I assume that the Telegraph is first and foremost writing about its headline writers. Boris said a bit more than that:
4 We can no longer blame Brussels. This is perhaps the most important point of all. If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.
ToryTreasury Times reporting tomorrow that Lab donor under Blair, Lord Sainsbury, regards Ed Miliband as “average” and has given Lab nothing since 2010
ToryTreasury Times reporting tomorrow that Lab donor under Blair, Lord Sainsbury, regards Ed Miliband as “average” and has given Lab nothing since 2010
He also seems to be confused about the economics of the matter. If we have free trade with a number of markets, there will be more potential customers for British based companies than having free trade with just one market. That means more FDI.
In terms of poor productivity, the economic literature shows that the main driver of increased productivity is being expose to competition with firms that are more productive. The country with the most productive firms is the USA, which is why we should try to get free trade with them before anyone else.
chrisshipitv LibDems in vote pledge? RT “@politicshomeuk: NickHarvey: "The public will sooner or later have to be given their say on the European issue."
Precisely why should we trust a single syllable Nick Palmer voices about the EU, when he has consistently and provably lied on this subject, on pb and elsewhere, again and again?
That is the problem the europhiles face: we don't believe a f*cking word they say. It's gone beyond lack of respect, it's not even active disinterest, we now have nothing but contempt for them and their "views". They were, after all, the vermin who brought us the euro.
And turning from abuse to your opinion about the EEA, you would add... oh, you've finished? Sad, really. You don't even pretend to have an argument worth listening to, do you?
Tell us about Danish soap operas. Tell us about your protection of hamsters. Tell us, if you like, about the brilliance of Ed Miliband. On these subjects you can be interesting, or at least credible.
But for f8ck sake spare us your stupid, embarrassing, ridiculous little observations about the EU, a subject on which - following your endless lies thereto - you have zero credibility and even less utility.
Yes, dear, you don't want to hear my views on the EEA - we got that bit, because you've only mentioned it about a hundred times. YOUR views on the EEA are...? Do you have any?
He also seems to be confused about the economics of the matter. If we have free trade with a number of markets, there will be more potential customers for British based companies than having free trade with just one market. That means more FDI.
In terms of poor productivity, the economic literature shows that the main driver of increased productivity is being expose to competition with firms that are more productive. The country with the most productive firms is the USA, which is why we should try to get free trade with them before anyone else.
Indeed which I think is a corollary from his point 4 on the benefits side which I quoted
What are the putative advantages to being in the EU over the EEA?
Would we have to pay any contribution?
Well at the moment we have to pay 18 billion Pounds per annum gross (for comparison's sake, aid to India amounts to only 300 million).
I appreciate that we pay fairly large subs to the EU!, I meant what subs to be in the EEA?
I don't have the figures to hand, but I think Richard Tyndall posted a few days ago that Norway as an EEA member pays roughly one third of what it might pay in as an EU member.
Off the top of my head without going back and looking again
Norway pays about 58 Euros a head as a member of the EEA
The UK pays about 290 Euros a head as a member of the EU.
Mr. Palmer, didn't your lot surrender a load of vetoes in the Lisbon Treaty?
British laws should only be made in Britain.
I'm not in favour of lots of vetoes - joint EU decision-making is the sensible approach. But the EEA is the negation of British laws made in Britain - it explicitly waives influence on the laws to which we commit ourselves to be governed. Far from being a Eurosceptic concept, it's the ultimate Europhilia, since it accepts that the EU will know best and we don't actually need any say in the rules.
Nick, with all respect, you must know this is crap. No EU laws would govern us. There would be some regulations of our exports to the EU that we wouldn't get a say on. But every single regulation to our own domestic trade and every law on non-economic matters would come from our own parliament.
Precisely why should we trust a single syllable Nick Palmer voices about the EU, when he has consistently and provably lied on this subject, on pb and elsewhere, again and again?
That is the problem the europhiles face: we don't believe a f*cking word they say. It's gone beyond lack of respect, it's not even active disinterest, we now have nothing but contempt for them and their "views". They were, after all, the vermin who brought us the euro.
And turning from abuse to your opinion about the EEA, you would add... oh, you've finished? Sad, really. You don't even pretend to have an argument worth listening to, do you?
