EU Crisis Endures on all fronts

The  European Union is not likely to survive its current political, economic, and social challenges.

To read the current crisis solely through the economic lens is myopic.

Political Problems Perculate
The comic Cameron- Clegg Coalition in London, the United Kingdom, will not last.

The UK´s ambivalance toward the EU is well- known and newly- minted Prime Minister Cameron is a pronounced Euro- skeptic. Political instability in one of Europe´s most important states does not bode well for the Continent.

Centrist Chancellor Merkel is under mounting pressure and probably lost a key regional election last Sunday as part of the fallout from the bailout of Greece.

Last March, the UMP Party of President Sarkozy was " thrashed" in regional elections in France. 

And now on to beleaguered but beloved Spain where President Zapatero, nearing the end of his 6- month term as the current leader of the European Union, is enacting only tepid measures to tamp down the burgeoning debt despite IMF support.

The absence of political will to make tough choices will only likely shortly postpone more drastice measures. The myriad alphabet soup of unions is already sharpening their swords to oppose even these weak moves.

Economic Strictures
The IMF sees Europe´s economy in a " tenuous recovery" and actually there is no basis to believe the EU economies will recover anytime soon.

There is no single unified economic entity backing up the euro like the United States for the dollar. The euro is a faux currency like the EU is a faux union.

"L'incertitude domine," ( Uncertainy reigns) says Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, as quoted in Le Figaro.

The uncertainty surely lingers when the $1 trillion resuce plan for Greece and the euro proves incapable of saving both. Greece will surely cede to EU pressure and leave the euro zone.

It can only be ironic that Spain is one of the sick economies at the same time it heads the dizzingly merry- go- round EU presidency.

Social Fallout
The question must be if the current leaders in Europe can control the streets.

The battles between Greek police and protestors, including invasion of government buildings, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Central governments from Lisbon to Athens through socialist economic policies have produced large dependent class of citizens who see their security eroding ( rightly) with the austerity measures that have to be implemented to try to calm the markets and have a chance to save the EU project.

The social market system is an abject failure because in the end there is not enough money to back the promises of the politicians for cradle-to-grave upkeep of their voters.


Conclusions

The Europe Union continues to unravel. Its  fundamentals are rickety.

The weight of debt is crushing to economies that barely produce anything the world consumer wants to buy.

Again, where is the EU´s Microsoft, Apple or Intel?

Bureaucrats in Brussels are a poor substitute and political-social economic policies that punish success and wealth yield... well, less success and wealth.

Until Europe rids itself of pathetic socialist economic policies, its schlerotic economic growth will persist and in the end the invisible hand will deal a knockout blow.
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