World News – UK – Bill Clinton’s EU nudge after Democrat polluted Juncker’s single currency

January 20, 2021

Former President Clinton attended the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden today. The 74-year-old served twice from 1993-2001 when he was met by Republican George W. Bush has been replaced Mr Clinton is just one of three former presidents Mr Biden will be sworn in when he joins Barack Obama and Mr Bush while outgoing President Donald Trump has already boarded a flight to his Florida residence

The politician had close ties to Britain and Europe during his term in office, which spanned most of the 1990s

Like Mr Biden, Mr Clinton was well aware of the importance of an alliance with his European counterparts in the face of an emerging China, among other things

However, he did not seem to be as convinced as Mr Biden of the plausibility of the European project

Former European Commission President Juncker announced the nudge of Mr Clinton in a 2015 speech to mark the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty

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It came when Mr. Juncker met with Mr. Clinton in 1995 and the President asked Mr. Juncker to “explain European things to me” about which he began “to sing his economic and monetary opera”

However, Mr. Clinton said, “No, I don’t care because this will never happen

Many were unsure whether the single market would work at the time, including Mr. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who when Mr. Juncker resumed his “Opera on Economic and Monetary Union” said, “Let Tell us about the internal market because this will never happen “

However, many claim that after the financial crash of 2008 and now, with the severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, cracks are emerging at the edges of the common monetary policy

Many EU countries – especially the northern, fiscally conservative countries – enjoy the economic advantages of a single market, but are reluctant to have their share of the “community” process in the “common market”

When Greece ran into a spiraling deficit after the 2008 crash, it asked the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial rescue

The EU and IMF were reluctant to offer a bailout for grants and issued packages of drastic austerity measures – the result, mass migration from Greece to other regions of Europe, youth unemployment rates of nearly 60 percent, and cuts in wages and pensions

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Its demise worried many that the eurozone was going to collapse, which continued after the pandemic

Last year the EU leaders – many reluctantly – passed a recovery package at the eleventh hour

Mark Rutte, the recently resigned Dutch Prime Minister, was particularly against it, pushing for more credit than grants and for structural economic reforms to avoid losing money

Together with Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Finland he wanted to limit the high-priced, integration-oriented ambitions of Emmanuel Macron and the poorer southern countries

Mr Rutte and the others were consistently delighted at the last minute and agreed to the deal despite previously condemning the currency reforms proposed by Mr Macron

The deal manifested itself as an economic stimulus package with grants and loans amounting to 750 billion EUR (677 billion GBP), with the members of the bloc receiving additional low-interest loans of EUR 360 billion EUR (322 billion GBP) are available

Mr Biden has praised the EU’s ability to function as a single community and has long been against Britain’s withdrawal since voting in 2016

He spoke out for Great Britain and made sure that no hard border was established between Ireland and Great Britain

The EU went so far as to thank Mr Biden after his election victory for his “clear support” in the bloc’s dispute over the previously controversial Brexit law, which was later changed

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