The Franco-German axis

Citation

Coleman, J. (1999), "The Franco-German axis", European Business Review, Vol. 99 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.1999.05499bab.001

The Franco-German axis

Edited by John Coleman

Editorial

The Franco-German axis

Clearly, the new German Social Democrat government, with the collusion of the French government, is aiming to take some pretty large strides, if not leaps, towards a United States of Europe on an even more centralised basis than the USA. They have always seen the creation of the euro, combined with the elimination of national currencies, as the signal to go full steam ahead with European integration and the end of the national veto on all but a very few issues.

This new situation makes the article by Dave Birch of special interest at this juncture. There can be little doubt that an electronic euro could have served the purposes of business people and holidaymakers without the vast expenditure of taxpayers' money entailed in the launch of the euro as well as in the printing of banknotes and minting of coins for use in 2002. The value of national currencies could have been either fixed or allowed to float electronically, at very little cost to anyone.

Of course, our European partners have long made it plain that they wanted the euro for political and psychological reasons, not economic ones. "Money", as Nietzsche once said, "is the crowbar of power". It is plainly the intention of the French and German governments to force into place the economic forces that suit their own purposes.

France and Germany have both, over the past 200 years, attempted to gain control over mainland Europe. Both have failed, largely because they came into conflict with each other. To contain France and Germany after the Second World War within a European pact was clearly a good idea, but now the potential to achieve together by economic means what they previously sought separately by military means is clearly there. It will entail either excluding the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, or only accepting them on the economic terms laid down by France and Germany. And if the UK joins "Euroland" in its present form, it will almost certainly mean subjugation to political control by the Berlin/Paris axis.

The German and French Social Democratic governments have a similar agenda, whereas Tony Blair's administration is committed to achieving its Labour goal through a much more market-oriented approach. It has also committed itself to a policy of devolution at the very time when our European partners are going in for massive centralisation. Dave Birch's article also allows for the devolution of money. Very significantly he points out the contrast between the views of Alan Greenspan and Bundesbank director Edgar Meister, who insists that the issuing of electronic money should be restricted to commercial banks, whereas Greenspan sees "electronic payment obligations" being issued by corporations with strong credit and good public ratings. This in fact is already happening.

Professor Bernard Lietaer, the architect of the Euro and the author of the Commission's White Paper on Economic and Monetary union, speaking in Portsmouth, made it absolutely clear that he had always considered the euro an unworkable project without complementary currencies: commercial currencies and local currencies in the regions of Europe. So with the obvious arrival of much more electronic cash it seems unfortunate, to say the least, that much more thought has not been given to the alternatives that will affect all our futures. Like the proverbial generals, we will find out ­ too late ­ that we have been fighting with the tactics of the previous war.

Peter Cannon-Brookes explains why in his field, museum management, the UK is extremely exposed "in respect of monetary union ­ and the inevitable political union which flows from it." France, he points out, and the countries invaded by it at the beginning of the nineteenth-century have the Napoleonic system of law. This is clearly incompatible with the British system of Common Law. Under European control, little patience is to be expected with regard to cultural property ostensibly in public ownership. Peter Cannon-Brookes, appropriately, has enumerated the problems arising from this in the sphere of museum management, but clearly this also applies to most things in the rest of our national life.

A Europe of the Regions has been much talked about, and the concept of subsidiarity has been used to make the European construction more acceptable to those who give it serious thought. What is being done at the moment is manifestly ­ in today's jargon ­ a "top-down" structure paying lip-service to the "bottom-up" approach. Ted Dunn describes his notion of the kind of Europe that might fit the latter criterion. Chris Wright has added another perspective. He argues that the money economy is at the root of Europe's evil. "Once", he says, "we recognise that it's the money economy, not Europe, that is the villain of the piece, it becomes much easier to see in what direction the alternative [to the euro] might lie". What is certain is that creating Euroland without taking properly into account all the alternatives will almost certainly lead to disaster.

This journal has always stressed the view that a Europe of the Regions should be seriously considered, first on the grounds suggested by Leopold Kohr that an effective federation must be constructed out of parts of roughly equal size, and second, because one of the crying needs of Europe is for political focal points small enough so that electorates can vote for people they know and trust. The difference in attitudes, not merely between various member states of the European Union but also within those states, is enormous and must receive recognition. Belgium is a prime example, but even within Holland the same is true. Ian Buruma, writing about the liberal nation state in Prospect, tells a fascinating story ­ perhaps it might remind us of Churchill's famous remark: "If Britain ever had to choose between Europe and the High Seas, she would choose the High Seas":

I was reminded of Walhalla when I picked up a curious little book in a second-hand bookstore in Amsterdam, entitled The Face of The Netherlands. It was published in 1943, written by one SS Obersturmführer Ernst Leutheusser as a guide for SS officers stationed in Holland during the war. It is not an unsympathetic guide. On the contrary. Leutheusser stresses the fraternal relationship between two Nordic peoples. The historical nature of that relationship is explained by the SS Obersturmführer as follows. There are really two parts of The Netherlands, he writes. There is the authentic, eastern half of the country, largely agricultural, facing Germany, and populated by people of good Saxon stock, who feel that they are part of Europe because Europe, so to speak, is in their blood. Then there is the western seaboard with its cities, dominated by merchants who look towards Britain and the oceans beyond, for opportunities to enrich themselves through trade. This is the "deracinated" (entwurzelt) half of the country, whose traders and patricians have turned against their European roots. Regrettably, their "materialistic, bourgeois-capitalist mentality" (materialistische, burgerlich-kapitalistische Gesinnung) has infected the rest of The Netherlands, which alienated the nation from Europe. But we should rest assured, for under the benevolent tutelage of the Third Reich this would soon be put right.

Unlike the Third Reich, Europe needs to include and reconcile the benign elements of both traditions, and reject both the greed of the merchants and the evil extremes of nationalism.

In the Postbag, two pieces of special interest arrived: a letter on the pound in your pocket, and a piece from Canada entitled "Mouseland". It is important to balance the immediate practical advantages of the euro against the wider implications of its effects, especially the loss of the ability for member states or regions within them to adjust their exchange rates to escape recession and severe financial problems. "Mouseland" is an amusing story that perhaps brings us back to the importance of the bottom-up approach in creating political structures.