political economist and writer for the rebel revolution newspaper raymond lotta and that is all the time we have and want to thank you for watching i hope you have a great night i'm christine for. wealthy british soil the sun. rises on. markets why not. come the. why no one should really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on r g.

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season one the old compass an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the. morning news today violence is once again flared up the phillies are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. for asians are today. the mother. ok. to be. alone welcome to cross talk on people of uncertain future as the eurozone grapples

with the single currency what is the future of political union to save the euro is it necessary to accelerate political unification is greater political union by definition more or less democratic and what about the rise of the extreme right. to. cross the political future of the e.u. i'm joined by charles cooper in washington he's a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and professor of international affairs at georgetown university in london we crossed averred involved in or he is a research professor at the institute of contemporary history king's college london and in brussels we cross to you said yeah i mean he is the director of studies at the european policy center all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but first marcia tell us more about the euro in the state of the european union there's been a lot of talk about it and i think there's been no incidents that last week german

chancellor angela merkel an ounce that europe has reached its most difficult hour since world war two she delivered an address to her christian democratic party calling for not less threat but more as a solution to the sovereign debt crisis or of course overarching message that deeper cooperation within the union is the chief economic and political unity resulted in a growing skepticism over the entire european project as well as talk of the indifference and departures. in my view the best the best option for the greeks is to default of course but there is much bigger financial consequences for the for the rest of europe than for the rest of the world if that happens he'll leadership as well aware of the spare. has staked its hopes on deeper political cooperation especially from its biggest economy germany. europe cannot be successful i also believe that germany cannot be successful without europe penchant for political integration and the understanding that the euro and europe have become intricately

connected is more than shared at the moment merkel has time and again driven that point home saying if the euro fails europe will fail and that argument could hardly be more cogent at a time when the crisis not only threatens to wreak havoc on the european economy but also in danger its political stability or while all the parties concerned seem to acknowledge the need for a concerted approach in practice the will to make this happen is still lacking and with a series of departures and governments across the e.u. the current structure of european institutions seems to be slowly losing relevance ultimately this comes at the expense of domestic politics where it is the extreme right has been gaining momentum as a backlash against the euro zone's failure so really not just the economy but also domestic politics that is a stake here or take a look about the future of the political union if i go to vernon first in london merkel says we need more europe not less year of how is it politically tenable these days because so many people will say the european union is failing because

the euro was failing and i'm sorry gentlemen we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the fate of the euro so britain in london what do you think about that. the short answer is a political europe isn't in fact tenable probably euro zone is simply stated you have a federal currency in a nonfederal political system so you may say is anger merkel does to put it right you need to federalize the political system but i don't think that there's full understanding of what a federal political system means it means there's more loyalty to the whole than the parts for example more loyalty to the united states as a whole than california more loyal to him to germany than to bulgaria now there are very few people in any of the member states who have more loyalty to europe than their own member state and this is particularly important in germany because if you federalize the system it means the germans will have to contribute more to the properly good countries to greece italy and the other mediterranean states so i

don't think a federal europe is on the way it would be create at the moment would be nondemocratic it would be created by elites so it's a nonstarter ok charles if i go to you i mean i think everyone would say that the economic union has gone pretty well quote unquote because everyone's cart in this euro mess here i mean the it was the thinking you think when they were putting this together their political union would slowly but surely put layer after layer that people would get used to it because the euro would be so successful well in fact it hasn't been and is really just a really and so being a a nail in the coffin of the european union because people do not want to participate in an organization where it's actually economically everyone is at risk . well i think that when the euro was launched over ten years ago the idea was that ideally you would have a federal type structure you would have convergence on tax policy you would have the kinds of institutions that vernon was talking about to go with the single

