The Eurozone was built at the high point of the neo-liberalism and the people who built it actually believed in their effort. They believed that if we had liberalized banks they would send money to where it is most needed and they believed that if you left it to the market there would be investments and growth. They assumed that in a globalized capitalism there would be no more crises and it’s very dangerous when people believe that rhetoric and it’s even more dangerous when they act upon those beliefs. New prosperity for everybody – that was the promise of the Euro. But while the value of the Euro rose steadily in the first years, in the south of Europe the pressure was building. The credit crunch, the debt crisis followed by the big recession exposed everything. The European Union is an union of competition and inequality. This story begins with the fall of the first domino – the moment when the financial bubble burst. If we want to understand why major reforming of the banking sector isn’t happening we need to go to Brussels, the lobby capitol of Europe. There are 4500 accredited lobbyists and they have free access to the parliament at any time. There are six times as many lobbyists as there are members of parliament. In fact lobbyists have privileged access to the policymakers. In 2012 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the financial sector was as unstable as it was before the start of the crisis. Lobbyists did their utmost best to stop all true reform, and the political world made it possible for them to do so. In the aftermath of the financial crisis a group of experts was put together to advise the European Commission on the needed reform. Out of 42 members of that advisory group, 34 were selected from the financial sector. After much protest the composition of this expert group was broadened, but this example proves how far the influence of the lobbyists reaches. The way that the banks have been saved clearly shows that this has nothing to do with the economic theory.
