EU Promises Lower Wages to Balance the Books

Thanks to the sanctions against Russia and the EU’s idiotic energy policy, the EU trade balance suffered a loss of over €400 billion income in 2022. From a surplus of €105.3 billion in 2021, it plunged to a deficit of €333.5 billion.

The three largest economies, Germany, France and Italy, carried the bulk of the collapse: Germany lost nearly €100 billion, going from a surplus of 175.3 bn in 2021 down to a surplus of €79.7 billion. The trade deficit of France almost doubled to reach 163 billion, mainly due to soaring oil, gas and raw materials prices. Italy went from a surplus of €40 billion to a deficit of €31 billion, with a doubling of the energy deficit alone, from €48 billion to €111 billion.

But don’t worry. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde knows how to solve the problem. Speaking at the Frankfurt conference “The ECB and Its Watchers” on March 22, she promised liquidity for the financial system, and sacrifices for working people. In order to fight inflation, she said, wages must be kept down. “The euro area has suffered a large terms-of-trade loss owing to rising energy prices, the cost of which must ultimately be shared between firms and workers. And it is important that there is fair burden sharing between them, with both accepting that they cannot fully recover the income that the euro area has paid to the rest of the world and the ensuing loss of output.”

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