currency that wasn't on because the politics wasn't there so they therefore launched the euro anyway and started to pray but the prayers didn't work and then comes along globalization and the downturn in the financial system and right now you have the politicization of europe people are now talking about europe in the streets but it's almost a dirty word they're not supporting it i would disagree with what vernon said in the sense that one should give up on any federalist aspirations it's important to keep in mind that the and i in the united states it took decades over a century before people said i'm an american before i'm a virginia and i'm an american before i'm a texan so these things take time and i think this is a make or break moment for europe and it's very good point vernon civil war vernon you want to elaborate on that point there real quick. well it also took a civil war in america before america was united there was also civil war in

switzerland with course switzerland became a federal state and differences between the peoples of europe a much greater than they were between americans obviously there there's not a single language for a start and there's no real federal feeding you in new york except among various things that people we go to josefina in brussels but i mean maybe the civil war comment is really germane here because as angle merkel has pointed out and the other european leaders of the second world war isn't that long ago in the unification is so very important here the real problem between france and germany is world historic when you look at their two countries history if my point is that either you keep you have to keep pushing ahead or you just drop the whole idea altogether because the status quo simply is not tenable yourself when you think about that in brussels. well that's what it is. we have to remember that monetary unions never come about by finding the ultimo currency zone and all this is most monetary unions in history have been achieved by power either by power of the

law of a treaty or by power of the sort and they have been sustained that way it is very rarely that you can actually convince an entity to voluntarily do so it comes over time when that instruments provides actually stability and prosperity for the time being the euro has done that and we should not forget we're not really having a euro crisis we're having a debt crisis in european countries and we're not having the instruments that other major currency areas are using in order to deal with that and the fact that we're not having that has to do with the consolations that vernon has related to there was indeed the idea that monetary union would go hand in hand with political union and then as charles i said there was the idea that political union in the end would come alongside monetary union ones. actors and publics would understand and that

situation is first upon us now where we actually see that a member states are using actual sovereignty and they find it very hard to somehow rebuild that sovereignty on the european level that's a contradiction here i was going to ask charles real quick because the contradiction right here because of the time when you need more political union to save the euro to save the union itself it is a time when it's least popular because of austerity i mean you have you know you have the germans and the gotcha and also you know why do we have to pay for the austerity of somebody else we didn't lie to get into this monetary union i mean this is the worst possible time for quote unquote more europe at least politically . well i would agree with that and i think that there is a growing gap between the institutions of europe and the need for governance and the politics of europe which are becoming increasingly skeptical of the e.u. and this is something it's also affecting things here on this side of the atlantic

where you have electorates saying help me i have law on losing my house i'm losing my my income and governments are not able to act and so this is really a shared problem a crisis of governance and it leaves the e.u. in a very awkward position because no one is really getting out there and trying to provide the courage the leadership that europe needs america is just now coming to use the kind of broad vision and encouragement that's been lacking but it may be too little too late because politics is running away from leadership in capitals and in brussels it seems the vernon if i go to you looks like anyone that wants to take a lead on this is going to find their political career short and very quickly i mean over the past year we've seen six governments fail or change in europe and to anyone that gets out there in front is going to be marked forever like herbert hoover it does point out in the united states of the during the great depression i mean if anyone that shows leadership now is really going to have to think twice

about their political career moving forward. yes indeed the euro has become an instrument for inducing deflation and recession in the member states and of course that makes governments unpopular with the voters so you've got governments a large chosen by the voters as now in greece and italy but i rather disagree with joseph that it's a debt crisis i think it's not wholly a debt crisis to crisis of competitiveness the truth is that greece and italy are much less competitive than germany and therefore the natural market response would be thawed their currency to devalued to make them more competitive now america of course is a currency union but there if shall we say mississippi is less competitive than california no doubt people will move from mississippi to california and the market will work but of course there isn't that mobility between countries in europe where people speak different languages so the euro which it was hoped would

bring competitiveness would bring some sort of convergence between countries have different levels of competitiveness it hasn't done that and if anything the disparity of competitiveness is actually widened since the european union was set up and that's what's proving so dangerous to governments particularly in the mediterranean states you know you said you were responding to go ahead and yes sure . but let's not forget the depreciation of one's currency is not the only way to get competitiveness but after all this is a short term easing of the situation. hardly has led in the past to a significant longer term increase in competitiveness in fact if you look at the center of the eurozone today germany the benelux countries and france they have long had a stable exchange rate relationship and during that time when you said i would have to be here we go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the e.u.

