Without asking citizens' permission, European leaders want to use their savings for the green transition

The Governor of the National Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, has sparked strong reactions in the French press after recently declaring at the World Economic Forum in Davos that 300 billion euros need to be mobilized to finance the digital and ecological transition, including from the private savings of European citizens.

Since that amount cannot be covered by public subsidies or bank loans, the only source remains the savings of Europeans, according to a report by the French Treasury Directorate General, cited by the daily Le Figaro.

The desire of European leaders revealed by the Governor of the French central bank raises serious questions regarding the guarantee of property rights, the financial autonomy of citizens and the legitimacy of such measures, according to an article published by France-Soir, under the signature of Xavier Azalbert, as well as in press materials published by Le Figaro, BFM TV and Le Journal de Dimanche.

The Davos forum has been, for years, the meeting point of the most influential figures in the financial, political and industrial sectors. The author of the article in France-Soir claims that in Davos, global strategies are tailored to the benefit of a financial elite that seeks to maximize profits, often to the detriment of the public interest. Behind these decisions are not only bankers and industrial magnates, but also European political leaders, such as Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who, according to the cited source, have become docile instruments of the international financial oligarchy.

It is a well-crafted scenario: in the name of the "common good", these leaders impose economic measures that transfer collective well-being to a small number of individuals and corporations. European citizens, already suffocated by inflation, excessive taxes and financial restrictions, are now to be stripped of the few savings they have accumulated throughout their lives, the cited source claims.

The term "mobilization" used by Villeroy de Galhau is just an elegant euphemism for an action that can be more accurately described as financial expropriation. According to this plan, the private savings of European citizens will be placed in a "common investment fund" for unspecified projects. In other words, people's money will be used to subsidize industrial initiatives that will most likely benefit corporations and institutional investors exclusively. Xavier Azalbert states that this maneuver will be carried out through legislative changes and banking regulations designed to allow financial authorities access to private funds. Governments, in complicity with national central banks and the European Central Bank, would create a legal framework that would transform this "mobilization" into an obligation imposed by the state. The cited source states that it would not be the first time that such measures have been implemented, since capital controls and the forced devaluation of savings are well-known tactics practiced by financial elites.

The author of the France-Soir article also points out that a particularly alarming aspect of this initiative is that the plan benefits from the support of the leaders of the main European financial institutions, including the support of Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, as well as the support of Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, involved in the scandal of the joint procurement of Covid-19 vaccines, where colossal sums were directed to pharmaceutical giants through non-transparent contracts.

Officially, this money is to be used for the "digital and ecological transition". The cited source states that reality has shown us that, every time such initiatives have been implemented, they have served the interests of large corporations, not the population. For example, the energy transition promoted by the EU has led to massive subsidies for companies that produce "green" equipment while consumers have borne high costs through higher bills and additional taxes.

Therefore, the cited source believes that, in the case of this new initiative, there is a risk that the money saved by citizens will be directed towards unviable, overvalued projects or, worse, towards speculative investments that will lead to massive losses, and that a mechanism would thus be created through which the wealth of the population will be absorbed into the international financial circuit, to be then redistributed in a way that will only favor a privileged minority.

Therefore, France-Soir states that the proposal to "mobilize" the 300 billion euros from the private savings of citizens is nothing more than a new attempt to confiscate the wealth of the population under the pretext of the common good and claims that, if this measure is implemented, Europe will become a playground for large investors, and citizens will remain only spectators of their own dispossession. Therefore, the cited source believes that, in this context, a broad debate is required regarding this initiative, which would affect the financial property rights of European citizens.