not in its hands. you. crossed out what seems to be the never ending euro calamity i'm joined by rodney shakespeare in london he is one of the founders of the global justice movement in brussels we have used and usually he is president of the e.s.c. europe two thousand and twenty steering committee and in new york we cross to stephen foley he is an associate business editor of the independent all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to rob me if i go to you first in london we have cameron and obama saying there must be decisive action on the euro and then we just come out and just hours ago we have the european central bank saying well it's up to the the polities and individual countries of the euro zone is this a political vacuum is this where are we going here or is it just finger pointing. it's a complete back gross bankruptcy of new thinking cameron probably means more austerity which will make the thing worse. lending creating money interest rate to the banks

will be putting money into and never ending black hole and of course there is the third thing in their minds which is basically to print money as was done in nine hundred twenty three in germany none of this will work the thing that is required is an economic democracy in which you use national banks and that can include the european central bank for interest free loans to spread the real economy to every individual in society in other words you go for the ordinary people and through them is the solution they are productive and they're consuming power but we must have a revolt against the banks and we must have a revolt against the elites of europe who are part of a structure who are selling out the rest of the world that only thinking themselves used to regularly you in brussels what do you think about that because you know we keep hearing about this calamity but where are the real solutions because the people that say that it's not their responsibility it's somebody else's ok and

we're just having these everyone is it crossed purposes right now the house is on fire now what is going to be done to put it out. i think you exaggerate. there are tensions that's undeniable but they're working hard to come with the solutions and i tell you one thing that the bank presidents the president of the commission the president of the council. are working now on a plan that will be adopted probably on june twenty sixth. in order to get at least a part of the problem in order ok so i say that's the date that's after the greek election stephen what's going on here are people working at cross purposes is there any idea how to solve this problem. well i mean every time every

time it looks like we've overcome one particular problem the next one erupts certainly in. agreement on what. an ultimate solution to the problem will look like but there are there are solutions that can be found to each emerging crisis as it comes out i would i would reject the suggestion that the house is on fire but it's certainly a very dangerous time and the biggest and most dangerous crisis facing the world all right gentlemen before we continue our discussion with have a look at some of the elements that brought us to this point in time. g. seven finance ministers and central bank governors met on tuesday to discuss the eurozone precarious banking system ahead of the g. twenty summit in mexico the meeting of officials from france germany italy japan britain the u.s. and canada came amid speculations that spain is now in a situation of extreme difficulty and might need a bailout german finance minister shall be a was at pains to l.a.

fears pressroom worried about the looming meltdown the spaniards are doing everything right and nonetheless they are coming under market pressure we need to manage this through close and trusting coordination the press conference had an air of visible hawkishness and there were no clear signals of him in stimuli despite the fact that some governing council members were clearly in favor of the june rate cut mary and john d. once again called for a response from political leaders the e.c.b. president stressed each of the crisis hit states should more nato their domestic issues more closely before anyone decides on the eurozone wide solution all countries have all countries all areas have to work together. they have pretty much first and foremost they have to address their own problems. then they should worry about the. a lot of their policies or lack of policies to the rest of the world in

the meantime the u.s. treasury issued a weak statement on the feasibility of european fiscal union but the lack of a powerful voice in proactive political leadership suggests the eurozone will continue its attempts to fudge its way out of the crisis any you didn't air across the uk r.t. . ok all right if i go back to you i mean it's no wonder the president of the european central bank speaks that way he's already injected a billion euros into the system here and we still have borrowing costs that are sky high i mean he hasn't really done much in is stephen pointed out maybe getting one crowd going from one crisis to the next but no ultimate solutions here on the table there is no to what solution in the present thinking and nothing i'm sorry to say this use nothing will happen on june twenty fourth there the reason is that the system is the turning to up hold the interests of our financial elites when it's

understood that banks should be the means by which on the ministration is made of interest free loans for the real economy to every individual so that they increase their own productive capacity and their ownership in other words economic democracy but what we've got is something which is much worse than one nine hundred twenty nine nine hundred twenty nine they didn't have consumer debt they didn't have all this housing debt but the debt today's many times higher we're seeing the fourth operation of the kondracke t.f. cycle and the present elites in europe all they can do is to sort of basically sit on their hands and anything they do with their present mindset will make it worse you see is simply one of this elites and he hasn't the faintest idea what is happening and he and his colleagues have no solution to it you say you want to reply. yes. all this criticism of the leaders totally

