Retragerea Angliei in propriile insule, un fel de “splendida izolare “ in formula contemporana, pe care a sanctionat-o decizia premierului David Cameron la summit-ul UE  din 9 decembrie 2011 este un semn nelinistitor pentru viitorul Europei. Nu este vorba atat de mult despre schimbul de “amabilitati” peste Canalul Manecii intre doua mari puteri europene- Marea Britanie si Germania – desi acesta a devenit atat de acut incat chiar ministrul de Externe al guvernului de la Berlin s-a simtit obligat sa declare public ca trebuie facut ceva pentru repararea relatiilor bilaterale deteriorate dupa 9 decembrie a.c. Daca unele ziare britanice vad  ( ‘Daily Telegraph’ )  “o noua era de antagonism anglo-german” deschisa acum, altele  ( ‘Daily Mail’ ) nu se ascund in a numi recenta hotarare germano-franceza referitoare la integrarea economica consolidata , cum se numeste mai recent “uniunea fiscala “ avuta in vedere in jargonul sofisticat al tehnocratilor de la Bruxelles, “al patrulea Reich”, precedentul fiind cel condus de Hitler . ‘Daily Mail’  chiar  scrie:  "What we are witnessing is the economic colonisation of Europe by stealth by the Germans." Multe dintre articolele aparute in presa internationala au facut apel la istoria continentala pentru a defini recentele relatii intervenite intre Anglia si restul continentului european. Iata un citat lung , dar semnificativ pentru ca este o mini-sinteza a unor puncte de vedere , dintr-un asemenea articol, aparut in ‘The Statesman’  ( Richard J. Evans, The Myth of the Fourth Reich ) la 24 noiembrie 2011:” Eurosceptics in Britain are delighted. ‘What we are witnessing’ wrote Simon Heffer in the Daily Mail, ‘is the economic colonisation of Europe by stealth by the Germans. Once, it would have taken an invading military force to topple the leadership of a European nation. Today, it can be done through sheer economic pressure.’ This is, he says, the ‘rise of the Fourth Reich’, in which Germany is ‘using the financial crisis to conquer Europe’. Fiscal union, favoured by some as the long-term solution, ‘would make Europe effectively a German empire’ and lead to ‘a loss of sovereignty not seen . . . since many were under the jackboot of the Third Reich’.Heffer's alarmism is echoed by that of the Guardian's resident Eurosceptic Simon Jenkins, who says that it is’"a massive irony that old Europe's last gasp should be to seek . . . German supremacy’, which would bring us ‘back to the ghoulish first half of the 20th century’. It's a good thing, he muses, that modern ’Germany has no panzer divisions’. We haven't seen this kind of language since the 1990s, when German reunification led to a spate of Germanophobic commentary in politics and the media, inspired by Margaret Thatcher, who, with a group of historians she had convened at Chequers, reportedly discussed the ‘abiding part[s] of the German character: in alphabetical order, angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex, sentimentality’.The Economist warned that a united Germany might want its own nuclear deterrent. The political commentator Conor Cruise O'Brien described the reunited nation baldly as the ‘Fourth Reich’. The language of the Second World War entered political discourse, as the arch Eurosceptic and Tory MP Bill Cash published a book entitled Against a Federal Europe: the Battle for Britain, warning: "’The German attitude to Europe [is] . . . determined by a massive historical heritage. A federal Europe, he declared, would, in effect, be ‘a greater Germany, balancing uneasily between east and west, inheriting and perhaps magnifying the complexes and instabilities of post-Bismarckian Germany’.”

(  http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2011/11/germany-european-economic   )

          Dar , ceea ce vrem sa spunem in acest scurt expozeu al situatiei actuale din Europa- care ni se pare fara precedent dupa cel de al Doilea Razboi Mondial, pentru ca acum nu este vorba de linia de confruntare a Vestului cu Estul comunisto-sovietic, ci de o falie  in interiorul Occidentului- este legat de viitorul continentului. Daca exista o falie – este drept aflata la inceputul ei  in interiorul Occidentului, iar ziarele engleze au dreptate , anume ca Germania domina continentul- atunci incotro se indreapta Europa ? Cand spunem Europa , avem in vedere UE fara Anglia.

          Trei ni se par alternativele. Prima este aceea ca ea se va indrepta catre SUA, secunda ca azimutul este Rusia si Asia, iar terta ca va fi suficienta siesi, adica se va retrage in izolationism. Sa le luam pe rand.

