Who speaks for the euro?

fergus pickering

All of the six are overpaid nobodies who speak for their salaries and the continuance of them for ever and ever. As for the euro - what bloody euro? We were right and all these very important persons were wrong. They've got a bank which isn't a bank, perfect forma currency which isn't a currency. OK for holidays but not much else.

startledcod

I, Spartacus, speak for the Euro.
No I do, I'm Spartacus.
It's me, I speak for the Euro, I'm Spartacus.
I'm Spartacus, I dpeak for the Euro.
I am Spartacus.
No I am.

Verity

Frank P has resigned his much admired and applauded position on this blog, but Korski lingers.

Life is so unfair.

Mr. Bubbles

Oh I dunno, maybe you, Mr. Korski? All the damn time.

oldtimer

I am under the impression that they all speak at cross purposes, not least Merkel and Sarkozy. Not that it matters as Tim Worstall succinctly points out over at The Register in an article "The EZ crisis: We`re all doomed."

They are incapable of moving fast enough, even if they all agreed on the direction of travel. The markets travel much, much faster and in a different direction.

whatawaste

As Obama said during the G20 conference:

"You have so many institutions over here in Europe. It is very confusing. In America I just pick the phone and call the Federal Reserve".

Nuff said.

Herbert Thornton

Reading Daniel's question about the Euro brought to mind the unreal scenario evoked by Edward Lear's Owl and Pussycat: probably because the whole thing has so much in common with the fantasies of the EEC.

I'm not going to attempt a re-write of Lear's wonderful verse, but I do invite folk to read it - and when they do, to think of the Owl as Sarkozy, the Pussycat as Merkel, the five pound note as the Euro, and the Piggy-wig with the ring in the end of his nose represented by Cameron - led of course by Clegg pulling the cord attached to the ring. Oh, and think not of a runcible spoon but of a Rompuycible spoon.

Heartless P.

Aboard the Ship of Fools, everyone babbles.

In2minds

"Add to this the two leaders people and markets actually listen to – Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy"

Pure comedy! Well over a year ago the potato faced loon Merkel said 'it was time the markets were brought to heel'. So were they listening then, and are they listening now?

Actually the remark above is beyond comedy it's fantasy!

Bluebottle

Who cares who speaks for the Euro? Whoever it is will be telling the same lies we've been hearing for the past 20 years.

A more apposite question is the one asked by Daniel Hannan:

"Who, then, speaks for the millions who reject the loans-for-austerity racket? Who speaks for those who must watch their future being sold in order to sustain the euro? Who speaks for the over-taxed, the taken-for-granted, the lied-to, the ripped-off, the ignored?"

We have yet to see whether he has the answer.

martin alexander

In2Minds

Merkel is a Quine not a Loon...Unless you know something I do not..

Martin, Aberdeen

mal

The EU has just reached the point where they are so bloated that no one knows who is responsible for what - and no one takes responsibility for anything. And all of it producing nothing whilst costing the tax payer everything, If it were a company it would go bust.

Cynic

Haven't you just listed the members of the GdF? Collectively they run the euro, don't they? And what a fine job they're doing, too!

Yow Min Lye

The EU is a bureaucracy, not a country. Therefore it needs lots of leaders (preferably paid huge salaries for doing nothing of any great worth).

strapworld

Jonathan Swift could have been writing about the EU!

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together" Voyage to Brobdingnag.

or my favourite quote:-

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers"..Voyage to Laputa.

In2minds

@martin alexander - Yes you are right, and it's Sarkozy who has the heels! Perhaps this is why the markets pay no attention?

Richard of Moscow

Does the Spectator's Korski ever read the Spectator? The wisdom of Taki, for instance, and many others would, or should, make a significant dent in Daniel's strange naivete.
The corker on this thread is that "people and markets" listen to Merkel AND Sarkozy.
1. The markets are the people. Who on earth are the markets in Korskiworld? Alien lizards?
2. In a similar vein, Sarkozy is a good boy, knows his place, and he says what Merkel tells him to say.
The interest in Sarkozy is how many theatrical strops or childish sulks he will perform before he agrees.

Put even simpler, the relationship between France and Germany is a little like that of Tony Blair and Clinton / Qathaffi / Desmond / Murdoch / Cherie / Bush / Putin / J P Morgan / Assad...

Andy Leeds

And who speaks for those not in the Euro but members of the EU ? Who will oppose Franco-German arrogance which is destroying EU and driving the whole continent towards war ?

Herbert Thornton

Another way to answer Daniel's question is to point out that there is nothing to be said for the Euro.

Verity

What about the fat, gruesome "baroness" Ashton? Could she speak for the euro? Or would she be too busy? What does she do, actually?

Read this. It's hysterical. And in the photo, she looks as though she's competing with David Cameron to lay a bigger egg.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8800105.html

"Baroness-Ashtons-staff-EU-foreign-corps-are-nightmare."

Why are fascist female politians always fat? Is it genetic?

Malfleur

Well, where this magazine is concerned the answer is Daniel Korski.

But seriously folks, Mr. Korski is just re-processing Nigel Farage's point on 9th November: *ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAhswPt50KQ

You don't have to listen to the whole thing, he gets to the point in the first minute.

Malfleur

Mr. Bubbles

Apologies, you got there first. Chapeau bas!

EC

Who speaks for the Euro?

Nigel Farage is the only politician who has consistently told the truth on this issue. He has been proved right too.

Liz Brown

You omitted the ghastly Christianne Lagarde. But what you describe is the secretive Francforter Group who are reported to have held separate and secretive meetings at the most recent and inevitably shambolic G20 in Cannes.
Also omitted from your report is that with the exception of Merkozy, none of those mentioned has been elected by we, the people

Boudicca

Who speaks for the PEOPLE, Mr Korski? You remember US, the people who have to pay for the inflated salaries and perks of the EU oligarchs. The people who will have to pay for the EU's single-currency-folly and their hubris and arrogance.

Who speaks for the PEOPLE, who never wanted a political superstate Mr Korski.

We are denied the opportunity to speak for ourselves. Who speaks for US?

The EU is a monstrosity that must be destroyed.

David Parker

Herbert Thornton,

How about the Jumblies for the Roons?
Their hair was green and their hands were blue and they went to sea in a sieve.....

...But when the sun was low in the West the Roon arose and said, what little sense I once possessed has quite gone out of my head.

Augustus

"the two leaders people and markets actually listen to – Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy".

Actually, the cultural, mental, and economic
differences among Euroland form the Achilles' heel of the whole euro project, and it's those differences which have increasingly been put under the microscope by the markets. The markets have got to the stage that they no longer know what to think; all they want is certainty. But how that certainty is to be offered is still uncertain. This coming week will show whether, after aiming their arrows at Italy,
the markets will be aiming them at France.

Herbert Thornton

David Parker (November 13th, 10:57am)

Thanks for the reference. I guess that there are several literary works that present parallels to the absurdities of the EEC and Euro - e.g. Gulliver's Travels and Alice in Wonderland. Even the verse about Xanadu and Kubla Khan decreeing a stately pleasure dome there. For Xanadu of course read Brussels and for caverns measureless to man, read debt levels measureless to man.