It does sound as if Sean is rather tired and emotional. Not a good combination with the internet.
I am however quite happy to listen to pro EU arguments.
I have always been in favour of the EU in principle, just put off by some of the ways it works in practice, such as its poor accounting and seeming immobility of the CAP subsidies to France.
Boris's point 4 is absolutely right. It's also why quitting the EU would be no panacea. There are many more important things we should be prioritising.
I would have thought ave it would have been on today to tell us how Watford got on ;-)
sore point. They did better than Leicester, who are out of the playoffs once again because of a Frenchman taking a penalty. Perhaps tainting my views of the frogs today!
Mr. Palmer, didn't your lot surrender a load of vetoes in the Lisbon Treaty?
British laws should only be made in Britain.
I'm not in favour of lots of vetoes - joint EU decision-making is the sensible approach. But the EEA is the negation of British laws made in Britain - it explicitly waives influence on the laws to which we commit ourselves to be governed. Far from being a Eurosceptic concept, it's the ultimate Europhilia, since it accepts that the EU will know best and we don't actually need any say in the rules.
Nick, with all respect, you must know this is crap. No EU laws would govern us. There would be some regulations of our exports to the EU that we wouldn't get a say on. But every single regulation to our own domestic trade and every law on non-economic matters would come from our own parliament.
Don't you feel that immigration is an important non-economic matter, though? And while I accept that, as you say, the EEA is only required to accept free movement of workers, do you not accept in turn that non-EU members will have no say in which countries are allowed to join in?
The UKIP position, as I understand it, is that the EEA would be a staging point and in due course we'd withdraw from that as well and then halt free movement of labour, withdraw from the ECH, and so on. I don't have a problem with the logic of that - it's intellectually coherent (though IMO a bad idea). But the EEA seems to get the worst of both worlds, and really only makes sense as a staging point.
Incidentally, would a UKIP government in stage 2 offer a referendum on leaving the EEA, or would it just leave? What would it do if people voted not to leave?
Precisely why should we trust a single syllable Nick Palmer voices about the EU, when he has consistently and provably lied on this subject, on pb and elsewhere, again and again?
That is the problem the europhiles face: we don't believe a f*cking word they say. It's gone beyond lack of respect, it's not even active disinterest, we now have nothing but contempt for them and their "views". They were, after all, the vermin who brought us the euro.
And turning from abuse to your opinion about the EEA, you would add... oh, you've finished? Sad, really. You don't even pretend to have an argument worth listening to, do you?
It does sound as if Sean is rather tired and emotional. Not a good combination with the internet.
I am however quite happy to listen to pro EU arguments.
I have always been in favour of the EU in principle, just put off by some of the ways it works in practice, such as its poor accounting and seeming immobility of the CAP subsidies to France.
The thing is that it is predictable that such an obese organisation would prove to be as dysfunctional as the EU has turned out to be. It is basic supply side economics (i.e. diseconomies of scale). As it is already showing significant signs of such diseconomies then the larger it becomes the worse it will get until it becomes unviable.
The other thing to recognise is that as a result of the Lisbon Treaty the following areas no longer provide nations with a veto (as of 2014 and with full affect by 2017) but instead requires qualified majority voting.
Rules concerning the Armaments Agency Freedom to establish a business Self-employment access rights Freedom, security and justice – cooperation and evaluation Border controls Unanimity Asylum Immigration Crime prevention incentives Eurojust Police cooperation Europol Transport European Central Bank Culture Structural and Cohension Funds Organisation of the Council of the European Union European Court of Justice Freedom of movement for workers Social security Criminal judicial cooperation Criminal law President of the European Council election Foreign Affairs High Representative election (New item) Funding the Common Foreign and Security Policy Common defense policy Withdrawal of a member state (new item) General economic interest services Diplomatic and consular protection Citizens initiative regulations Intellectual property Eurozone external representation Sport Space Energy Tourism Civil protection Administrative cooperation Emergency international aid Humanitarian aid Response to natural disasters or terrorism (new item) Economic and Social Committee Committee of the Regions Economic and Social Committee The EU budget
Given the reality that we tend to have a minority view on many issues remaining a member could well see us increasingly forced to do things that are not in our interests without any recourse except Article 50 (i.e. withdrawal). I assume Cameron's
Watching 1984, nice cheery Sunday evening here in Upminster...is it fair to say the proles nowawdays are the working class, immigrants, and anyone on welfare, the inner party the main three parties and the mega rich, the outer party public sector workers and small business owners?