          1. Azimut SUA. Practic procedam  de dragul metodologiei asumate la analiza acestei  variante, pentru ca “dezertarea” Angliei la 9 decembrie  sau excluderea ei , asa cum este vazuta de alti ochi continentali, o face improbabila  din start. Ca este asa ne invata nu doar istoria si dam doua exemple din aceasta perspectiva a trecutului, dar si evolutia actualei crize a eurozonei, cunoscuta sub numele de criza  “ datoriilor suverane”.   Cel dintai exemplu istoric dateaza din Primul Razboi Mondial, cand unei Germanii care domina continentul dupa defectiunea rusa- o data cu revolutia din februarie din  Rusia si practic pacea acesteia cu Reichul al II-lea  dupa instalarea bolsevicilor la putere la Petrograd ( noiembrie  1917 ) – nu i s-a mai putu rezista decat cu sprijinul SUA , deja curtata in acest sens de catre Anglia inca din 1915. De atunci in sistemul international de state antanta nescrisa,  dar constanta si solida intre cele doua state anglo-saxone a fost indestructibila. Secundul exemplu dateaza din conflagratia mondiala din 1939-1945, cand intre liderii celor doua state , britanicul W. Churchill si americanul F. D. Roosevelt,  a existat , inca din vara anului 1940, o corespondenta secreta  sustinuta si care a determinat , pana la intrarea in razboi a SUA impotriva Japoniei si Reichului hitlerist , chiar  conceperea de planuri si actiuni comune secrete  pentru a preveni caderea insulelor britanice in  fata superioritatii capabilitatilor militare germane. Desigur, nu trebuie supraestimata relevanta istorica a unor asemenea exemple intrucat , cum se stie, fiecare mare putere isi urmareste cu obstinatie propriile proiecte istorice ( ‘grand strategy’ ), ceea ce in cazul relevat poate sa determine si o oarecare confuzie. De pilda, SUA au devenit in perioada postbelica, in urmarirea propriei hegemonii globale, un adversar hotarat al marilor imperii coloniale, astfel ca in anii ’50 ai secolului trecut, pozitia fata de Marea Britanie a iesit din acest model istoric. In 1956, in timpul crizei Suezului, Washingtonul nu a ezitat sa ameninte Londra cu represalii financiare daca nu isi inceteaza actiunea in Sinai. Este momentul in care Anglia amorseaza strategia retragerii la Est de Suez , abandonand statura de mare putere globala.

          In ceea ce priveste actuala criza a zonei euro este cunoscuta urbi et orbi diferenta de intelegere a resorturilor acesteia si, mai ales, a modalitatilor de solutionare a ei, dintre unghiul anglo-saxon si cel continental european, special cel german ( referintele fiind facute la “tipii de la Frankfurt”, asadar acolo unde este cartierul genral al finantelor germane ). In aceasta privinta cred ca este suficient sa citez din notatiile repetate pe blogul propriu a laureatului Nobel pentru economie , Paul Krugman, editorialist la ‘New York Times’. In postarea sa din 1 noiembrie 2011, intitulata semnificativ “Eurodammerung” acesta scrie : “Things are falling apart in Europe; the center is not holding. Papandreou is going to hold a referendum; the vote will be no. /…/ And with everyone simultaneously pushing for fiscal austerity, a recession seems almost certain, aggravating all of the continent’s problems.I’ve been charting this trainwreck for a couple of years, and am feeling too weary to trace through it again right now. Let’s just say that the euro was an inherently flawed idea that can work only given a strong European economy and a significant degree of inflation, plus open-ended credit to sovereigns facing speculative attack. Yet European elites embraced the notion of economics as morality play, imposing across-the-board austerity, tightening money despite low underlying inflation, and have been too concerned with punishing sinners to notice that everything was going to blow apart without an effective lender of last resort.” ( http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/eurodammerung/)

          De fapt, cele doua scoli de gandire ( ceea ce nu inseamna ca nu sunt si in SUA adversari ai scolii anglo-saxone si,   invers, in Germania inamici ai orientarii oficiale ) se pozitionasera mult inainte. La 11 ianuarie 2011 , acelasi Krugman posta urmatoarele : “Jean-Claude Trichet/presedintele, atunci, al BCE/ is sounding hawkish about inflation again — and this is very bad news for the European periphery. Let me offer a stylized example to explain why.So, imagine a eurozone that contains only two countries, Germany and Spain. And let’s make two assumptions: first, Germany’s economy is three times the size of Spain’s, so that German inflation is 3/4 of the overall index, Spain’s inflation 1/4; second, past events have left Spanish wages and prices 20 percent logarithmic too high relative to Germany. (Why logarithmic? So I can just add percentage changes, without having to worry about compounding.)Now suppose that you want to get relative prices and wages back in line over the course of 5 years. How can this happen? Well, one way or another we need to have German inflation 4 points higher than Spanish inflation over that period.So consider two scenarios: in scenario A, we have 2 percent German inflation and 2 percent Spanish deflation. This implies an overall eurozone inflation rate of 1 percent. In scenario B, we have 4 percent German inflation and zero Spanish inflation, implying eurozone inflation of 3 percent.In a frictionless world, it wouldn’t matter which scenario gets chosen. But in reality, scenario A, the low-inflation scenario, is vastly worse for Spain — for two reasons. First, it’s much, much harder to get actual deflation than simply to have stable prices, so scenario A means much higher unemployment. Second, because Spanish debt is in euros, scenario A implies a significantly worse debt burden.So what we’re seeing is an ECB catering to German desires for low inflation, very much at the expense of making the problems of peripheral economies much less tractable.This is going to be ugly.”

