The EU is Germany's proxy to enable it to control all of Europe

European Union leaders are holding crisis talks over dinner in Brussels tonight on the future political direction of Europe after stunning victories by populist parties on the far-Right and Left in elections.

"Europe cannot shrug off these results," said the Prime Minister.

Mr Cameron will argue that appointing one of the last senior politicians to advocate a federal European state to the top EU job is a serious mistake following the surge of Eurosceptic and far-Right at European elections.

"We need an approach that recognises that Brussels has got too big, too bossy, too interfering. We need more for nation states,ﾔ said the Prime Minister." "It should be nation states wherever possible and Europe only where necessary. Of course we need people running these organisations that really understand that and can build a Europe that is about openness, competitiveness and flexibility not about the past."

Mr Juncker, 59, was the last serving European leader who believes that the EU should be transformed into a federal United States of Europe and if appointed would be an active commission president modelled on Jacques Delors.

"There is nobody more fanatical about building the United States of Europe, and his candidacy is there just at the moment that the European electors have made it clear they are going in the wrong direction," said Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip.

The Prime Minister, with the support of Hungarian and Swedish leaders, will oppose Mr Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg, who has been nominated for the commission post by MEPs. The EU is Germany's proxy to enable it to control all of Europe, at all other European countries' expense (and great profit to Germany) - all achieved without attracting anti-German feelings, which are instead directed at the EU.

As a party, the AFP seems to be a magnet for upper middle-class conservatives, members of Germany's conservative student fraternities, former supporters of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (ousted from parliament in the last election), people fond of reading German politician Thilo Sarrazin's anti-immigrant diatribes and those with a penchant for nationalism. In recent years, Merkel has said that there is "no alternative" to many of her policies, a figure of speech that has driven many civil rights activists, some even from the Green Party, to the AFD.

The party has a motley crew of supporters backing it. When he founded the party, Lucke thought that someone had to ensure order. But the draft statutes with which Lucke and the party's board sought to make that possible triggered a chaotic debate at a recent party conference. The party has grown unwieldy and, given the maverick tendencies of its supporters, Lucke is going to have to trouble containing it. Besides, Lucke himself said he wanted to give every citizen a voice. Now they're using theirs.

But that has consequences, too. Bizarre things can happen at an AFD party conference, like the man who grabbed the microphone in the middle of a debate and demanded that everyone sing the German national anthem until they were too tired to continue. Or the scowling lawyer from Baden-Württemberg who -- surrounded by a group of men with neatly parted hair who looked a bit like bodyguards -- wanted to be elected to party office. When asked why he wanted a post, he said: "You're asking me too many questions." When asked why he wanted to be in the party, he answered, "There you go, asking questions again," before leaving with his entourage.

Some at the party conference preferred not to say what it was they wanted from the party, whereas others gave short talks. One theme, somewhat conspiratorially, seemed to come up again and again: That there are certain things that people in Germany aren't free to talk about. It's something that Lucke likes to say, too.

The E.U. has become a bureaucratic machine that excels at dispensing edicts on how cheese is labeled while ignoring everyday problems such as unemployment and illegal immigration. By some polling estimates, myriad anti-EU groups could nearly double their tally in May 22-25 voting from the last European Parliament election five years ago by taking as much as a quarter of the seats.

Casting the EU as public enemy No. 1, Ms. Le Pen and other nationalists are presenting themselves as credible alternatives to Europe's mainstream, pro-EU leaders, and no longer as mere loudspeakers for protest voters. "The EU nowadays is like the U.S.S.R.: It can't be improved. We need to let it crumble and build after it a Europe of free and sovereign nations," Ms. Le Pen said in an interview at the National Front headquarters just outside Paris.

Having expanded her National Front's following in France, she is setting out to unite Europe's disparate nationalist parties into an anti-EU caucus at the European Parliament—one that could stall the decadeslong march toward a United States of Europe.

The formation of a potent anti-EU minority would also pose a risk to EU policies some economists consider important to restoring growth. One likely target: an ongoing effort to forge a trans-Atlantic free-trade agreement. That wouldn't bother Ms. Le Pen. She calls the effort "pure folly."  As the election approached, mainstream politicians were sounding the alarm. "The ideas promoted by the far right aren't the values of France and once were behind Europe's nightmare," said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, alluding to the world wars. In Italy, President Giorgio Napolitano warned of "populist impulses" that endanger the EU. With many EU members' economies still limping, the bloc has yet to demonstrate an ability to halt the ravages of the sovereign-debt crisis, making this election a crucial test.

Brace yourself for the next phase in the eurozone crisis, due to come around any time soon. That might seem an odd thing to say. After all, Portugal has just emerged from its bailout programme; Greece has dipped its toe into the bond market; while Ireland's export-slanted economy is growing at a fair lick. Crisis over, you could say.

