The European Central Bank’s true priorities

We have seen that since the beginning of the 2007-2008 crisis, the ECB has played a vital role in saving the big private banks, their owners and directors, while at the same time guaranteeing the continuity of their privileges. We can clearly see that without the ECB, the big banks would have sunk and that would have forced the authorities to take very severe action against them. Beyond bank bail-outs, the ECB is charged with maintaining an inflation rate of around 2%. From this point of view the ECB has failed because the Eurozone has a rate of less than 1% and borders on deflation. |1
The ECB has three more objectives, which can be summarized as follows:

• To defend the euro, which is a straitjacket for the weaker European economies and for all the European peoples. The euro is an instrument that serves the big private companies and the European elites (the richest 1%). If Eurozone countries could devalue they would improve their competitiveness against the Austrian, Benelux, French and German economic giants. |2 Countries like Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain are restricted by their adhesion to the Eurozone. So the European authorities and governments implement ‘internal devaluation‘, which means pay-cuts for the workers.

• To consolidate the domination of Europe’s strongest economies where the big European corporations have their bases, thus maintaining important differences between the strong European economies and the others

• To actively support the aggressions of Capital against Labour in order to increase business profitability and to make the big European companies more competitive on the global market. We are going to review how these three objectives have influenced the evolution of the situation in Europe since 2011. |3|

How the ECB affects the richest 1% and the big private companies

To appreciate the work of the ECB, imagine being one of the richest 1%. The official line insists that in 2011 the ECB successfully managed the transition from the former presidency of the Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet to the new presidency under the Italian Mario Draghi, |4 former governor of the Bank of Italy and former vice-president of Goldman Sachs Europe. The ECB and the leaders of major European countries negotiated a reduction of about 50% of Greek debts with private banks. |5 At the same time, the Troika (IMF, ECB and European Commission) got the Greek government to implement a radical new austerity plan including mass privatization and the surrender of a large part of its sovereignty. By March 2012, Troika representatives were permanently established in Greek ministries in order to closely monitor Greek finances. New loans to Greece now transit through an account which the European authorities can block if necessary. Equally advantageous for the creditors, the new Greek debt securities no longer come under the legal jurisdiction of the Greek courts but are framed within English law; disputes between the Greek government and private creditors will be referred to Luxembourg courts. |6|

George Papandreou’s government, led by the Greek socialist party, PASOK, but enacting neoliberal dogma, had become increasingly unpopular.

Finally, under pressure from the ECB and the European leaders, it was replaced, without any democratic election, by a new government of national unity formed of a PASOK-New Democracy coalition, with key portfolios in the hands of ministers coming directly from the banks.

Just before the G20 meeting in Cannes at the end of October 2011, George Papandreou had announced a referendum on the latest plan to be imposed by the Troika; it never happened. It was clear that if the Greek people were consulted they would reject austerity. So the Troika, supported by the G20, forced Papandreou to abandon this basic democratic initiative.

To complete the picture we can add three other items of good news for the ECB and its directors. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was forced to resign in late 2011 and was replaced, without elections, by Mario Monti, a former European Commissioner, very close to the banking community, who formed a government of technocrats to impose severe neoliberal policies. |7 In Spain, the head of government, Mariano Rajoy, President of the People’s Party, has radicalized the neoliberal policies initiated by his predecessor, the Socialist José Luis Zapatero. Lastly, European leaders |8 came to an agreement in March 2012 on a Treaty on Financial Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) that further supported fiscal austerity, sanctioned Member States, scraped away more of their national sovereignty and injected an extra dose of submission to the logic of private capital. |9 Finally, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) has come into effect to better help states and banks through the next banking crises, and to help Member States struggling to find finance.

In March-April 2012 Mario Draghi, most European leaders and bank officials had much to celebrate. The richest 1% were not feeling the pinch of any crisis.

