union to suspend preferential trade terms with Israel, call an emergency meeting of the EU-Israeli Association Council, and impose an arms embargo on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The resolution also called for an international peacekeeping and monitoring force to be sent.
The resolution is non-binding, but as unnamed Israeli diplomats told Reuters, the mere fact that sanctions have been put on the table could have a devastating effect on Israel's economy. Trade with the European Union is vital for Israel. As of 2000, some 43% of all Israeli exports went to EU countries, and 27% of all Israeli imports came from there, according to CNN. Israeli products enjoy special trade preferences from the EU, and were they to be eliminated, Israeli sales would plummet.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials are accusing the Europeans of already holding back defense materiel. According to reporter Amnon Barzilai, in the April 10 issue of the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, "Germany, France, and England are imposing an embargo on sales of certain defense equipment to Israel, a senior defense official here [in Israel] said." He says that there has been no "formal decision" to do this, but "nearly all European countries have delayed or are dragging their feet providing export approval to parts for security purposes," because these spare parts are being used in attacks against Palestinians. Of special concern are parts that come from Germany for the Merkava tanks.
German Trade-Union Leader Blasts Government's Austerity Approach
German Trade Union Federation (DGB) chief economist and national board member Heinz Putzhammer has been harshly attacking the approach of the Maastricht Stability Pact, and of the Social Democratic German government, in recent statements. Such criticism is highly unusual, especially in an election year.
Putzhammer's toughest speech came at a press conference on Feb. 21, when he explicitly rejected German Finance Minister Hans Eichel's "fixation" on a short-term balanced budget. While bowing to the alleged need for a long-term goal of eliminating the budget deficit, Putzhammer said:
"Nevertheless, an absolute fixation on a balanced budget by 2004 is too dangerous," because "sufficient growth is not guaranteed. But what we know for sure is, that if the state pulls the brakes to consolidate the budget in 2003, and especially in 2004, too strongly, the following will happen: Unemployment will grow, and not shrink. The scissors between reduced tax income and social security payments, and the higher costs of unemployment, will open further, instead of closing. The new public debt will rise, and not shrink...."
Instead of Maastricht, he said, "Infrastructure investments have to be stabilized at a politically desired and economically sensible level. Consolidation will then be accomplished ... on the income side, in an economic upswing. Public investments can be financed through credits, if public infrastructure expenditures serve several generations, as they do in many cases."
On April 5, Putzhammer reiterated his comments, in a statement greeting "French deliberations not to realize the ambitious austerity plans of the euro countries, by 2004, at any cost. Finally, an important EU member is realizing and indicating that, in all probability, it is impossible to reduce the new debt incurred to zero, by 2004.... If recognition prevails in France that the austerity aims can be only reached, if at all, by a highly risky therapy for Euroland, the German government should no longer resist becoming smarter."
Portugal Did Not Meet the Maastricht Criteria in 2001
According to the Austrian paper Die Presse on April 10, a thorough review of Portuguese state finances ordered by the newly elected government, reveals that Portugal did not meet the Maastricht criteria in fiscal year 2001. Finance Minister Manuela Perreira-Laita told the Cabinet that the budget deficit was not 1.1%, as reported, nor 2.2%, as expected, but was in fact above 3%--thus violating the strict (and insane) criteria enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty for European Union. Now, the European Union (EU) may stop economic aid to Portugal and demand penalty payments of up to 0.5% of GNP.
But, inasmuch as the EU essentially did not censure Germany's government either, when it violated the Maastricht rules, it remains to be seen what the EU will do in the case of Portugal. Most certainly, a thorough review of state finances in other EU member countries would probably show that Germany and Portugal are not exceptional cases.
Cheminade, Kept Off French Presidential Ballot, Announces 2007 Run
France's so-called political elites were so terrified that Lyndon LaRouche ally Jacques Cheminade might wreck their control game and again end up (as he did in 1995) on the ballot in this spring's French Presidential elections, that they came close to tearing up the election system altogether.
Cheminade was excluded from the 2002 ballot by a dirty tricks campaign that held his qualifying signatures to 401, below the level needed for ballot status. But he has immediately announced, to a nation fed up with the elites' electoral shenanigans, that he will run for the 2007 ballot.
"I did not obtain the required 500 signatures from grand electors," Cheminade's statement said. "A campaign of defamation, lies, and blackmail directed at the elected officials of the French people prevented that. The object of this campaign is to silence me. They want to prevent me from bringing the real issues of our day into the center of the debate: the collapse of the international monetary system, the policy of war against the Palestinian people and all those who oppose the American military-financial complex, marginalization, and social violence.
"Because if these things were raised, it would be clear to all, that our economic and political leaders, in spite of their jingoistic ramblings, have capitulated instead of facing up to the financial cancer and its ideological, military, and police-related metastases. France and Europe are not fighting for a more just world economic and monetary order, they are doing nothing; as the Middle East goes up in flames, they bow down to the new American military doctrine. The Presidential election is based on the agreement not to speak of such things. I will not be able to run as a candidate, but I will continue to break the law of silence. I know that many Frenchmen, deep down, reject the hypocrisy now reigning, and refuse to reduce man to an object of merchandise, culture to speculation, and desire to a death wish. I am counting on them, with the eyes of the future."
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