state pretty. and if you think you want to play. a role in the. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. please. liz. liz. liz. lemon issues three liquidation three limbs for charges free.

range from the free. free. free. zone free bond counseling video for your media projects c.e.o. don carty tom. you can. see. the same. amount of crosstalk carol and i'll remind you we're talking about the destiny of the e.u. the same can the same. thing to you charles in washington i think what and an observation i have been looking at this year the euro crisis is a centrist governments are being punished all across europe and who knows but beyond even i have been in the united states and what we see is the rise of the

left wing in some cases but mostly the rise of the right wing and the and the rise of the right wing makes any kind of political union greater political union in europe impossible right now. that's exactly right and i think that centrist governments are being punished in part because they're asking electorates to do things that they don't like and the case of greece tighten their belts in the case of germany bailout the laggards and that is adding to a situation where the influx of immigrants particularly muslim immigrants is fueling right wing parties anti immigrant parties but many of those parties are also anti e.u. they disagree with the threats to sovereignty that come with with union and in that sense the political landscape is becoming more hostile to the e.u. it's tying the hands of leaders behind their backs and that's one of the reasons that governments have been so slow to react to a very very fast unfolding crisis yousif what do you think about that i mean the

rise of the right wing is it again is just another nail in the coffin for any kind of further political union in europe. well i object to differently i don't see the right wing as so much being on the rise there is of course a conservative or right wing surge of sorts but i think the strongest movement we see is the rise of populist policies ok and that goes across the political spectrum and its main impact is that it makes the centrist elites more euro skeptic because they they react to this perceived rise and they seek to neutralize it by taking off and taking on some of the key concerns there you know look at the true finns they are they are not necessarily nationalists but they are kind of centrist euro skeptic populists and that's what's happening and that's what makes it very difficult particularly for those governments who would now have to short of the

kind of reforms that they have shied away from over the past decade ok very good if i can just continue with what you're surprised to say but then the result is still the same there's not going to be the pursuit of greater political union when greater political union is absolutely necessary if you want to save the euro the euro isn't an end in itself the euro's a means to securing greater prosperity and cooperation amongst the member states of the european union if it isn't achieving that then it's not achieving what people hoped for it and perhaps it ought to be looked at again rather than trying to force european politics into a mold which doesn't suit it and it was absurd to say that if anything happened to the euro the european union would come to an end the single market would still remain that still be foreign policy corp corporation on matters like energy climate change security dealing with terrorism and so on the euro's a part of the european union and the part that frankly is now working very badly

indeed when you think about that charles i mean i would i would big big difference being the european union and the euro have to go hand in hand to have the union but you just go back to the what is it the european economic cooperation the e.c. i mean i would betray my age ok i mean you go there now to get to know the right not only one reactor that i had. yes look the girl in constitutional court has said that the european union is not a federation it's an association of sovereign states that's the european union and the federalist dream remains that for the moment but it doesn't mean that the european union itself comes to an end it's the union of cooperating sovereign states ok charles what is the how do you see the fate of the time the euro and the european union together i mean can they go their separate ways at this point. i would i would i would disagree rather strongly with that view in the sense that if the euro does collapse and countries start jettisoning the single currency i think

you will see a very very serious threat to the global economy it will wash across the atlantic we may be heading to a very dark period and secondly to see the new go backwards to little more than a trade block seems to me to head to a world in which europe desperately underperforms we're moving into a global transition we're seeing the rise of china and other emerging powers the united states is turning inward because of its own deficits the wars in iraq and afghanistan the world desperately needs european will and european power and if europe is nothing more than a collection of its member states nothing more ambitious than that but i'm afraid that europe and the rest of us will be much worse off your will in time our does europe have it will and the power. well it has both of it probably not enough of it but let me say there seems to be a greater convergence between brussels and washington at least in this talk then

