Madrid Airport Terminal 4, in this recent visitor's opinion, is the simplest way to understand the failure of the grand EU project.
I formed this view at 7am a few days ago, having drunk two overpriced beers in an overcrowded, overlit cafe in said T4. That makes me sound like an alcoholic, which I am not. Technically I was on Mexico time, midnight according to my body's booze clock, and a brace of beers by the witching hour is virtually temperance. Also there were several Russians drinking neat spirits, whilst I stuck to €5 cans of lager. And I had just emerged from a twelve hour long haul flight with Iberia.
The Spanish flag carrier Iberia, in case you have never had the pleasure, is one of the reasons people are afraid of flying. For the first ten minutes of its inflight movie, displayed on a handful of ancient, tiny cathode ray tubes borrowed from the Science Museum, I thought I was watching a 4th Matrix movie, until I realised the TV was turning everything green. Apparently it was a film about a writer, featuring that bloke out of The Hangover. But even though the in-seat sound channels only stretched to four distorted, tinny feeds, I couldn't locate the English soundtrack. My Spanish skills did not stretch to following the plot - especially when everything was turquoise. The second offering was worse: a Spanish language cartoon about a treasure hunter that made Transformers 3 seem like Citizen Kane.
Anyhoo, it was in this sleep-deprived, poorly nourished, under-refreshed state, that I found myself in Madrid T4 (after a great holiday in Mexico, so no need for sympathy). But I worried that if wrote a blog there and then, it might appear to be the ravings of a man drinking beer in the morning, rather than a considered appraisal of the weaknesses of the European Union. With the benefit of sober reflection, I believe my first impression, as first impressions nearly always are, to be entirely accurate.
Picture the scene, if you haven't been there and don't want to use Google Images. Madrid T4 is a vast building, so huge that you think your mind is playing tricks on you, as row upon row of identical chairs stretch away in the distance - like an artist's impression, a CGI virtual tour, only real. Imagine then: hundreds of transit passengers, desperate for food, a coffee, a tea or perhaps a neck massage (such things are available in Singapore airport 24/7 FYI). In this gargantuan Soviet-scale expanse of nothingness, there was but one restaurant outlet open, staffed by three men in their sixties. The queue for bad food and expensive drinks tailed off into the endless expanse of chairs. Plates and trays piled up, uncollected on tables.
As each successive wave of zombified transit passengers converged on this lone oasis, it resembled a well-heeled refugee camp rather than a high-tech airport lounge.
Take a moment to absorb the absolute and total disgrace of this scene. Then remember that Spain has a youth unemployment rate of 60%. This pointlessly over-engineered, over-sized, under-used building must have cost their taxpayers billions of Euros. I say cost the taxpayers; what that means in reality is the Spanish government will have borrowed the money with little if any chance of paying it all back. At some point, the good citizens of Germany will be footing the bill for this monstrosity.
Billions spent on this terminal, 60% youth unemployment, and the only people collecting salaries there were a trio of portly pensioners, whilst hundreds of people waited for service.
Work that needs doing. Young people without jobs. Massive empty building.
That's why Madrid T4 is the perfect summary of the failure of the European Project.
Showing posts with label Euro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Euro. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Thursday, 25 October 2012
European Separation
In the digital age, a Dear John letter is most likely an email or a text, ending a failing relationship. With Britain and Europe drifting apart economically and politically, we should do the decent thing and send that message. It might read as follows:
Dear Europe,
I think it's best you and go our separate ways, as this is just not working any more.
When we first got together in the 1970s, there was a real spark. You were sophisticated and exotic, you took naps in the afternoon, ate dinner late made from strange products like squid or sausages with actual meat in them. All I had was strikes, Heinz hoops and fried Spam served at 5 p.m. Without your influence, I would never have discovered the joys of sex with the lights on or driving cars that could make it out of the factory gate without breaking down.
In recent years, though, we have grown apart. You have become very controlling, trying to dictate whether I am allowed to deport terrorists for fear of breaching their human rights, banning the WI from selling home-made jam as a breach of health and safety laws or even mandating what tax rates my government may charge. I did not sign up to this Fifty Shades-inspired slave contract, to have every aspect of my national life be dictated by your mother-in-law, Germany.
All of this might not matter so much if I felt you respected or valued me. Every year 100,00s of your inhabitants head to my shores to seek opportunities they are unable to find at home, yet you treat me like some kind of pirate lurking on your coastline ready to undo your good works.
What a pity you do not want to learn from my political and cultural heritage. At the risk of picking at old wounds, the recent histories of your member states include (to name but a few) one genocidal dictatorship, five fascist states, two military juntas, three Nazi collaborators and two nations who stayed neutral in the greatest conflict in human history.
