Morning Must-Read: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Europe’s Centre Crumbles as Socialists Immolate Themselves on Altar of EMU

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Europe’s centre crumbles as Socialists immolate themselves on altar of EMU: “By a horrible twist of fate…

…Europe’s political Left has become the enforcer of reactionary economic policies. The great socialist parties of the post-war era have been trapped by the corrosive dynamics of monetary union, apologists for mass unemployment and a 1930s deflationary regime that subtly favour the interests of elites. One by one, they are paying the price…. Contractionary policies are poisonous for countries leveraged to the hilt…. One can understand why the Left in small countries may feel too weak to buck the EMU system. The mystery is why a French Socialist president with a parliamentary majority should so passively submit to policies that are sapping the lifeblood of the French economy and destroying his presidency. Francois Hollande won the presidency two years ago on a growth ticket, vowing to lead an EMU-wide reflation drive that would lift Europe out of slump. He promised to veto the EU Fiscal Compact. He asked to be judged on his record in ‘bending the curve of unemployment’, and to his chagrin the people are holding him to his word…