The Rise of Nationalism Will End the Euro Before Year's End

"The collapse of Europe is occurring just as I forecast. While the media and even the politicians are failing to admit it, the EU in its current form is already breaking up. Indeed, if you step back and observe things from a larger perspective, you can almost watch the process in slow motion.

The collapse is taking shape via three key developments:

1. The Rise of Nationalism (see the recent Greek, French and German elections)

2. The shift to focusing on “growth”/ rejection of “austerity” which is essentially a rejection of the EU contract and Maastricht Treaty

3. The end of the dominant political alliances.

All of these developments are Euro negative. Indeed, they reveal the core problem with the EU as a concept: how can one unite very different countries with long histories of conflict under one economic and monetary regime?

The answer is that one cannot. Voters were willing to go along with the idea (or at least submit to it) while the going was good. However, now that the we’ve entered a secular downturn in global growth, particularly for the western world which suffers from massive debt overhangs and age demographic issues, we are going to see EU member states focus more on domestic issues rather than saving the “grand idea” of the Euro.

This refocusing on domestic issues is a natural political consequence of economic contraction: those politicians who implemented the measures that are now seen to be the cause of the downturn will be held accountable (see Sarkozy). New faces will enter the political arena along with “new” ideas (I use quotations because few if any politicians in the EU have a clue what they’re really dealing with)..."

at http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-20-19/rise-nationalism-will-end-euro-years-end