My background, in contrast, is a stable government under the rule of the law, where the rights of the individual were advanced and the role of free enterprise cherished. Of course we have made mistakes and are far from perfect. At least we take responsibility for our affairs rather than imagining an unelected bureaucracy might be the solution to our chronic corruption, cultural torpor and serial incompetence. You may learn a thing or two about civil society from me if you once listened.
I did warn you about the Euro and you branded me xenophobic. It is possible to value and respect European cultures and nation states without signing up to a masochistic, wealth-destroying currency union that benefits no one save the Bundesbank.
A divorce would be best for us both, custody of the children (Scotland and Wales) is perhaps best left to them to decide. Alex Salmond you are welcome to keep.
Love
Great Britain
Dear Europe,
I think it's best you and go our separate ways, as this is just not working any more.
When we first got together in the 1970s, there was a real spark. You were sophisticated and exotic, you took naps in the afternoon, ate dinner late made from strange products like squid or sausages with actual meat in them. All I had was strikes, Heinz hoops and fried Spam served at 5 p.m. Without your influence, I would never have discovered the joys of sex with the lights on or driving cars that could make it out of the factory gate without breaking down.
In recent years, though, we have grown apart. You have become very controlling, trying to dictate whether I am allowed to deport terrorists for fear of breaching their human rights, banning the WI from selling home-made jam as a breach of health and safety laws or even mandating what tax rates my government may charge. I did not sign up to this Fifty Shades-inspired slave contract, to have every aspect of my national life be dictated by your mother-in-law, Germany.
All of this might not matter so much if I felt you respected or valued me. Every year 100,00s of your inhabitants head to my shores to seek opportunities they are unable to find at home, yet you treat me like some kind of pirate lurking on your coastline ready to undo your good works.
What a pity you do not want to learn from my political and cultural heritage. At the risk of picking at old wounds, the recent histories of your member states include (to name but a few) one genocidal dictatorship, five fascist states, two military juntas, three Nazi collaborators and two nations who stayed neutral in the greatest conflict in human history.
My background, in contrast, is a stable government under the rule of the law, where the rights of the individual were advanced and the role of free enterprise cherished. Of course we have made mistakes and are far from perfect. At least we take responsibility for our affairs rather than imagining an unelected bureaucracy might be the solution to our chronic corruption, cultural torpor and serial incompetence. You may learn a thing or two about civil society from me if you once listened.
I did warn you about the Euro and you branded me xenophobic. It is possible to value and respect European cultures and nation states without signing up to a masochistic, wealth-destroying currency union that benefits no one save the Bundesbank.
A divorce would be best for us both, custody of the children (Scotland and Wales) is perhaps best left to them to decide. Alex Salmond you are welcome to keep.
Love
Great Britain
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Euro Trash
The past few weeks have not been happy ones for that rare creature in the UK, the Europhile, a breed that will soon be put on the endangered species list alongside the corncrake and the greater horseshoe bat. If not endangered, anyone expressing pro-European sentiments in most pubs in England will definitely be a threatened species; indeed the Europhile may need police protection like that other type of 'phile' who is not allowed near schools. In Scotland, Wales and any part of Britain where more people work for the state than private business, together with selected enclaves of London where the doors are all the same shadow of Farrow and Ball (mouse back) and everyone reads The New Statesman, there are a few pro-Europeans left; but otherwise support for the European Union has collapsed to an all time low. How is it is that the Euro dream has turned to trash?
Born of the very reasonable desire to stop Germany trampling over national sovereignty and insisting that everywhere be run like the Reich, the European Project seems to have come full circle to a point where Germany ignores national parliaments and keeps telling everyone what to do, in this instance imposing self-defeating austerity measures. The Euro, the currency union without a state, has proved to be a catastrophic mistake on a par with the Captain of the Titanic's decision to steer his ship right next to the iceberg to restock his ice-bucket: it's just not worth the grief. Instead of promoting prosperity , shackling the turbo-charged Teutons to the work-allergic Greeks has created an infernal wealth destruction machine about as sensible as burning €100 notes for fuel. Mind you, if the crisis continues much longer, any Euro notes issued in Athens will be being going up in flames.
Back when the Euro was created, some of us, including yours truly, knew it was a stupid idea to pretend that the Portugese or Greek economy should have the same currency and interest rates as Germany. I arrived at this brilliant insight by not being a massively overpaid bond trader and taking a package deal to Crete. My conclusion was that Greece was a lovely place to take a holiday, but given that its citizens struggled to run a pedalo business on a crowded beach in high season and the country had a political class which made FIFA officials seem models of probity, it was not the wisest call to lend them billions. Or if you did, make sure you charged a sufficient premium for the risk or NBAARGCF rate (not being an anally retentive German control freak). Naturally, those clever bankers and bond traders decided to buy Greek debt at only a small fraction above German bonds. Yes, the more stories you hear like that, the more you feel a Lenin-style banking reform is in order: shoot a few 'pour encourager les autres'.
