George Soros and the European Union

Mr. Soros has recently denounced the European Union commitment to budgetary restraint as the wrong policy for the present stage of the recovery of the world financial system: he suggests the need is not restraint, but the provision of incentives to stimulate spending, as a prerequisite to growth in employment, and the avoidance of financial stagnation similar to what Japan experienced throughout the 1990's.

The vision of Konrad Adenauer, Maurice Schumann, Jean Monnet, and others, planted the seed which germinated, and grew, over the last half-century into the European Union we know. The wealthy nations shared with those who were poor, and countries, such as Ireland, blossomed as I never expected would happen in my lifetime.

The founders passed on, as did every other adult who shivered every time they thought of the horrors they had lived through between 1939 and 1945. They were replaced, first by those who appreciated the change from the slim finances of their childhood, and then by those who knew little of real deprivation. Throughout the Union working people expected more, but either did not comprehend that genuine reward comes only though effort, or were misled, or chose to ignore the facts. State pensions at 65, 60, or 55; bonuses of as much as two months' entitlement at Christmas, depending on which country you were lucky enough to inhabit; and so much else by way of state 'benefits', while advances in medecine made the lifespan greater, and the financial burden on the young heavier and heavier.

The European Constitution requires that each member-state should live within annual budgets providing for expenditure deficits of less than 3% of income, but there was insufficient support to enforce the rules. The result was that some members have brought the Union to the verge of collapse, unless the rich members are prepared to guarantee the steps required to prevent their bankruptcy.

Experience teaches that it is best to have people change their ways when they are suffering from how they previously led their lives. The medecine has to be administered while the patients are still suffering. If the result is ten years of financial drift, then that is the price which must be paid.

The European Union is the only chance we have of achieving a United Europe, and what an accomplishment that would be, if Germany can lead us to it, in partnership with France. Britain has never really thought of itself as European: Europe was the 'Continent', and the diffident steps it took in the 1990's to move closer, by enlisting in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, were, at least partially. torpedoed by finacial speculators, including Mr. Soros, who made a fortune out of the devaluation of the British pound sterling.