@suttonnick: Monday's i front page - "Cameron confronts critics with case for Europe" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/sokwpSXZOw
Is ed,he took the easy option of No referendum on the EU,that's real brave for someone on the left.
I wish I had a pound for everytime a politician or journalist wrote 'could' or 'might' and it eventually turned out not to be the case. I'd probably be a multi-billionaire.
Now excuse while I look up the price of reinforced umbrellas because if pigs could fly I'd need one!
Precisely why should we trust a single syllable Nick Palmer voices about the EU, when he has consistently and provably lied on this subject, on pb and elsewhere, again and again?
That is the problem the europhiles face: we don't believe a f*cking word they say. It's gone beyond lack of respect, it's not even active disinterest, we now have nothing but contempt for them and their "views". They were, after all, the vermin who brought us the euro.
And turning from abuse to your opinion about the EEA, you would add... oh, you've finished? Sad, really. You don't even pretend to have an argument worth listening to, do you?
Tell us about Danish soap operas. Tell us about your protection of hamsters. Tell us, if you like, about the brilliance of Ed Miliband. On these subjects you can be interesting, or at least credible.
But for f8ck sake spare us your stupid, embarrassing, ridiculous little observations about the EU, a subject on which - following your endless lies thereto - you have zero credibility and even less utility.
Yes, dear, you don't want to hear my views on the EEA - we got that bit, because you've only mentioned it about a hundred times. YOUR views on the EEA are...? Do you have any?
It is the shamelessness of the modern political classes, of which you are a minor member, which makes them so peculiarly loathsome. They can - and do - f*ck up on the most monumental scale - e.g. Iraq - and yet they bounce back a few weeks later, keen to give us their opinions on, say, Iraq.
If I were a politician, and if I had your record of lies, cant, and flailing misjudgment on Europe I would apologise profusely and spare everyone else my opinions, on this issue, thereafter. But, like others of your ilk, you exhibit not an iota of remorse, not a scintilla of self-awareness, and you just keep right on telling us your fascinating "opinions", even though these opinions have been proven worthless in public.
It is a remarkable psychology: the brazen-ness of the contemporary politico. A subject worthy, maybe, of a small, boring blogpost. Or maybe not.
And with that, obrigado and good night.
You should read his condescending remarks earlier about ukip supporters and how we were to be pitied but ignored by those in charge until we catch up with the groupthink
Syria: A lot of Israeli air activity around the skies above Lebanon and the Golan. In addition some interesting looking Israeli ground movement around the Golan.
Last two times this was noted the Israelis went and blew something up in Syria.
Bearing in mind Russia's vitriolic reaction to the last Israeli attack around Damascus and the subsequent threat to supply the S300 theater air defence system to Syria, something that triggered publicly stated US concern, it will be interesting to see if the Israelis will be cowed. Certainly they had no concerns taking out a delivery of equipment near Damascus airport, a delivery that was Russian in origin, not Iranian. That the Russians have been quite happy to work with both Hizbollah (there have been meetings in Beirut) and the Iranians over Syria has not gone unnoticed in Jerusalem.
The Michael Gove, Phil Hammond, Lord Lawson and other comments by senior Tories on the EU are clearly coordinated. Since the first two of these are ultra-Cameroons, I think we can safely assume this is a deliberate ploy by the party leadership, and quite an interesting one. The other interesting signal is the one about Cameron voting for the motion on the Queen's speech.
As a matter of tactics, this might simply be an attempt to harden up the negotiating position with our EU friends, correcting the mistake Cameron made in being too explicit that he'd expect to campaign on the In side following renegotiation. Clearly, there was no need to say that; he could and should simply have said that he'd hope to get enough concessions from our EU friends to be able to recommend staying in, but the final decision would be the voters'. Certainly it will do no harm in the negotiations if the EU elite realise that we mean business and can't just be fobbed off, and that in turn means being prepared, if push comes to shove, to shove. Having heavyweights express in public that they are minded to vote to leave will send a message that our EU friends won't miss.
