Did Europe just take a page out of Martin Armstrongs playbook?

I am referencing this article by Martin Armstrong

http://screwtapefiles.blogspot.com/2011/08/martin-armstrong-on-europe.html
What Rehn says below speaks volumes on the state of Europe. Rehn has been at the fore front of pushing austerity on the weaker nations. It seems he has come to the realization that austerity alone is not enough. Selling Greek islands to the same bankers that helped start this mess is not enough. What is required is a true United states of Europe or just throw in the towel and everyone goes back to managing their own currencies. The thing is the Germans will take the biggest hit just like they took a hit when East Germany was absorbed into their economy. It took them a long time to grow past that weakness. Are the Germans wiling to do it again on a larger scale? Certainly the German people are not going to do this willingly.


Rehn says EU needs to consider euro bonds and to tailor rescue fund

EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn during a press conference at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels yesterday. Photograph: François Lenoir/Reuters
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION: EUROPEAN ECONOMIC and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn, who broke off his summer holiday and returned to Brussels, has said the EU should keep adapting its financial rescue fund to make it credible and, in the longer term, consider common euro zone bonds.

“To be effective, the EFSF [European Financial Stability Facility] needs to be credible and respected by the markets. And therefore we need to be continuously assessing it, once up and running in its objective form, with these goals in mind,” Mr Rehn told BBC radio.

Voicing a personal view not shared by all his ECB colleagues, governing council member Luc Coene of Belgium also said Europe should move in the direction of common European bonds.

“It’s the direction in which we need to go. You need to bring all of these problems of sovereign debt to the European level. We will never get out of it if we leave that at the national level,” he said.

EU heavyweights Germany and France have so far opposed any common debt issuance, arguing that it would remove a key driver of fiscal discipline in individual member states and push up their own borrowing costs as AAA-rated sovereigns.

Earlier Mr Rehn said the financial markets had not reacted as European leaders had hoped to the second Greek rescue package and plans for a revamped bailout mechanism. “Markets have not reacted as we expected or hoped for to the measures agreed by euro-area heads of state and government on July 21st,” he said yesterday.

“The spread of bond-market tensions across the euro area is, however, not justified by economic and budgetary fundamentals.”

The July 21st agreement will take time to implement, though markets expected immediate action, Mr Rehn said.

“There were expectations in financial markets that all elements could be implemented immediately. While these expectations were clearly unrealistic, markets have nevertheless been disappointed.”

Mr Rehn said the European Financial Stability Facility was “still a work in progress” and that “a certain problem of communicating” had hampered efforts to tackle the euro area’s debt crisis in recent weeks.

The EU’s main bailout mechanism should be reinforced and its scope widened, but the commission is largely satisfied with the plan reached last month to revamp the rescue mechanism, Mr Rehn said.

The commission’s view is that Italy and Spain are on track to meet their fiscal-deficit targets this year and next.

Cyprus has sound economic fundamentals and its banks are well capitalised, Mr Rehn also said. The Cypriot government should stick to its budget-deficit reduction targets, he said, adding that he would try to speak today to country’s new finance minister, Kikis Kazamias.

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