But hang on a minute. All is not well in Europe, as the votes for fringe and extremist parties in Sunday's European parliament elections will testify. There are five good reasons why the crisis could flare up again at any time.

Problem one is that growth remains painfully weak. Across the 18-nation single currency zone as a whole, activity increased by just 0.2% in the first three months of 2014. That was disappointing in view of the unusually mild winter, and would have been even worse had it not been for the strong 0.8% expansion in Germany.

Problem two is that weak growth is no longer confined to the euro's fringe. Italy's performance has been woeful ever since the creation of the euro a decade and a half ago, and the 0.1% contraction in the first three months of 2014 was the 10th decline in the last 11 quarters. The Netherlands posted an even bigger decline of 1.4%, but the biggest problem of all is France, which has failed to deliver two consecutive quarters of growth during François Hollande's presidency.

This matters not just because of its impact on France, where one in eight of the working population is jobless, but because of the gap emerging between the eurozone's two biggest economies.

Over the past 50 years, the smooth running of Europe has relied on the Paris-Berlin axis, but strong growth in Germany and weak growth in France complicates matters. Hollande clearly wants the European Central Bank to pull out all the stops to boost growth; Angela Merkel will favour a more cautious approach.

The third problem is deflation and its impact on heavily indebted eurozone countries. The cost of living is rising by less than 1% a year across the eurozone, but the average masks the fact that certain countries, such as Greece and Spain, are already experiencing falling prices.

What that means is that the real value of those countries' considerable debts are increasing. At some point, financial markets are going to cotton on to the fact that weak growth plus deflation equals unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratios, and bond yields will start to rise once more.

The fourth problem is Europe's zombie banks, which have been kept alive thanks to support from the European Central Bank but have proved unable, or unwilling, to provide the credit to businesses and households that would push the eurozone's nascent recovery on to the next level. Without a functioning banking system, the risks of a relapse are high.

Finally, there's the threat posed by the trouble on Europe's eastern borders. The tension between Ukraine and Russia will almost certainly result in both countries suffering recessions this year. So far, the impact on neighbouring countries, such as Poland, has been limited by the solid performance of Germany. But Sunday's presidential election in Ukraine, together with signs that Germany is coming off the boil, could feed through into weaker business and consumer confidence.

Mario Draghi is doubtless aware of all these threats. He knows the crisis could re-erupt at any time. So do the financial markets. That's why it is put up or shut up for the ECB when it meets early next month.

Draghi has been an absolute master at manipulating markets simply by talking to them. Now he needs to cut rates, announce a plan to boost credit in those countries where its flow is most impaired and signal that he is prepared to announce a fully fledged quantitative easing programme should the deflationary threat not abate.

Each nation's economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, The World Bank (WB) hands every minister the same exact four-step program. Step One is Privatization - which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, 'Briberization.' Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders - using the WB's demands to silence local critics - happily flogged their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest 'briberization' of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.
Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors.
After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is 'Capital Market Liberalization.' In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "Hot Money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.
"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the Hot Money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates demolished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.
At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water & cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, "The IMF riot."
The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage & squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up," as when the IMF eliminated food & fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples - the Bolivian riots over water prices last year & this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the WB. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.
And it is. What Stiglitz did not know is that, while in the States, BBC and The Observer obtained several documents from inside the WB, stamped over with those pesky warnings, "confidential," "restricted," "not to be disclosed." Let's get back to one: the "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador, in it the Bank several times states - with cold accuracy - that they expected their plans to spark, "social unrest," to use their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.
That's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51% of the population below the poverty line. The WB "Assistance" plan simply calls for facing down civil strife & suffering with, "political resolve" - & still higher prices. The IMF riots (& by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks & teargas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has it's bright side - for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices. Stiglitz notes that the IMF and WB are not heartless adherents to market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia 'subsidizing' food purchases, "when the banks need a bail-out, intervention (in the market) is welcome." The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save Indonesia's financiers and, by extension, the US & European banks from which they had borrowed.
Now we arrive at Step Four of what the IMF and WB call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the WTO and WB, Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the 19th century, Europeans & Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American & Africa, while barricading our own markets against 3rd World agriculture.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Far-right and Euroskeptic parties made sweeping gains in European Parliament elections Sunday — triggering what one prime minister called a political "earthquake" by those who want to slash the powers of the European Union or abolish it altogether.

Voters in 21 of the EU's 28 nations went to the polls Sunday, choosing lawmakers for the bloc's 751-seat legislature. The other seven countries in the bloc had already voted in a sprawling exercise of democracy that began Thursday in Britain and the Netherlands. One of the most significant winners was France's far-right National Front party, which was the outright winner in France with 26 percent support— or 4.1 million votes.

"The sovereign people have spoken … acclaiming they want to take back the reins of their destiny," party leader Marine Le Pen said in a statement. She called the results "the first step in a long march to liberty."