However, the timing suggests that the principal motivation for this shift is domestic. I expect it presages a subtle but important change of emphasis. Phil Hammond and Michael Gove both put it very well:
Mr Hammond said: "I believe that we have to negotiate a better solution that works better for Britain if we are going to stay in and play a part in the European Union in the future, but let me be absolutely clear: I think it is defeatist to sort of say we want to leave the European Union.
That's absolutely consistent with what Cameron said in his major EU speech, but the emphasis is different.
I predict Cameron will say something very similar in the next few days.
The Michael Gove, Phil Hammond, Lord Lawson and other comments by senior Tories on the EU are clearly coordinated.
Clearly. The master strategy was to make Cammie look like John Major with tory splits dominating the media and the tories banging on about Europe like ferrets in a sack and to then spin that hilarity as a triumph and intentional.
It's a master strategy so brilliant it could easily be mistaken for near perfect incompetence.
Scott Lumsden @ScottLumsden Great to see UKIP wading into the referendum debate.Because that's what we need;more private school toffs telling us we're too 'wee'
James Maxwell @jamesmaxwell86 Farage comes to Scotland. Mistakes it for Ireland. Leaves.
The Michael Gove, Phil Hammond, Lord Lawson and other comments by senior Tories on the EU are clearly coordinated. Since the first two of these are ultra-Cameroons, I think we can safely assume this is a deliberate ploy by the party leadership, and quite an interesting one. The other interesting signal is the one about Cameron voting for the motion on the Queen's speech.
However, the timing suggests that the principal motivation for this shift is domestic. I expect it presages a subtle but important change of emphasis.
I predict Cameron will say something very similar in the next few days.
I don't that will stop UKIP's rise. Conservative politicos have talked a eurosceptic game before. Mr Cameron has talked a eurosceptic game before. When push comes to shove, its just talk. To stop UKIP there'll have to be an actual referendum.
Would a new Front Bench improve Labour's 2015 Vote?
The peer that bankrolled Labour through the Blair and Brown years has condemned Ed Miliband as an ‘average’ politician with an uninspiring political vision.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who has given more than £12 million to the Labour Party, says that he has no intention of donating to the party again.
The multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist said of the labour leader: ‘In terms of political skills, I think he’s average. Average in the sense that I think Nick Clegg and David Cameron are pretty average.
‘None of the three leaders was in the “top bracket”, and did not compare with Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher,’ he told the Times.
We have to change direction, otherwise this is going to bring down whole political systems," said Braulio Rodriguez, the Archbishop of Toledo.
"It is very dangerous. Unemployment has reached tremendous levels and austerity cuts don't seem to be producing results," he told The Telegraph.
"There is deep unease across the whole society, and it is not just in Spain. We have to give people some hope or this is going to foment conflict and mutual hatred."
Europe's Catholic bishops have been careful not to stray into the political debate or criticise EU economic strategy but the Archbishop said the current course is untenable.
"The Vatican has always been an enthusiast for Europe, but a Europe of solidarity where we help each other, not a Europe of coal and steel. Whether this is possible depends on Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel," he said.
The Archbishop, speaking in the austere episcopal palace of Spain's ancient capital, said the current crisis is doing far more damage than the recession in the mid-1990s when unemployment briefly spiked above 24pc. On that occasion peseta devaluations let Spain regain competitiveness and recover gradually despite austerity cuts.
This time the country seems trapped in slump. The long-term jobless rate is much higher. Unemployment benefits taper off after six months, and stop after two years. There are almost two million households where no family member has a job.
Europe's churches are emerging as a powerful pole of authority, filling a vacuum left by political parties of all stripes tainted by the crisis. German leaders may be more ready to heed criticism from the Vatican and their own clergy than from Club Med politicians.
The Archbishop said the debt crisis is a symptom of a deeper malaise. The roots lie in the "moral disarmament" of the last quarter century. A `get-rich-quick' culture of "stupid consumption" and "deranged indebtment" has corrupted public life. Children have been brought up to wallow in self-gratification.
"This is common to the whole of Western Europe. It goes back to the core issues of moral philosophy, of what we are as human beings. It is here that we must search for a way out of the impasse," he said.
Comments
4 We can no longer blame Brussels. This is perhaps the most important point of all. If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10052775/We-must-be-ready-to-leave-the-EU-if-we-dont-get-what-we-want.html
The EU bug,other parties catching it.