However from May 2012 dark clouds appeared on the horizon, when Bankia, the fourth-largest Spanish bank, headed by former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato, went virtually bankrupt. Reports say that Spanish banks are in need of between €40 billion and €100 billion of recapitalization , and Mariano Rajoy, who is in trouble, does not want to ask for help from the Troika. Added to these difficulties a series of international banking scandals broke out, of which the two most important were the manipulation of the LIBOR (the London interbank rate), involving a dozen major banks |10 and HSBC’s laundering of drug money. |11|

At the same time, in France a majority of voters no longer wanted President Nicolas Sarkozy. François Hollande was elected on 6 May 2012. International finance looked on, knowing it could count on the leaders of the French Socialist Party, like other European socialist parties, to pursue austerity.

The situation in Greece is more annoying for the ECB as SYRIZA, the radical left coalition that promises to repeal austerity measures, suspend the repayment of debt and challenge European authorities, could win an upcoming election. For proponents of European austerity policies, this must be prevented at all costs. On the evening of 17 June 2012, to the relief of the ECB, European governments and boards of large companies, the right-wing New Democracy party was ahead of SYRIZA by 2%.

Even the new French Socialist president welcomed the outcome of the vote. Europe could continue on the road of austerity and the stabilization of the Eurozone.

In July-August 2012 the Eurozone was once again under extreme pressure and, to comfort the markets, Mario Draghi declared in September that he would do everything to save the euro. The ECB started buying massive amounts of government bonds, mainly Italian and Spanish. The main subject of discussion of the European Commission, the governments and the mainstream media was the sovereign debt crisis, diverting attention away from the private banks and the Euro who are really the cause, once again, of the crisis.

The situation began to ease after the ECB purchased Italian and Spanish bonds from the banks and made massive liquidities available to them. Interest -rates charged by these banks to lend to weaker countries gradually began to decline, particularly in Spain and Italy. But it is clear that the banks are not out of the rut: Belgian and French public finances must save Dexia for a third time. In December 2012, Italy came to the aid of the Western world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi (the fourth-largest bank in the country). Spain had to recapitalize several banks. In February 2013 the Netherlands had to inject €3.7 billion into SNS, a mortgage bank, and in March 2013, the two main Cypriot banks were on the verge of failure.

In February 2013, the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, suffered a crushing electoral defeat. The ballot-box protest carried a new political movement centered around the comedian Beppe Grillo.

The vast million-strong anti-austerity protests that had taken place in Portugal in September 2012 |12 were revived in March 2013 with over a million demonstrators. |13 The people expressed their rejection of austerity policies and at the same time, signs of crisis were evident among the elites. On three occasions in 2013, the Portuguese Constitutional Court invalidated the austerity measures taken by the government; in July, the finance minister resigned, causing significant turbulence.

In September 2013, Angela Merkel was elected for another term in Germany, but her even more neoliberal political partner, the FDP, was rejected by the voters. They lost all parliamentary representation. Arithmetically, a centre-left government could have been established by a coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Radical Left (Die Linke), but the SPD preferred an alliance with Angela Merkel, German employers, the European Commission and the ECB were relieved.

Again in 2013, the Netherlands, which had long given an impression of stability and economic success, went into profound crisis when its real-estate bubble finally burst and caused an economic recession. In a country where the pension scheme is largely privatized, several pension funds reduced the amount of pensions.

This year, 2014, the ECB has not had all the best of it: The European elections in May reflected the rejection of ECB policies by a large portion of the population. Not only was the turnout very low, but also political parties that are very critical of the governments’ and European Commission’s current policies or eurosceptic parties made strong advances. What’s more, Europe is struggling to create real growth: the overall situation shows that EU GDP is slightly lower than 2007-2008 levels! |14 In June 2014, The ECB decided on continued unconditional allegiance to the big banks and the employers agenda against the interests of the population. |15 In July 2014, the biggest Portuguese bank, Banco Espirito Santo, is facing failure. Its perdition was not caused by public debt, but by the manipulations done by its owners. |16|

In Spain, Podemos, a new radical left organisation created in January 2014 is ahead of the PP and PS, the traditional political parties that have alternated terms of office for the last forty years, since the end of the Franco regime. Podemos is calling for a public debt audit and a restructuring of the debt. At the other end of the Mediterranean, Syriza is, since the European elections in May, the biggest party in Greece. Early elections may take place in 2015. Syriza calls for restructuring of the debt and a conference of European States to organise reducing debt.