wrong the elite is very much interested in vestment stability and job creation they are interested in grace and what is happening today and that makes the markets as well as politicians very nervous that is a renationalization of the banking system and this creates dysfunctional cross border banking operations we cannot without the banks so something has to be created to go over to get the fabric again streamlined and that is a banking union and i am sure that within three months we will have a banking union ok well can you explain what that you what is what is that actually mean because i mean the nationalization of the banking system that sounds like a better idea to me than what we have now. that's absolutely not true always the banking this we have now is the banking system in the european union for the people

how's it work for the people we have a crisis yes of course the of a crisis but we cannot result banks what we have it is have national have you ever seen have nationalizing over the system working without banks i don't see the system working now in writing do you want to jump in there. yes i do use his assumption is that the quote free market quote is basically a little bit out of balance and with a little bit of a twisting of the adjustment here it will come back into a balance he does not understand that the present system is fundamentally flawed and is going down hill and he has nothing to offer he cannot come forward with a substantial practical proposal which will solve the problem for the mass of people in spain it's fifty three or fifty four percent of unemployed amongst the people between eighteen and twenty five uses got no sure lucian to that the same with any of the other countries stephen you want to think i really think the only suggest. we're running is really not suggesting

a practical solution either than the notion that in an era of globalized capital markets you can just sweep away the banks or have a banking revolution across europe as is is neither realistic or more practical and it's certainly not the right solution to the incremental problems of the of the euro what we need right now is to is to prop up the banking system and to make sure that the banking system is not a mechanism for contagion across the and that is to their credit that is what the european leaders are talking about right now we're talking about using the banking system and using the recapitalization of the spanish banking system which will come after the i.m.s. report next week using that as the mechanism to introduce transfers from the richer nations to the poorer nations of the periphery now that's going to be good for the people of the periphery only sweeping away the banking system having a revolution and causing causing chaos in global financial markets isn't going to do anything for the man on the street in madrid or in athens even if i could see if

you i mean what point do you start recapitalizing banks again in the you have a slippery slope you have moral hazard here how do you stop that. well you start recapitalizing them when they're fully recapitalized we're going to learn next week what the i.m.f. estimates of the needs of the spanish banking system are you know it's a very it's very clear what the solution is here we fill in the black holes that have grown up inside the banking system at the moment we organize a transfer of political power to the center of fiscal responsibility to the center and we restore growth of the euro zone through an end to the crazy policies of austerity now that's the solution the question is what steps do we need to take between now and getting to that solution. before we go to the break. proposing a form of. increase that borrowing from the banking system spreading in the wrong areas he did not listen to what i said is there has to be

a new interest free supply from the national banks all from the european central bank which supply must always be for the. spreading. i'm ignoring the fact that. people are not got the jobs. here we're going to. continue our discussion. of the war and going the way of the. many people thought that nuclear weapons. are all that something might be going off by mistake. or weapons on hair trigger alert. to use it as

a threat. but you know if you keep spinning a trillion dollars a year on weapons of everybody you know people are dying from these weapons but until we actually see if people don't make up. the firepower of the second world war this. today.

and you can see. her mind you were talking about the turmoil in the eurozone. can you say. ok you said let's go back to you in brussels here i mean there's been a talk over the last few months of mutual izing the european debt and within the euro zone i mean that was one way out in theory of probably makes sense but politically it's very dangerous isn't it. yes what is dangerous is that you take one step without taking the other steps and what has to be done is that steps

has to be taken simple take the asli now few things are clear everybody including the spanish government including in the greek government is agreeing on financial dissipate and everybody is now agree also of a growth pact that is more money for. for growth but within the framework of the measures that have been agreed upon so on the principle of coordination one is agreeing what is lacking is trust between countries trust between banks the trust between banks has to be brought in by the banking union that will be proposed by june twenty sixth and at the same date the germans and the spaniards and everybody will agree upon a road map back to normality and the best argument for this is that david

