The cluster bomb

The EU decision on Cyprus has had the same effect as a cluster bomb. It has hurt the little credit and confidence that the European citizens still placed on the Union’s leaders. It has hurt Germany’s relations with the South of Europe a lot more. It has hurt further the trust on the banking system. It destroyed value in the all the stock markets. It undermined potential capital investments in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy. And it has shown, now that there seems to be some backtracking, that the EU takes critical decisions without looking at all the dimensions and implications of the matters under review. And so on.

A very effective cluster idiocy indeed.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s name will remain associated to this inept decision. Besides being the Finance Minister of the Netherlands, he is the President of the Eurogroup, the platform that brings together the EU Finance Ministers. Dijsselbloem took over from Jean-Claude Juncker in January 2013. Juncker, notwithstanding the fact that he comes from a very small country –Luxembourg – managed to demonstrate a strong sense of independence and objectivity. He was his own man and also a firm believer in the common project. The new fellow seems to be biased towards Northern European positions, very close to Angela Merkel’s views and be inspired by a moralistic approach to the issue of public deficits. He believes that the citizens in the crisis countries should be punished for the many years of incautious spending. This is exactly the kind of approach that can make the on-going EU cohesion crisis much worse.