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, in an impassioned televised speech, called the National Front win "more than a news alert … it is a shock, an earthquake."

French President Francois Hollande's office announced he would hold urgent talks first thing Monday with top government ministers in what French media called a crisis meeting.

All of Europe will have to deal with the fallout, analysts and politicians said. Pro-European parties "have to take very seriously what is behind the vote," said Martin Schulz of the Socialist group in parliament. Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberal caucus in the European Parliament, conceded as much but said even after the vote, two-thirds of the European lawmakers would be "people who are in favor of the European Union." Despite the Euroskeptic gains, established pro-EU parties were forecast to remain the biggest groups in the parliament. The conservative caucus, known as EPP, was forecast to win 211 seats, down from 274, but enough to remain the parliament's biggest group.

The National Front was not the only party benefiting from widespread disillusionment with the EU. Nigel Farage, leader of the fiercely Euroskeptical UKIP party, believed he was on track for a historic victory.

"It does look to me (like) UKIP is going to win this election and yes, that will be an earthquake, because never before in the history of British politics has a party that is seen to be an insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election," he said.

"I don't just want Britain to leave the European Union," he added. "I want Europe to leave the European Union."

The first official results announced late Sunday had UKIP at about 30 percent, some 12 percent higher than the last European elections in 2009. In Denmark, with 95 percent of votes counted, the main government party, the Social Democrats, retained their five seats to remain the biggest party. But the big winner in the elections was the populist, opposition Danish People's Party, which won three more seats for a total of four. A year-old party in Germany that wants that country to stop using the euro single currency reportedly won 6.7 percent of the vote. In Greece, with a quarter of the votes counted, the leftist Euroskeptic Syriza party led with 26.49 percent. The extreme right Golden Dawn party was third with 9.33 percent. Doru Frantescu, policy director of VoteWatch Europe, an independent Brussels-based organization, said Europe's mainstream political parties won enough seats to still muster a majority on issues where they concur. "The problem comes when the left, the Socialists and EPP will not agree on issues," Frantescu said.

In the incoming European Parliament, he said, fringe parties will be able to exert more pressure on key topics, ranging from how liberal to make the internal European market for services or the proper mix of energy sources to which clauses should be scrapped in a proposed trade and investment agreement with the U.S.

In the Netherlands, however, the right-wing Euroskeptic Party for Freedom surprisingly dropped a seat from five to four. Its outspoken leader, Geert Wilders, said in a statement his party looked forward to working with Le Pen in Europe, calling the National Front leader "the next French president."

In Italy, early projections indicated that the main government party, the Democrats led by Premier Matteo Renzi, had beaten off a challenge by the anti-euro 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo. The center-left Democrats were forecast to win 40 percent, while Grillo's anti-establishment movement would garner 22.5 percent.

Despite the gains, unity may be hard to find in the fractured Euroskeptic camp. Le Pen has said she will work with Wilders' party but Britain's Farage has ruled out cooperating with both those parties, which have stridently anti-immigrant platforms.

"We won't work with right-wing populists," Alternative for Germany's leader Bernd Lucke also said after the vote, insisting his party was generally in favor of the EU despite its rejection of the common currency. Grillo in the past has said his movement wouldn't ally itself with Le Pen's party, claiming the 5-Stars have a different "DNA." Conservative caucus leader Joseph Daul put a brave face on the results Sunday. "One thing remains certain: EPP is the responsible political force in Europe, which keeps Europe open," he said. The European Parliament estimated turnout was narrowly up from the last election in 2009, at 43.1 percent, reversing years of declining turnouts.  Voters also put new parties in the European Parliament, with preliminary results showing that Sweden elected the first lawmaker from a feminist party and the Dutch returned one representative for the Party for the Animals.

"You know that we have created history don't you? We inspire the world. This is the force of love!" the Feminist Initiative's main candidate, Soraya Post, proclaimed in front of cheering supporters in Stockholm.

The European Supervisory Authorities (‘ESAs’) are the European Banking Authority (‘EBA’), the European Securities & Markets Authority (‘ESMA’) and the European Insurance & Occupational Pensions Authority (‘EIOPA’), which were all established in January 2011.  The ESAs are independent, EU-funded bodies of experts from EU member states (the ‘Member States’) who advise on new financial legislation, promote supervisory convergence, and generally exercise an EU-level ‘system management’ role as distinct from day-to-day supervision. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (‘SSM’) is the first element of the Eurozone Banking Union proposed in mid-2012. The core of the SSM is the European Central Bank (‘ECB’), which will exercise direct day-to-day prudential supervision over larger Eurozone banks, while also retaining ultimate responsibility for the prudential regulation of other Eurozone banks, which will take place in practice by national supervisors as before.  The SSM proposals made clear that the ECB was intended to replace national supervisors for certain activities, but not to encroach on the remit of the EBA (see above). However concerns have been raised over how far this will work in practice.