Global Systemic Crisis - Euroland 2012-2016: Perpetuation of a new global power on condition of democratization

- Public announcement GEAB N°62 (February 17, 2012) -

As anticipated by LEAP/E2020, the fear largely fed by the City of London and Wall Street of a Eurozone break-up over the Greek debt crisis proved unfounded. Euroland has come out of this violently conflictual episode with its "natural allies" much reinforced. According to our team, 2012 will mark the starting point for the perpetuation of a new global power, Euroland. However, this development remains conditional on the question of democratization that we analyze in this issue, through the three sequences of Euroland’s evolution 2012-2016. These five years will lead Europeans to profoundly influence a global geopolitical rebalancing whilst domestically a radical new phase of European integration is opening up in the coming months. Moreover, this GEAB issue anticipates the US Dollar’s progress as a dominant currency for global commercial transactions. The 2012 to 2013 period will in fact bring great changes in this area directly affecting global trade as the relative power of the currencies involved. In addition recommendations on currencies, gold, Greece, Russia, the US economy and stock markets, LEAP/E2020 offers a preview in this issue of the next book to be published in March 2012 by Anticipolis Editions entitled "2015 - The Great fall of Western real estate" by Sylvain Périfel and Philippe Schneider.

For this press release, LEAP/E2020 has chosen to present its anticipations on the first of the three Euroland sequences 2012-2016.

As previously announced, LEAP/E2020 is presenting its anticipations for Europe over the 2012-2016 period in this issue. In the context of a global systemic crisis, two strategic trends will mark these five years for Europeans: on the one hand the stabilization of Euroland as a new full global power (1); and, on the other, the absolute requirement for the European elite to raise the democratic freeze which now weighs heavily on the process of European integration. In this issue our team analyzes why, starting from the second half of 2012, conditions will be at their best for Euroland to take on these two trends fully (2). Of course, numerous economic, financial, strategic and political challenges remain for Europeans; but, with the global systemic crisis entering its phase of reconstituting world geopolitical balances, with Euroland, they have a “new sovereign” able to positively influence the course of events (3). Of course, this capacity is conditional upon the democratic legitimization of the whole of Euroland governance. From 2012 to 2016, three major sequences will characterize Euroland’s stabilization as a full sovereign and the lifting of the democratic freeze.

Before going into the European case in detail, our team would like to remind readers that the big difference today between the anticipation of the United States’ development and Europe’s is due to the fact that the United States has a completely paralysed antiquated politico-institutional system, whereas European integration has a strong dynamic associated with great institutional flexibility. The absence of major reform in the United States since the beginning of the crisis in 2008 compared with the impressive series of European institutional leaps and bounds since mid-2010 (developments considered impossible by many just two years ago) offers a striking illustration. In the American case, the question of anticipation of events thus forces to be able to identify the points of rupture of a sclerotic system. In the European case, it’s a question on the other hand of targeting the course of events and evaluating their pace of development (4). Which is much simpler in fact when, like LEAP/E2020, one has a good understanding of how Europe functions institutionally, and has a good sense for public opinion in the various Member States (5).

The last point of this preamble, the European decision-making process will considerably improve for Euroland since, from now on, only the countries using the Euro will take the decisions. Moreover, it’s a feature of these years of crisis to have finally clarified an absurd situation which saw countries outside the Eurozone, even anti-Euro (like the United Kingdom), take part in decisions on the Euro. But nevertheless, the very nature of the European decision-making process, implying negotiations and compromises, will continue to show it as being chaotic and slow, as opposed to national decision making. It will be much less than before, but still there all the same because it’s the very characteristic of the functioning of European integration; ultimately it is also one of its conditions of effectiveness, in order that each State really applies what has been decided.

Now, let’s move on to the analysis of the three major sequences which will characterise the 2012-2016 period. These three sequences have been presented out of sequence to make them clearer; but it’s obvious of course that they all overlap.

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