cameron went to berlin today he is out of the euro zone he is here is kept on the first hour and they still is and he pleads in pledges very much to mrs. merkel to to follow that road map so all europeans are now oh. very. intense discussion the eurozone members and among your members in order to get those in order and i feel that. it is a blessing in disguise that tension has gone up so strongly because there is no alternative ok stephen if i can go to your me a lot of criticism of the european the way this crisis been managed is that it's been to the advantage of the banks saving financial institutions and not thinking about sovereign debt since in the end actually jobs for people how much of it of today do you think it's been looking after the financial institutions and i would say the very rich. i don't i don't see that characterization being

a fair one to be to be honest the the point about the point about about maintaining a stable banking system in globalized markets is is we've seen what not having a stable banking system in globalized markets means we had it here in this country in the u.s. in two thousand and eight when lehman brothers went down in the money markets collapsed and was teetering there was no alternative to propping up the banks this is how this is how the man in the street gets his gets his money out of the cash machine this is how we get paid this is how bad has it always has to be am i really this is eleven needed jobs for average americans we saved the banks did it save the economy. will it save the economy yes because without the banks there would have been no economy there would have been no jobs there's no well there's no reason this is argument it was because of this and it was there you're doing a plenty of calabar private capital could have done the bailout easily easily well

i mean what you want to. i mean it's simply not the case ok there's i will tell you this i was here reporting on the i was here reporting i was here reporting on the on the crisis in two thousand and eight there was no private capital there was no private capital for the banks there was no private capital for the auto industry there was nothing except the us government standing in the way and frankly the alternative of letting the financial infrastructure collapse would have been so much worse now less and the what's happening in the eurozone is incremental political solutions to the emerging problems but what you haven't had over two years of this unfolding crisis is you haven't had a banking collapse now i think i think we should actually pause and give some degree of credit to the to the political elite spinning so traduced on this program that we so far over two years there hasn't been a moment there hasn't been a lehman brothers moment that has tipped the banking system the financial infrastructure and for humanity there was

a receiving if that is the case then why don't. they display the reseller greece is so important no the entire banking system will collapse i mean really go ahead jump in. i can't here believe that i'm hearing what stephen is saying he was talking about a stable finance banking system the system which built up debt and absolutely broke the world banking system a system which has no concern for spread in the real economy a system which is in fact a toll of our financial elite and it is absolutely lucian's that he say and at the moment stephen has no proposal he's not even interested in the greatly increasing unemployment going on in country after country throughout the world in the usa it's twenty to twenty two percent stephen and there's fifty fifty million people on food stamps stephen and i think you want to take account of these things the usa is responsible for this and it's dollars and it's practice is really just really

really doing this and you're suggesting you know the solution you're suggesting which is to collapse the banking system of the eurozone is no i do not see you know serious unemployment in the eurozone i tell you that much now listen the early years you lost your sense of what i see as a loss europe is there as you are as is the austerity the austerity policies the austerity policies across the eurozone are not working they are making matters worse they must be stopped and they will be stopped because of the election in france because of the pressure of the g seven because of the pressure from the g. twenty we're going to reflate the global economy we're going to take on and we're going to take on extra debt frankly in order to make sure that people can get jobs and we can bring unemployment down it's absolutely vital that we do that there has to be an into austerity that doesn't have to be a banking revolution there has to be an end to austerity and that's what we're going to get in the eurozone use you want to jump in in brussels go ahead yes please first of all i would like to say that you have also of the three agreed

coming into force now you have a number of financial directives which will be adopted within now two months and that will bring. the way the banks are maneuvering and operating so i have absolutely adamantly against any suggestion that the elite of the banks and the leader of the politicians are all together in. the lead. there is an energy there was no you're right and there were that great steven jump in well i was going to say you're absolutely right we have proposals coming out of the european union just in the last forty eight hours which which sets out exactly how we will resolve banks to get into trouble in the future and how we'll make sure there be no more taxpayer bailouts for the banking system resolving all the problems that we learned about in the banks and bringing the banks under control