 (  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/european-inflation-targets/  ).

          Stiri foarte recente au darul sa releva ca , in cele din urma, Europa s-a pliat scolii de gandire anglo-saxone pentru a depasi criza datoriilor suverane. Un articol publicat la 21 decembrie de un expert american in “New York Times” arata ca noul presedinte al BCE, italianul M. Draghi, a luat masuri in sensul reclamat de scoala anglo-saxona, dar cu subtilitate , astfel incat sa respecte exigentele soclii germane de la Frankfurt. Expertul american evidentiaza inca de la inceput maniera de a proceda a lui M. Draghi:”  In recent weeks, the new president publicly insisted the central bank would never do any of the things that Germany opposed. The bank would not drastically step up its purchases of Spanish and Italian government bonds. It would not directly finance European governments. It would not backstop European rescue funds or print money that the International Monetary Fund could use to bail out governments. It would do only what central banks normally do. It would lend to banks .” (    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/a-central-bank-doing-what-central-banks-do.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all  )

          Expertul american Floyd Norris considera ca subtitlitatea lui M. Draghi a fost de a se conforma exigentelor germane, anume de nu fi imprumutate statele ca atare de catre BCE, alegand sa imprumute bancile nationale cu sume uriase la o dobanda de doar 1 la suta, de unde guvernele  in dificultate sa imprumute la randul lor. Dupa reuniunea Consiliului European din 9 decembrie, Draghi a anuntat ca BCE imprumuta bancile cu circa 500 de miliarde de euro, ceea ce numeroase banci au facut imediat. Subtilitatea a “mers” perfect, titlurile italiene si cele spaniole cu maturitatea la 3 ani inregistrand scaderi semnificative. Norris scrie :” It now seems obvious that this was what Mr. Draghi had in mind. Spain and Italy will be able to borrow money from the market at rates they can live with, but this move is unlikely to have much effect on long-term rates. If those stay high, the pressure for austerity, as Germany demands, will remain. There is no assurance that the banks will use all, or even most, of the money they borrowed, to buy government securities. It would be nice if some of it were lent to the private sector to spur growth and investment. But the logic of putting it in two- or three-year government notes is obvious. “ ( Ibidem ) Desi exista riscuri ale acestui procedeu subtil –afirma Norris- este clar ca ”In the short run, Mr. Draghi has avoided disaster. In the longer run, it is hard to see a course that enables the peripheral countries to regain prosperity and competitiveness while keeping the single curreny”

          Intrebat ce crede despre analiza  lui Norris , Paul Krugman a raspuns:” The bottom line seems to be that Mario Draghi is a consummate eurocrat. I’ve always kind of enjoyed talking to eurocrats, who always seem to be implying something they aren’t saying; in this case he may have managed to say one thing while doing something else, and the thing he actually did was just what people like me have been urging. That said, there’s still the adjustment problem. Floyd correctly says that this still looks very hard; but I see that he’s still buying the official line that Ireland is well along in the process, where the reality is that much of the apparent progress may be a statistical illusion.Oh, and market expectations of euro area inflation, as measured by the German breakeven, are still way too low to make successful adjustment plausible . So they’re subtle, these Europeans are, but subtlety may not be enough“ (  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/the-subtle-ecb/Bottom of Form  ) . Cu alte cuvinte, asumarea unei astfel de subitlitati pentru a depasi “scoala de gandire “ germana si a accede la exigentele celei anglo-saxone nu pare a avea succes pe termen lung pentru ca inflatia- care  este temerea principala a gandirii celor de la Frankfurt- nu da semne de vitalizare, ceea ce pune sub semnul intrebarii aparitia trioului keynesian : inflatie, crestere economica, locuri de munca. “Subtilitatea nu-i suficienta”, scrie Krugman gandind probabil la exigentele germane pentru masuri draconice de austeritate. Adica a pune sub semnul intrebarii consumul, deci cresterea economica.