UPDATE: It appears the ‘deal’ to default/restructure the banks has been designed to bypass the need for parliamentary votes, since it is theoretically not a tax.
While we have little color on what kind of carnage the President of Cyprus had to accept to his fellow countrymen, the news is that :
*CYPRUS, TROIKA REACH AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE, EU OFFICIAL SAYS
*DEAL MADE AT DINNER WITH DRAGHI, LAGARDE, VAN ROMPUY, BARROSO
The terms, unsurprisingly what zee Germans wanted, are:
i) Laiki to be wound down;
ii) Bank of Cyprus to survive but with deposit haircuts, and
iii) deal would see secured deposits in Laiki moved to Bank of Cyprus.
In other words, a deal far worse then the original on proposed by the Eurogroup last week – when the banks still existed. The key appears to be the ‘saving’ of the insured depositors (crucial to avoid a pan-European bank run) and the crushing of the ‘whale’ depositors.
Forget black swans, Nigel Farage is rapidly turning himself into the black sheep of the EU Parliament with his constant stream of truthiness and honest pragmatism. It seems the broadly nodding-donkeys that fill the chamber remain cognitively dissonant to any and everything in the real world – hanging instead on the next soundbite from Van Rompuy or Barroso on how well things are going, or how the crisis is ‘almost’ over. If only the Germans would bless them all with their money. In one his plainest-speaking rants, Farage provides clarity to his ‘peers’ on just exactly what the bailouts of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and soon to be Spain and Italy are actually about – the “total subjugation of the states to a completely undemocratic structure in Brussels.” Is it any wonder Samaras and crew – while happy to accept cash and make promises – are pulling away from yet another (this time is the last time) Troika-driven austerity push? “The euro-zone is in a very dark place; economically, socially, and politically.”
Some mind-blowing quotes in here as Farage refers to the leaders of Italy and Spain and their remarkable nonsense…
Listen to the entire 3:30 – it is frightening just what is occurring on the ground across the pond from a US nation with eyes only for the election for now…
Back in 2010, everyone’s favorite truthsayer in Europe – MEP Nigel Farage – opined on who exactly was Herman Van Rompuy – the new EU President. Claiming HvR’s charisma approached that of a damp rag, we noted at the time that this was indeed slanderous to all the hard-working damp-rags out there. Well, given the EU’s need for cash – by any route possible – it seems they have chosen to start building a mountain of fines. As AP reports, the EU parliament fined Nigel EUR2980 for his self-expression.Here is the dreadful moment of truth…
BRUSSELS (AP) — How much does it cost to tell the one of the EU’s top officials he has “the charisma of a damp rag?” About €3,000, or close to $4,000, as a European member of Parliament has discovered.
In 2010, Nigel Farage, an anti-European Union member of the EU Parliament, rose following a speech by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. As Van Rompuy listened, Farage, a Briton, added that the former Belgian prime minister came from “pretty much a non-country.”
The Parliament docked Farage €2,980 — 10 days’ expenses. Farage appealed to the European Court of Justice. It ruled this month that he filed his appeal too late and would also have to pay Parliament’s legal expenses.
The decision was posted on the court’s website on Monday. Continue reading »
Juxtaposing the market’s recent movements, Nigel Farage’s ‘when-not-if’ perspective on the end of the Euro, Weidmann’s concerns, and now ECB’s Noyer stunning self-delusion that, as Bloomberg notes:
*NOYER SAYS STEPS TO EXIT EURO CRISIS BEGINNING TO BEAR FRUIT *NOYER: BANK FUNDING, MONEY MARKET CONDITIONS ARE MUCH BETTER *NOYER: RECENT EXCEPTIONAL STEPS LET BANKS, GOV’TS STRENGTHEN *WEIDMANN: RENEGOTIATION OF AUSTERITY A ‘BLOW TO CREDIBILITY’
is more than some can bear. As Mr.Farage notes, in the face of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Europe, Barroso and his colleague’s ever-smiling perspective on the Euro, “look ridiculous”. With Spanish yields over 6%, banks trading at near record high levels of funding costs, Italian risk elevating, political event risk becoming critical, and now macro data turning even worse perhaps Noyer’s comments that “delaying fiscal consolidation may lead to greater risks” are spot on – and yet nation after nation rises-up votes to ‘deny’ austerity.
Confidential paper from council president Herman Van Rompuy proposes empowering the commission to impose austerity
The European commission could be empowered to impose austerity measures on eurozone countries that are being bailed out, usurping the functions of government in countries such as Greece, Ireland, or Portugal.
Bailed-out countries could also be stripped of their voting rights in the European Union, under radical proposals that have been circulating at the highest level in Brussels before this week’s crucial EU summit on the sovereign debt crisis.
A confidential paper for EU leaders by the EU council president, Herman Van Rompuy, who will chair the summit on Thursday and Friday, said eurobonds or the pooling of eurozone debt would be a powerful tool in resolving the crisis, despite fierce German resistance to the idea.
European Union leaders on Sunday agreed to change the bloc’s treaty if necessary in the interests of economic convergence and discipline, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said.
“We decided to explore the possibility of limited treaty change,” Van Rompuy said. “The aim is deepening our economic convergence and strengthening economic discipline.”
Speaking after EU leaders held crunch talks to nail down a solution to the worst economic crisis in its history, Van Rompuy said there was general agreement to ramp up discipline to save the euro, even if difficult treaty change was needed.
“Limited means not a general overhaul of the institutional architecture,” he said. “We also said that we would need the agreement of all the 27 (member states) before we can decide on a treaty change.
“The most important thing is not to change the treaty, the most important thing is to strengthen economic convergence,” he said.
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” - David Rockefeller
European Union chiefs are drawing up plans for a single “Treasury” to oversee tax and spending across the 17 eurozone nations.
The proposal, put forward by Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, would be the clearest sign yet of a new “United States of Europe” — with Britain left on the sidelines.
The plan comes as European governments desperately trying to save the euro from collapse last night faced a new bombshell, with sources at the International Monetary Fund saying it would not pay for a second Greek bail-out.
If anyone still refuses to believe that European Union elites suffer from delusions of grandeur, look no further than Herman Van Rompuy’s statement ahead of his speech yesterday to the UN General Assembly. In a video message, officially transcribed by his office and published here, the president of the European Council proclaims that the European Union is “the fatherland, or the motherland of democracy”, while – ludicrously – taking some of the credit for the downfall of Colonel Gaddafi:
Because last year, something important happened in a part of the world very close to us, in Northern Africa and the Arab world. Peoples of the Arab world are looking for democracy, for freedom, for justice. In some countries they achieved it, in other countries they are involved in reform processes. So this is really something astonishing. The world is more and more moving in the direction of democracy. And we are the fatherland, or the motherland of democracy. So the EU is very glad with that kind of evolution. And where we can, we help, as we did in Libya. We did it via our Member States, via the EU as the EU, even militarily. We helped to bring Kadhafi down, and give full support to the democratic forces in Libya.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous statements by an EU official in living memory, and the competition for that is intense. And I don’t think Van Rompuy is referring here to the mother of Parliaments in Great Britain, or the birth of democracy in Greece. He no doubt genuinely believes that the European Union itself is the foundation slab of modern democracy, despite the fact that there is nothing at all democratic about the European project. His comments are a reflection of the arrogance of unelected EU bureaucrats in Brussels, who believe they have some kind of divine right to speak on behalf of hundreds of millions of people and the sovereign governments of 27 nations.
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