A Waste of Time

From today's Open Europe news summary:

Bundesbank proposes new European fiscal authority to replace European Commission

Germany’s Bundesbank proposed in its monthly report yesterday to create “a new European fiscal authority which, in the style of independent national fiscal councils, is bound by a clear mandate to only assess budget developments with a view to complying with fiscal rules.” This new fiscal authority would replace the role of the European Commission as it would run less risk to “agree to inappropriate compromises at the expense of budget discipline.”

Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Germans desperately want to believe that somehow they can instill fiscal discipline into the sovereign nations of Europe through something other than normal commercial relationships. They cannot. Every nation Europe has figured out that it can spend more than it makes and cover up its disastrous socialist policies with fiat money from the ECB. As long as the money flows from the ECB, these socialist governments will never have a mandate to reform. The Bundesbank is fooling itself and the German people. Its proposal to form a new entity that is "bound by a clear mandate to only assess budget developments with a view to complying with fiscal rules" is a waste of time. No nation, with the exception of Germany, is complying with the existing fiscal rules, because there is no need to do so and no one can force any nation to do so. A new oversight agency does not change this fact.

At a minimum Germany must leave the European Monetary Union (the eurozone) and reinstate the Deutsche Mark. It may as well recognize that the European integration idea is doomed. There can be no integration of sovereign countries, only free trade of goods, services, and capital. Since free trade requires no supranational organization, Germany should leave the European Union, too. Naturally, other nations will howl that Germany is "abandoning Europe", when in reality it is saving Europe by forcing all nations to adopt sustainable economic policies or go bankrupt.