The Questions on ed's leadership won't go away.
He also seems to be confused about the economics of the matter. If we have free trade with a number of markets, there will be more potential customers for British based companies than having free trade with just one market. That means more FDI.
In terms of poor productivity, the economic literature shows that the main driver of increased productivity is being expose to competition with firms that are more productive. The country with the most productive firms is the USA, which is why we should try to get free trade with them before anyone else.
Norway pays about 58 Euros a head as a member of the EEA
The UK pays about 290 Euros a head as a member of the EU.
So about 5 times more per head for EU membership
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
I am however quite happy to listen to pro EU arguments.
I have always been in favour of the EU in principle, just put off by some of the ways it works in practice, such as its poor accounting and seeming immobility of the CAP subsidies to France.
Health Secretary says each patient will have their own dedicated NHS worker
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/elderly-patients-will-get-personal-nhs-worker-to-coordinate-health-care-pledges-jeremy-hunt-8613068.html
So unutterably beautiful.
We need to keep going into space; expanding our horizons.
Let's stop all the wars and use the money to explore the universe.
The UKIP position, as I understand it, is that the EEA would be a staging point and in due course we'd withdraw from that as well and then halt free movement of labour, withdraw from the ECH, and so on. I don't have a problem with the logic of that - it's intellectually coherent (though IMO a bad idea). But the EEA seems to get the worst of both worlds, and really only makes sense as a staging point.
Incidentally, would a UKIP government in stage 2 offer a referendum on leaving the EEA, or would it just leave? What would it do if people voted not to leave?
The other thing to recognise is that as a result of the Lisbon Treaty the following areas no longer provide nations with a veto (as of 2014 and with full affect by 2017) but instead requires qualified majority voting.
Rules concerning the Armaments Agency
Freedom to establish a business
Self-employment access rights
Freedom, security and justice – cooperation and evaluation
Border controls Unanimity
Asylum
Immigration
Crime prevention incentives
Eurojust
Police cooperation
Europol
Transport
European Central Bank
Culture
Structural and Cohension Funds
Organisation of the Council of the European Union
European Court of Justice
Freedom of movement for workers
Social security
Criminal judicial cooperation
Criminal law
President of the European Council election
Foreign Affairs High Representative election (New item)
Funding the Common Foreign and Security Policy
Common defense policy
Withdrawal of a member state (new item)
General economic interest services
Diplomatic and consular protection
Citizens initiative regulations
Intellectual property
Eurozone external representation
Sport
Space
Energy
Tourism
Civil protection
Administrative cooperation
Emergency international aid
Humanitarian aid
Response to natural disasters or terrorism (new item)
Economic and Social Committee
Committee of the Regions
Economic and Social Committee
The EU budget
Given the reality that we tend to have a minority view on many issues remaining a member could well see us increasingly forced to do things that are not in our interests without any recourse except Article 50 (i.e. withdrawal). I assume Cameron's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union
Now excuse while I look up the price of reinforced umbrellas because if pigs could fly I'd need one!
We are the proles
Or the secret people
Last two times this was noted the Israelis went and blew something up in Syria.
Bearing in mind Russia's vitriolic reaction to the last Israeli attack around Damascus and the subsequent threat to supply the S300 theater air defence system to Syria, something that triggered publicly stated US concern, it will be interesting to see if the Israelis will be cowed.
Certainly they had no concerns taking out a delivery of equipment near Damascus airport, a delivery that was Russian in origin, not Iranian. That the Russians have been quite happy to work with both Hizbollah (there have been meetings in Beirut) and the Iranians over Syria has not gone unnoticed in Jerusalem.
As a matter of tactics, this might simply be an attempt to harden up the negotiating position with our EU friends, correcting the mistake Cameron made in being too explicit that he'd expect to campaign on the In side following renegotiation. Clearly, there was no need to say that; he could and should simply have said that he'd hope to get enough concessions from our EU friends to be able to recommend staying in, but the final decision would be the voters'. Certainly it will do no harm in the negotiations if the EU elite realise that we mean business and can't just be fobbed off, and that in turn means being prepared, if push comes to shove, to shove. Having heavyweights express in public that they are minded to vote to leave will send a message that our EU friends won't miss.