between brussels and london i support were charlie has on occasion saying here it is you know the euro is actually delivering it's delivering to the people and the economies of europe we have low inflation we have high stability our current sees as such and in the old as in the old days cannot really be really attacked by speculators what they can attack their attacking now which is government bonds but you know the the euro as an instrument is actually delivering to a degree that unfortunately is not noticeable remember that italy before the euro was went through various economic crises was managed by the i.m.f. at times had to pay interest rates of well over twelve percent had inflation go when nowadays people have got used to the fact that this doesn't happen any longer and now we need to solve players now we need to get back on that track in order to

deliver on the kind of goods that charles has mentioned vertigo had in in mind. well the euro. came in forty years after the european union was formed the european union existed perfectly happily without the euro for forty years it's a mistake to say i do because child stars that europe would become just a free trade area if the euro disappeared it would still be a customs union with a commentary if they'd still be a single market which is the most important achievement and of course in foreign policy the europeans can perfectly happily cooperate without the euro britain and france work perfectly think ever well together in libya without the euro being involved if the countries want to cooperate in the current policy they can happily do so so although there's a consensus growing between washington and brussels i think it's a false consensus which is leading europe into deflation and i think although there

may be difficulties if anything happened to the euro in the long run i think it would allow european countries to grow again because the euro is proving a terrible constraint on the growth in particular of the mediterranean car and i want to talk about the evolution i want to know about the growth of something else and all through this crisis here there's been commentary that the european union with the euro is simply not democratic and the decisions are being made for too many other people in distant capitals charles you want to feel that there because there's a deal and i'm thinking about occupy wall street sentiments here right now there isn't it amazing disconnect from political elites in many cases in brussels are never elected by anybody and people would look at the fed i suppose in the us this the deficit of democracy right now. well you know i think that the european union has actually done extremely well by being an elite led organization and most europeans went along for the ride they didn't pay

a whole lot of attention to what was going on in brussels and what's happening now is a political awakening it is not so much a reaction against the e.u. as it is a reaction against the global economy a reaction against bringing down the welfare state the lack of competitiveness in our mature industrialized economies as jobs are moving overseas to developing countries so there's a cruel irony here europe has become politicized europe is not war democratic but it is actually working to the detriment of the crisis and it may well be that we need more policy and less of the charges or europe should go to as we've said not only ask maybe i misunderstood is too much democracy that's why people are you know they have the right to express their so much of their displeasure of what's going on here because a lot of people say i mean i always ask people come on this program who represents you living in the european union who represents you in the european parliament and no one has ever been able to answer that question and you're an american so i don't have to ask you. they do have representatives in the parliament america was talking

not too long ago about having a head of the commission that is directly elected so you can do things to give these institutions more legitimacy but as we've seen with the constitutional referendum some of the lisbon treaty votes the more democratic europe in europe becomes the more difficult it may be to to advance the fortunes of the union ok vernon it seems to me the european union just keeps asking the same question over and over again and then only until they get the right answer is the european union more democratic now. i think it's not necessarily more democratic but you're having a popular revolt against decisions being made by elites that mattered less fifty years ago when your like other areas was much more deferential and people did what the leaders said now these days the leaders can only lead as long as the followers are prepared to follow and when as now their followers are no longer prepared to follow the leaders will find it very difficult to lead and i wonder what democracy

can really mean in twenty seven member states a union of twenty seven member states of such great diversity i mean do people in britain really feel they have anything common with those in portugal or greece do people in denmark or sweden think they have anything in common with people in spain are i very much doubt it i think the span is too large to create a sense of order which is why of course there's a lot of talk of a two tier your we're almost out of time here but again over again if i can answer your question they do have one thing in common it's called an ailing euro gentlemen we've run out of time i want to thank my guests a day in london washington and in brussels and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember.

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