The Brussels agreement was approved by all. And it is an extraordinary feat of the President of the French Republic and the German Chancellor to have succeeded, (after they have themselves finally measured the extent of the short-term risks to the survival of the euro), in sharing this awareness by 26 out of 27 countries; and in starting to take the necessary measures to save it. Furthermore, a few scattered sentences also shows that the rulers have also understood that no solution to the crisis of the public debt in Europe is possible without a dynamic investment, which include the launch of numerous continental works of the liberation of growth.
In addition, the simultaneous decisions of the European Central Bank (which, while claiming the opposite, actually decided to flood the commercial banks of all the largesse possible), could kick-start a continental economy, whose funding was threatened of asphyxiation in the short term.
Yet, many obscurities remain in this agreement, and if we do not clarify them, we can have a completely different reading, that the events could impose, if the leaders do not take care of these obscurities as soon as possible.
Indeed, in reading the texts, this is what seems to have really been decided:
1. Solid states of the Eurozone guarantee, as of today, loans from commercial banks to fragile States, apart from Greece.
2. Commercial banks borrow at very low rates to the ECB (thanks precisely to the guarantee given by the States on public debts) and lend to the same states by charging higher interest rates, which enables them to make huge profits.
3. Commercial banks are not subject, in return, to any requirement for capital increase, cut or at least reduction of bonuses and dividends, or even reduction of their speculative operations, which remain more profitable than loans towards the economy.
4. States will have to pay out immediately or guarantee large sums to establish the European Stability Mechanism (over 100 billion euros in guarantee for France and 3 billion euros in budget disbursement).
5. States will have to reduce public spending and increase taxes to comply with a golden rule which remains to be proposed by the Commission, and which will be much more stringent than that on the table in France today.
6. Decided in 2011, signed in spring by the current President of the Republic, ratified by the parliament which will emerge from elections to be held in June, the next treaty, and the golden rule that results, will only take effect in 2013, no matter who is in charge, and shall not apply to the 2012 budget, on which nevertheless everything else depends.
7. No European funding is in place for growth programs (especially for the European patent fund) which we nevertheless announced with much fanfare that it would be decided during the monthly summits of the Eurozone starting next month.
Thus, we are only but giving ourselves a little time, until after the elections in 2012 in France. Then until after that of 2013 in Germany. Meanwhile, the same will grow richer, the same will pay.
But, of course, once again, I hope I am wrong. And I fervently hope to receive, on each of these points, the most specific and clearest denials.