In a moment of sheer insanity, brutality or just economic incompetence, the European Union has destroyed the Cypriot economy and left untold destruction. The off shore banking system is in ruins and the domestic credit supply has been broken into pieces; capital controls effectively suspend Cyprus from the internal market and only the German Parliament will get a vote on the bail out terms. Not the Cypriot politicians who are forced to agree with unfair and draconian terms.
Between now and 2017, the Cypriot economy will lose 20% of its GDP in a designed depression to rescue the banking system and prevent bankruptcy of the country. Anyone with deposits over €100,000 in Cypriot banks will help pay for the bailout - regardless if you're actually a millionaire or a pensioner, who saved up for retirement. In the eyes of the Bundesbank and the German Finance Ministry, you're paying for it. Not them.
Brussels have decided the unravelling of the Euro and the wider European Project is unthinkable; in order to save the post-World War II consensus, principles and agreements are now void. The euro must be saved at all costs. Merkel has resigned to accepting the end will justify the means; a banking and political union must occur, regardless of the path of misery that awaits the periphery. A promise of co-operation, mutual respect and European democracy is currently suspended. We are discovering a disturbing reality of the European Union not being this equal playing field. Transforming smaller members into slave states, dependent on ECB funding, is a dangerous experiment which could create generational hatred towards Brussels and most notably Germany.
The hubris nature of the European Union and its contempt for national parliaments is quite telling. Ordinary citizens of Cyprus will have no say in whether or not these terms are fair and acceptable to them. If the people don't like it, they can leave the Euro - which is precisely what the Eurogroup told the Cypriot President. It is unnerving that the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize winner now resembles a 19th Century imperial power and not a regional body which was meant to offer a brighter future to a war-torn continent. I struggle to understand those who still defend the actions of the European Union after the untold economic damage to Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and now Cyprus. The pro-European arguments are sounding like apologists, who refuse to recognise a broken system in need of reform or to be halted altogether. There is nothing pro-European about terrifying levels of unemployment, poverty, economic collapse and misery; yet, EU advocates still celebrate the bailouts and punishing terms.
What is remarkable, though, is how the European Union has managed to achieve all of this with little or no opposition. There would be riots in northern European countries or the United States if their respected governments tried to transfer private savings into the hands of the banking system; those nations would become ungovernable in a matter of hours. Yet, the European Union managed to persuade the Mediterranean into submission; Rome had to use thousands of Legions and slaughter people in the tens of thousands to achieve a similar result. That is quite impressive and horrifying. I hope Brussels know what they're doing.