what extent economic instability in Eastern Europe threatens the cohesion of the EU?
The 27 EU member states met on 1 March in Brussels to outline an action plan to save the sinking of the countries that embraced free market capitalism after the fall of the wall Berlin in 1989.
The outlook is grim, with traces of disaster could deal the final blow to the continent's financial system, as major banks have hundreds of millions, in those "emerging" nations such as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Romania , Bulgaria and Hungary.
The global economic crisis severely beat these countries: vertical drop in exports, capital flight, so access to external financing, falling consumption, brutal devaluation. Many of its inhabitants are indebted to "hard currency", while watching their income evaporate before liquefaction of their local currencies.
Just was Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, who sought, unsuccessfully, 228,000 million as loans to save the economies of the newer members of the EU. Not incidentally, was the premier of Hungary, since that country has an external debt equivalent to 100% of its GDP. It is no accident that the veto of a massive turnout has departed from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germany is the most powerful member, and who else should provide this assistance. On the other hand, Germany is the most rigid advocate of economic orthodoxy, limits on public deficits and high interest rates.
Aged aspirations - and resentment - nurture divisions between the countries "old" and "new" in the Union. Eastern Europe largely embraced the cause of the United States during the '90s to the present, in a pendulum motion to move away from Russian rule. They were always seen by Germany and France as the "fifth column" in the mainland U.S.. On the other hand, the great capitals of Western Europe benefited from the massive privatizations and highly skilled workforce - and very cheap - which resulted in economic growth and bulging results in the balance sheets of large banks and Western European companies.
Today the United States "can hardly be with his soul." The budget vote which Obama claims to Congress calls for the largest deficit in history, and the economic factor is not a minor variable in the decision to withdraw troops from Iraq. The policy of detente with Russia after the proposal to reduce nuclear arsenals will interact in the same direction. U.S. protection and tutelage over eastern Europe is no longer what it was. Still, Russia already has enough to save its economy from the collapse of oil prices to think of any hegemonic adventure for those dollars.
Specifically, the former German aspirations of the region, dating from the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia - more than 200 years ... - are limited by economic factors. Also by the need to meet the demands of his home front, will not immune from the crisis.
But will the European Union survive the incipient revival of nationalism, with its share of xenophobia, which manifest themselves for years in virulent form by far-right parties that have a good number of voters in countries like Austria and France . And that is expressed in a more attenuated by right-wing populist leaders like Berlusconi and Sarkozy. Also ultra-nationalist reaction that can occur in countries that embraced the creed of libremercado and Europeanism as the solution to all ills, and to which the great powers now abandoned to their fate in the stormy sea of \u200b\u200bthe world capitalist crisis.
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