Eurozone Crisis: Lurching Towards The Brink

When British Prime Minister David Cameron exercised the United Kingdom’s national veto last Friday at the European Union Summit in Brussels—the first EU national veto ever exercised by a British Prime Minister—he surprised most observers and sent shock-waves through the Union as never before in the UK’s 39-year involvement in the grand European project.

Because EU rules state that any new legislation must be ratified by all 27 nations, Cameron’s veto effectively rendered the treaty void. Feeling threatened by the direction and intentions of the German- and French-dominated EU, Cameron felt he could not recommend the newly drafted treaty to his country, especially while Britain was facing the threat of new EU-imposed taxes that would have hobbled London as a world financial center.

Many EU nations saw the veto as a selfish betrayal of the EU’s wider interests at a time when the Union’s very survival is threatened by the collapse of the euro and the increasing tensions between member nations. French President Nicolas Sarkozy pointedly accused Cameron of intransigence and of wrecking the summit.

But did Cameron’s veto really nix the treaty? After discussions stretching into the early morning hours on Friday, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy proposed that the treaty go ahead anyway, bypassing existing EU legal structures. Ratification, he said, would instead be provided by the 17 members of the Eurozone, as well as by any other member countries that supported the aims of the summit. In the hours that followed, all of the remaining 26 EU member nations eventually signed up for the new treaty, leaving the UK isolated and alone.

Shocking as it may seem, all of these events are actually little more than a sideshow. The real issue behind the summit was the very survival of the Eurozone. Knowledgeable observers recognize that the crisis has been caused not by Britain, but rather by structural and systemic problems inherent in the very design of the euro system. Regrettably, despite bitter charges being leveled, very little was actually done at the summit to address the real cause of the EU problems; participants merely tinkered with the symptoms.

The new treaty is touted as a means to provide for fiscal union, but the measures taken do not remotely suffice. There is no lender of last resort to whom EU countries can turn, nor a EU treasury to care for the euro (the European Central Bank is currently denied that role). There is no shared budget, nor joint debt issuance to cover a nation’s indebtedness, a prospect that offends German sensibilities. There are no plans for growth that would allow countries to pay off their debts. And there remains a fixed exchange rate across the entire union, creating massive trade and capital flow imbalances between north and south, with only more and more austerity offered to southern nations as a solution. And all this is happening as the world economy slides towards a new recession.

In this harsh light of reality, the Eurozone crisis looks set to continue into the new year and beyond, with a growing odds-on potential for a massive “Euroquake” implosion—a disorderly market-driven break up of monetary union, with incalculably damaging results for Europe and the world economy. A large black hole is opening up and the Eurozone is lurching inexorably towards the brink!

Where are these events in Europe leading? What is their prophetic significance?  Biblical prophecy points towards seismic political and economic events taking place in Europe, with a fundamental realignment of European nations leaving Britain on the outside. This is exactly what now appears to be tortuously coming about, as described in our Tomorrow’s World article, “Coming: A ‘United States of Europe’!” This Work has for many years been warning of events now coming to pass; watch our telecast “America’s Fall and Europe’s Rise” for more context on this vital subject.  And be sure to read “New Europe Rising!” in the upcoming January-February 2012 issue of Tomorrow’s World, which will make plain to you prophetic implications of these events. Events are moving very fast. Prophecy is coming alive before our eyes!