and my goodness we know that's a serious problem it's being done it's being result here in the in the u.s. through the dodd frank legislation and there's more than needs to be done it's being it's being discussed in every country in the in europe and centrally in europe and we will do that there will be there will be a resolution to all these all these revelations about bad banking that we that we've learned are going to see even if i could just to separate if i could stay with you if i could see with you stephen if what if the greeks opt to get out of the year old that collapse your house of cards. it's only going to be you know it was even here go ahead stephen go ahead. well i was going to say it's a it's a very it's a very dangerous moment. i would use the analogy of two thousand and eight again when when the u.s. government decided not to bail out lehman brothers there was this sense that because everyone had been talking about it because people would come on t.v. programs like this and talked about the the idea of letting lehman brothers go

bankrupt for several weeks and months are up to it happening that somehow we were prepared for it the idea of greece leaving the eurozone although we've talked about it for many many months and although it's started to become something that politicians are allowed to say out loud i'm not sure we've really worked through all the financial consequences all the knock on consequences for the rest of the eurozone debt for what the global financial markets are likely to do and frankly what what will happen on the streets of athens when they realize that their savings are suddenly worth a fraction of what they have well it's probably not much more than they have right now right me if i'm going to you there is talk about a new economic union within the eurozone did people vote for that or is it just going to be elites again deciding what their new economic union will be about if there was a vote taken in almost every country in europe at this moment they would vote against. our learned that they've got scared and there is this moment in greece

they're being terrified out of their lives when the re fundamental way the people of europe know that europe is a failure very quickly i understand use the be saying more austerity and they understood stephen to be saying that there should be more keynesian beurre now i don't obviously want to come between these two who obviously think differently from my book but we. know austerity or more putting into debt. but you still want to reply to that russell's go ahead sir yes i am living in brussels and i'm living in europe and the i had the impression that all populations want to get rid of the euro is completely wrong and the french are afraid really germans are afraid of it all says a scandinavian is the dutch the germs the italians and even the greeks eighty percent of the greeks while being in the eurozone because they realize that if they fall out of it they say they are completely broke ok if you think you know me we'll

i'd like to stay with this show here stephen we'll give you the last word on the program what is a political dimensions of all this he said that they will have some solutions maybe they will but is that democratic is that fair to the average person in the euro zone because the decisions are being made for them. they made by their elective representatives i mean one of the things i would say actually is that the politicians in germany the politicians in spain the politicians in greece. when when it comes to the negotiating table they push very hard i mean what's what you've seen with from spain over the last the last few days has been very good negotiating by their politicians they will need they will need help to bail out their banking system but what they're determined to do is to make it help specifically for their banking system they're going to ask they're asking germany they're asking the i.m.f. for money to prop up their banking system rather than to prop up the spanish

government itself and that will be much better for spanish interest rates it'll be much better therefore for the spanish government's finances therefore they will need to cut less therefore there are a gentleman who knows his job is absolutely fascinating this guy should run out of time here many thanks to my guest today in new york london and in brussels and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember.

u.n. monitors investigating reports of a massacre in your home on syria find evidence of human remains in burnt out homes and this is the u.n. steps up pressure on both damascus and rebels to lay down arms. brochure crushes the czech republic for one of its first game is the euro two thousand and twelve football championship but there's been controversy is the host nation's ukraine and poland if it comes to human rights abuses and racism. the eurozone on a naif experts predict spain about to ask for a bailout but its desperate leaders scramble to save the euro one irish town looks to its last currency. to him in moscow i matter as a good to have you with us here on r.t.

our top story u.n. observers in syria are investigating the site of the latest massacre near the city of hama where it's claimed up to one hundred people were killed there are reports a human remains have been found at the scene and many houses have been burnt out this is the u.n. seems to put additional pressure on damascus to prevent the country from sliding into a full scale civil war kofi anon is also urged to anti assad forces to lay down their arms clashes between troops and rebels have stepped up over recent weeks alongside nationwide rallies against ongoing violence artie's marie if an ocean reports. when hearing different takes from the opposition and from the syrian government the opposition is claim is that the syrian army shelled peaceful farming village in central syria and after that i latched through assad's minutes came in they tied people out they shot they stopped and in the violence how the syrian got.