The repercussions have, of course, not had time to be fully felt yet, but the weekend saw two body blows delivered to the world’s largest power blocs – the US and the EU.
Firstly, the Swedes decided that whatever was good enough for their Danish cousins a few years back was good enough for them today and they resoundingly rejected membership of the Euro by 56-42.
While further harming First Citizen Antoine RobespiBlaire’s fading dreams of being elevated to the throne of the Bonapartes, it is a trifle ironic that one of the main Swedish arguments against membership is that it might have forced them to unwrap a few layers of swaddling from their highly expensive cradle-to-grave welfare state!
Eurosceptics should not celebrate too unreservedly, though, for no doubt, as in the case of the Danes, the issue will be raised again once the powers-that-be determine that they have had sufficient success to brainwash the lumpen proletariat into doing their bidding by voting against its own freely-expressed wishes.
After all, the question of membership of EMU reminds one of the old joke about the Christian chained in the holding pen under the Colosseum whose guards give him a pair of dice to roll.
‘Unless you roll a twelve,’ they tell him, ‘You’ll be thrown to the lions in front of the Emperor tomorrow.’
‘What happens if I do roll a twelve?’ asks the wretch hopefully.
‘Then you get to roll again!’ comes the reply.
The other rebuff for the global order came in Cancun where the World Trade Organisation failed to stitch up a new series of accords between nations, aimed at advancing the cause of something laughably called ‘free trade’, despite it being swamped in subsidies, quotas, tariffs and other restrictive regulations.
As the London Times noted, in the OECD countries, farmers receive prices which average nearly a third above free market levels, a figure which rises to 80pct for milk, 100 pct for sugar and an eye popping 360 pct for rice – prices which are maintained through tariffs on imports of an average of 60%.
The Times goes on to point out that this is ‘about ten times greater than the tariffs on typical industrial products and, in most OECD countries, the peak agricultural tariff rate is as much as 200 per cent. At the moment developing countries hand over an estimated $16 billion each year to the industrialised world in agricultural tariffs, a situation that is little short of crazy.’
But, hey! Who cares about the little guy – whether a West African farmer or a West Virgina housewife?
In keeping with his characteristic arrogance, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick was quoted by Reuters as dismissing those who thought it might be a good idea to stop European and US politicians from using urban taxpayers’ money to buy farm votes at the expense of poorer nations struggling to grow, not just a harvest, but a fragile crop of free enterprise.
"A number of countries just thought it was a freebie," the top U.S. negotiator said. "Now, they're going to have to face the cold reality of that strategy and come home with nothing."
It seems the EU must share some of the blame for the impasse, by insisting that matters dealing with competition, the transparency of government procurement programmes and investment rules - in all of which, European practices are beyond reproach, naturally! - were forced to the head of what was supposed to be primarily an agricultural agenda.
But, more ominously, the irascibility and intemperance of the global Hegemon under its present leadership showed through most strongly, meaning that, as UPI put it:
‘There was anger, too, over the strength of the efforts to persuade them to sign a final agreement. African parliamentarians denounced the fact that "in the early hours of this morning" our ministers came "under intense pressure when they were dragged into an impromptu meeting." This time, strong arm tactics were not going to work.’
But, never mind!
The Great Powers junket will reconvene, in the form of its Group of Seven forum, in Dubai this weekend, where the main topic will switch to how to go about forcing the Chinese to add to the price of all the manufactured goods it offers us Western consumers, just as they have ensured we continue to pay $300 billion more than we need to for our food.