Unfortunately executing bankers, no matter how much fun it might be (especially if broadcast live as Who Wants to Shoot a Millionaire?) is illegal and against the European Convention on Human Rights. Those bloody Europeans again! There is, however, much more to the Euro crisis than just money. It is really about who we want in charge and no one, not even the pro-Europeans, voted for the current situation where the European Central Bank is committing vast sums of money on behalf of member states whilst being accountable to no one.
The Greek government has taken huge loans at absurdly low rates, with no prospect of paying back the money, yet its people cannot chose the rational course of default and exiting the Euro. The Germans, were it not for war guilt, would have called time on this madness long ago; they too did not vote to work and save so that the Greek elite pay no tax and its civil servants retire at 55. Regardless if they get all the sun loungers in the Med, another €8 billon bailout is a bridge too far.
UBS has just published a report claiming the break up of the Euro would cost both Germany and Greece 40% of their GDP in the first year and 15% each subsequent year. This is the same bank whose trader just lost them €2billion in unauthorised deals, was fined $780 millon for helping US citizens avoid tax and lost the most of any Euro bank in the subprime debacle, a cool £14.4 billion to be precise. Maybe we can do without this kind of expert advice? The truth is that many countries including Iceland, Argentina, Mexico and Russia have bounced back after default and devaluation. It's the dirty secret that must not get out, sometimes not paying back what you owe works out fine.
Bizarrely even anti-Europeans are now suggesting the only way to save the Euro is full political union, which is an extreme version of the sunk money fallacy. A good example of this faulty logic is paying for expensive theatre tickets and sitting to the end of the show even though you hate it, because...well you want to get your money's worth. This seems to me explain why many of the audience remain to the bitter end of Lloyd-Webber's musical atrocities (and if even they wanted to leave, the coach won't be setting off to Birmingham until 10.30 p.m. anyway).
The truth is the money lent to Greece is gone, as is a percentage of the money lent to Ireland, Spain and Portugal, so why not accept it and move on? With capital controls and tight regulation of the financial markets, breaking up the Euro may end up saving us a fortune. And forgetting the numbers for a moment, none of us voted for Angela Merkel, not even a majority of the German electorate. We're Brits, let's stick to our own home grown bunch of useless politicians.
 |
| The Europhile - a rare species |
Back when the Euro was created, some of us, including yours truly, knew it was a stupid idea to pretend that the Portugese or Greek economy should have the same currency and interest rates as Germany. I arrived at this brilliant insight by not being a massively overpaid bond trader and taking a package deal to Crete. My conclusion was that Greece was a lovely place to take a holiday, but given that its citizens struggled to run a pedalo business on a crowded beach in high season and the country had a political class which made FIFA officials seem models of probity, it was not the wisest call to lend them billions. Or if you did, make sure you charged a sufficient premium for the risk or NBAARGCF rate (not being an anally retentive German control freak). Naturally, those clever bankers and bond traders decided to buy Greek debt at only a small fraction above German bonds. Yes, the more stories you hear like that, the more you feel a Lenin-style banking reform is in order: shoot a few 'pour encourager les autres'.
Unfortunately executing bankers, no matter how much fun it might be (especially if broadcast live as Who Wants to Shoot a Millionaire?) is illegal and against the European Convention on Human Rights. Those bloody Europeans again! There is, however, much more to the Euro crisis than just money. It is really about who we want in charge and no one, not even the pro-Europeans, voted for the current situation where the European Central Bank is committing vast sums of money on behalf of member states whilst being accountable to no one.
 |
| The Hellenic Handshake |
UBS has just published a report claiming the break up of the Euro would cost both Germany and Greece 40% of their GDP in the first year and 15% each subsequent year. This is the same bank whose trader just lost them €2billion in unauthorised deals, was fined $780 millon for helping US citizens avoid tax and lost the most of any Euro bank in the subprime debacle, a cool £14.4 billion to be precise. Maybe we can do without this kind of expert advice? The truth is that many countries including Iceland, Argentina, Mexico and Russia have bounced back after default and devaluation. It's the dirty secret that must not get out, sometimes not paying back what you owe works out fine.
Bizarrely even anti-Europeans are now suggesting the only way to save the Euro is full political union, which is an extreme version of the sunk money fallacy. A good example of this faulty logic is paying for expensive theatre tickets and sitting to the end of the show even though you hate it, because...well you want to get your money's worth. This seems to me explain why many of the audience remain to the bitter end of Lloyd-Webber's musical atrocities (and if even they wanted to leave, the coach won't be setting off to Birmingham until 10.30 p.m. anyway).
The truth is the money lent to Greece is gone, as is a percentage of the money lent to Ireland, Spain and Portugal, so why not accept it and move on? With capital controls and tight regulation of the financial markets, breaking up the Euro may end up saving us a fortune. And forgetting the numbers for a moment, none of us voted for Angela Merkel, not even a majority of the German electorate. We're Brits, let's stick to our own home grown bunch of useless politicians.
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