I love France. That has to do with many things. French can best cook within Europe. The French weather is almost always better than with us. French high-speed trains really run at high speed, very different from that boom on our only HSL process that is always something false with. French women just work forty hours a week, thanks to French education that is much better arranged than with us: children are in school for up to about six hours, instead of half past two. And then French higher education: the French Écoles have a top level that the University of Amsterdam, TU Delft or Erasmus University can only dream of. France is in a pleasant way different from the rest of the European continent.
That French exceptional position also has a serious shadow side: the economy. This week the seventh French cabinet fell in eight years, because the French refuse to implement much -needed cuts. While the budget deficit is almost twice as high as the EU above limit of 3 percent. The national debt has risen to more than 3,400 billion, or 114 percent of the economy (a maximum of 60 percent is the Brussels standard). Without the cutback package of former Prime Minister Bayrou of 44 billion euros, these figures will only increase further.
The financial markets respond nervously to the French unwillingness. The interest on French government bonds is rising and is now higher than in Italy, a country that had to be saved during the euro crisis by the magical words’whatever it takes“From ECB president Mario Draghi.
France is the second economy in Europe. The country is too big to fail. When France goes down, the whole of Europe goes to the rat fashion economically. But the French population refuses to take his responsibility and continues to vote for parties that will be a sausage for the financial abyss.
While we are almost 68 in the Netherlands when we retire, the Frenchman thinks it is enough shortly after the age of sixty. And the population does not want to get off that privilege. The French labor market is also inflexible; The French stuck much more often than Dutch people.
The difficult situation in France could sometimes play a role in the Dutch elections in October. That has everything to do with the much -discussed ‘Eurobonds’: government bonds that are not published by a Member State itself, but by Europe. Eurobonds have major benefits. The interest on Eurobonds is usually lower than that on the government bonds of the European Member States separately.
The Netherlands and other Northern European countries always had large objections to Eurobonds, afraid if they were ultimately to the debts of other countries. That resistance seems to disappear slowly, also in the Netherlands. GroenLinks-PvdA is not negative. And even the CDA, always opponent, has carefully opened the door. That has a lot to do with the significant increase in European defense budgets due to the Russian threat. That money must come from somewhere.
As a liberal, I too was always a fiery advocate for more Europe and not an opponent of Eurobonds. Further European integration only works if the countries also become financially integrated. But because of the situation in France, my opinion started.
Eurobonds only work in Europe if every Member State behaves responsible and adheres to the budget rules. Then you can be solidarity among themselves, of which we all get better. But the French simply don’t want. So let’s be in the refrigerator for the time being. I hope that GroenLinks-PvdA and the CDA also come to that insight quickly.
With Eurobonds it will penetrate even less to French that their economic policy leads to the abyss. It is important that from now on from France, the whole of Europe demands that it reforms the economy and that Eurobonds are unprecedented up to that time. And that also applies to Frans Timmermans and Henri Bontenbal!
Aylin Bilic is headhunter and publicist.