Aren’t all nations, one way or another, tarred with a similar brush of nationalism?

Sir, Harriet Agnew and David Keohane report that, on the centenary of the end of the First World War, Emmanuel Macron railed against nationalism as a “betrayal of patriotism”, in an implicit rebuke to his US counterpart. “Macron attacks nationalism in Armistice Day rebuke to Trump” November 12.

Macron said: “By saying ‘Our interests first. Who cares about the others?’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great, and what is essential: its moral values.” Is that not beautiful? Of course it is!

My problem though is that precisely these days I have been writing that the ending of the First World War, and the Versailles treaty, should provide an opportunity to reflect on the armistice conditions that are imposed on sovereigns, when they have to capitulate because of excessive loads of public debts. This especially because it is usually not only the defeated sovereign’s fault. 

If we look behind most odious debts, we will find surely find odious credits. In the case of eurozone sovereigns, like Greece, odiously dumb regulations too. Assigning a zero risk, as the European Commission did to a nation that is much indebted in a currency like the euro, which is not really its domestic (printable) currency, made absolutely no sense. That meant for instance that German and French banks could lend to Greece against no capital at all, and so, naturally, these banks could not resist the temptation of offering Greece too much credit, and Greece could not resist the temptation of taking on too much debt.

But what happened? The recent armistice conditions imposed by EU authorities required Greece to take on debt, much of it in order to repay German and French banks, leaving it with about a €345 billion debt, more than €30.000 per each Greek, in a currency that as I mentioned is de facto not their own. 

Sir, so I ask is that not just another Carthaginian peace? Viewed this way, no matter how right what Macron preaches is, does he really have the right to throw the first stone on “moral values”? Aren’t all nations, one way or another, tarred with a similar brush of nationalism?

Sir, this is no minor issue. Since Italy would most probably not walk the plank like Greece, the future of the Euro, and of the European Union is at stake… and that is something that those who might rightly defend the Remain against the Brexit, should at least out of pure precaution consider.

@PerKurowski