13 october 2009, hard choices

Tuesday 13th October 2009

EUObserver, a very good website for keeping on top of various brussels dossiers, managed a whole article on joseph stiglitz (nobel winning economist, try globalisation and its discontents) this morning, without mentioning the fact that he’s chair of the world poverty institute at the university of manchester. This is part of a global strategy to brand the uni as one of the world’s very best. It’s a good idea I can only support, but not sure it’s value for money. Anyway, I do like jo, and do strongly agree with his latest musings, that the reaction of the eu’s members states to the financial crisis calls into question its cornerstone and greatest success, the single market – the world’s largest. The crux is two things said by so many of us for so very long. Firstly, you can’t have national regulation in a single EU financial market (a key component of global finance). Secondly,a fundamental pillar of EMU – the “E” bit, is mutual co-ordination of fiscal policy, yet in no way, shape or form does this actually happen, the only process (excessive deficit procedure), being laughably low key and toothless. The basic problems are regulatory capture and the unwillingness of member states to face some of the hard choices they really need to make. Hard choices.