WHO'S GOING TO SET THE REICHSTAG ON FIRE THIS TIME? A Titan(ic) called Europe

Since the sovereign debt crisis, Europe has been frequently compared to the Titanic. On April 15th, 2012, 100 years will have elapsed since the ship sank after hitting an iceberg.

Bloomberg recently wrote that "Germany bought itself a one way ticket on the Titanic". The latter comparison was made by Harvinder Sian of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who was wondering whether Germany isn't actually the last first class passenger on the Titanic.

But, can Europe still be compared to the Titanic? The ship cutting edge in its time, and its sinking was not caused by technical flaws, but by its recklessness in going over the Atlantic in search of a new record.

Perhaps the Eurozone was only perceived as a Titanic, that majestically led the regatta of European welfare. Because this seems to be the only explanation why the small boats of the East engaged in a desperate race to catch up the flagship.

In fact, it was not the countries in question that were engaged in a race, but rather their leaders, led by personal ambition, who sold their countries for nothing, in the hope that they would be proud European Commissioners. Far too few of them wondered why the ship that they were trying to tie their ropes to was called "Freedom", not "Titanic".

But the United Europe was never a titan with a common vision, but a huge amalgam of agendas, brought together by unprecedented bureaucratic reins. The cheap money created the illusion of welfare, in spite of the accelerated loss of competitiveness and the stripping of countries in particular those on the outskirts of the EU, of their production resources.

In 1995, Bernard Connolly published a book called "The Rotten Heart of Europe", in which he explained the true reasons behind France's and Germany's plans to create a European Union. At the time, Connolly was the head of the monetary division of the European Commission, which was responsible with the ERM (author note: the European Exchange Rate Mechanism), and after the book was published, he was fired. The European Court of Justice decided that the actions of the European Commission was justified, and that the European Union can legally suppress the criticism brought to the institutions and the European leaders. What kind of democracy is that which views freedom of expression is a threat?

In 2007, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, a former supporter of Mao Zedong, was proudly saying that the European Union is "a special construction in the history of humanity", being "the first non-imperial empire", because "we have 27 countries which have decided to work together and to merge their sovereignty". "The EU member states got closer together, democratically and voluntarily", Barroso said at the time.

Democratically, voluntarily and constitutionally? Hardly. When European officials and the markets reacted in horror to the idea of a referendum in Greece, Gideon Rachman wrote in Financial Times that this attitude is justified "because the Greek referendum would be a devastating blow to the most sensitive point of the European structure - the lack of legitimacy and of its popular support".

After the idea of European democracy was thrown in the trashcan, the so-called European elites have revealed their true face, that of a coterie thirsty for power and privilege.

I don't think there is anything that could reflect this state of things than the look on the face of Herman Van Rompuy on the occasion of a recent intervention by British eurodeputy Nigel Farage in the European parliament: "You, who were not elected by anybody, went to Italy and told them there was no time for elections, but the time for action. Who gives you the right to say something like that to the Italian people?"

Rompuy did not reply and wasn't even carefully looking at his papers, but rather he was just staring blankly, just like a pathetic Gollum, who is on the verge of forever losing his "precious" European project.

In spite of the increasingly desperate attempts by the European authorities to remove the Euro from the equation of the crisis, the economic reality can no longer be denied for long. Ever since the beginning, the European currency has represented "the rotten core of Europe", and this was not caused just by the fact that the fiscal union was absent from the institutional structure of the Eurozone.

The results of the policy of the European Central Bank were first seen in the periphery of the Eurozone, where cheap money led to the onset of unprecedented real estate bubbles. Ireland went from growth through production and exports to "financial innovation", and Spain, which didn't have much to brag about when it came to production and exports, went directly to real estate speculation.

The way the European "authorities" reacted to the sovereign debt crisis has caused Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, an editor of the "The Telegraph" newspaper, to write that "the EU project has become insane and dangerous at the same time". Saying it dangerous is an understatement, but is the mental instability of the European leaders big enough to be characterized as insanity?

Perhaps it is simply the desperation of people who are overwhelmed by what is happening, who are ready at anything, including permanently terrorizing the population, to keep their power and privileges. On the other hand, Einstein did say that the definition of insanity means repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

After the way the collapse of the "Soviet Union of European Republics" under the burden of debt has accelerated, we are most likely very close to a denouement that will reflect the true spirit of European "democracy".

Today, European leaders have forgotten the lessons taught by history and are ready once again to sacrifice their subjects again, in the name of ideals that have nothing in common with human dignity and freedom. They have even forgotten Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, another unifier of peoples who promised eternal happiness, who once said that "There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen". Now Europe has come to such a historic crossroads and nothing shows that its "leaders" can live up to what is expected of them.

The increasing frequency of high level meetings, each of them being promoted as crucial and ready to provide their rescue solution, only promoted the worthlessness of those so-called leaders. And if some oversized heels can make Sarkozy tall enough to reach the microphones at press conferences, worthlessness can't be cured by prosthetics.

Europe's true problem was recently illustrated by Eurodeputy Daniel Hannan in the European Parliament. Comparing the European constitution with that of the United States, Hannan said that the main difference between the two fundamental acts comes from the fact that the first was built around the power of the state, and the second emphasizes individual freedom. But hasn't America forgotten the ideals of its colonists, and now, when it has matured, its ideal seems to become like Europe?

As the debt burden has become too great and austerity threatens the golden dream of European politicians, the time has come for them to remember that "you can lie to some people for some time, and to some people all the time, but you can't lie everybody all the time".

It is precisely this attempt to lie to people all the time to borrow beyond any reasonable limit, in the hope that the maturity would come after their terms expired. Now the bills has come due, and "politicians and central bankers obstinately working on reinflating the speculative bubble", as Daniel Hannan said, but "what they want to do looks like the attempt to postpone the hangover by prolonging the drinking binge".

Is something like that possible? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain is skeptical and warns its citizens abroad that they have to be prepared for social unrest if the European currency collapses.

This is the result of choosing between freedom and socialism. 60 years ago, Ludwig von Mises wrote that "socialism is not the pioneer of a better world, but the destroyer of what civilization has created over thousands of years", because destruction represents its essence. According to Mises, "socialism doesn't create anything, it only consumes what was created by the social order based on private ownership of the means of production".

The European Union has spent its future on credit, and now "the autumn of repayments is here". The recent actions of the European leaders seem to indicate they are ready to set the Reichstag on fire again.

An ancient proverb says that "It is always darkest before dawn". All we can do now is hope that the return of an authoritarian regime isn't possible in Europe, and the dawn of the New Europe will come after the long night of the European Union.