However, the timing suggests that the principal motivation for this shift is domestic. I expect it presages a subtle but important change of emphasis. Phil Hammond and Michael Gove both put it very well:
Mr Hammond said: "I believe that we have to negotiate a better solution that works better for Britain if we are going to stay in and play a part in the European Union in the future, but let me be absolutely clear: I think it is defeatist to sort of say we want to leave the European Union.
That's absolutely consistent with what Cameron said in his major EU speech, but the emphasis is different.
I predict Cameron will say something very similar in the next few days.
The master strategy was to make Cammie look like John Major with tory splits dominating the media and the tories banging on about Europe like ferrets in a sack and to then spin that hilarity as a triumph and intentional.
It's a master strategy so brilliant it could easily be mistaken for near perfect incompetence.
Great to see UKIP wading into the referendum debate.Because that's what we need;more private school toffs telling us we're too 'wee'
James Maxwell @jamesmaxwell86
Farage comes to Scotland. Mistakes it for Ireland. Leaves.
The peer that bankrolled Labour through the Blair and Brown years has condemned Ed Miliband as an ‘average’ politician with an uninspiring political vision.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who has given more than £12 million to the Labour Party, says that he has no intention of donating to the party again.
The multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist said of the labour leader: ‘In terms of political skills, I think he’s average. Average in the sense that I think Nick Clegg and David Cameron are pretty average.
‘None of the three leaders was in the “top bracket”, and did not compare with Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher,’ he told the Times.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323607/Ed-Miliband-average-says-Labours-12m-donor--announces-donate-party-again.html#ixzz2T98bcRsa
SENIOR Labour figures are urging Ed Miliband to move Ed Balls to the job of shadow Foreign Secretary.
They want his former leadership rival to be sacked as shadow Chancellor — as he is seen as a vote-loser.
And they have told the opposition Leader he is too closely linked with ex-boss Gordon Brown.
His mantra to borrow and spend more is disastrous, they have warned Mr Miliband — who expected to carry out a shadow Cabinet reshuffle this summer.
Instead, they want party policy chief Jon Cruddas in his place.
The brainy MP for Dagenham is seen to be far more in tune with working Brits with his tough lines on immigration and welfare, they say.
A senior Labour source said: “Balls is a busted flush when it comes to economic competence because of his legacy with Gordon.
“Foreign Secretary would be a big enough job to keep him in the shadow Cabinet and avoid a new civil war.”
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4925102/Labour-leader-Ed-Milibands-told-that-vote-loser-shadow-chancellor-Ed-Balls-must-go.html#ixzz2T99GtnK1
"It is very dangerous. Unemployment has reached tremendous levels and austerity cuts don't seem to be producing results," he told The Telegraph.
"There is deep unease across the whole society, and it is not just in Spain. We have to give people some hope or this is going to foment conflict and mutual hatred."
Europe's Catholic bishops have been careful not to stray into the political debate or criticise EU economic strategy but the Archbishop said the current course is untenable.
"The Vatican has always been an enthusiast for Europe, but a Europe of solidarity where we help each other, not a Europe of coal and steel. Whether this is possible depends on Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel," he said.
The Archbishop, speaking in the austere episcopal palace of Spain's ancient capital, said the current crisis is doing far more damage than the recession in the mid-1990s when unemployment briefly spiked above 24pc. On that occasion peseta devaluations let Spain regain competitiveness and recover gradually despite austerity cuts.
This time the country seems trapped in slump. The long-term jobless rate is much higher. Unemployment benefits taper off after six months, and stop after two years. There are almost two million households where no family member has a job.
Europe's churches are emerging as a powerful pole of authority, filling a vacuum left by political parties of all stripes tainted by the crisis. German leaders may be more ready to heed criticism from the Vatican and their own clergy than from Club Med politicians.
The Archbishop said the debt crisis is a symptom of a deeper malaise. The roots lie in the "moral disarmament" of the last quarter century. A `get-rich-quick' culture of "stupid consumption" and "deranged indebtment" has corrupted public life. Children have been brought up to wallow in self-gratification.
"This is common to the whole of Western Europe. It goes back to the core issues of moral philosophy, of what we are as human beings. It is here that we must search for a way out of the impasse," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10052268/Spanish-prelate-fears-mutual-hatred-over-euro-crisis.html