What is the country with the largest trade surplus? Germany, with 194 billion dollars over the last twelve months, ahead of China (173 billion). What is the state that attracts the most capital of the world? The Netherlands, where foreign direct investment to date some 3000 billion, far ahead of the United States (2.25 trillion), according to the review of the IMF. What is the country which hosts the most tourists? France has received 78.9 million last year, against 61 million for the United States.
Each of these expresses a form of performance excellence. Germany feeds her flawless manufacturing tradition since the industrial revolution. The Netherlands, taxation deliberately advantageous for multinational companies, is one of the hubs of global capitalism since its "golden age".The Hexagon cultivates an image of cultural universality and good living. Taken one by one, most Old World nations are doing much better than the European Union, or the idea of it.
The Americans accused him of set themselves up as "fortress" when "big market" Europe was created in 1992. Now she is unable to defend its weak links, as révèlela sovereign debt crisis. Public deficits are, however, generally two to three times lower than those of the United States and Japan, as Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, continues to say. But markets look weak countries, not the average of a "Union" in front.
Europe is becoming "the global village idiot" in the words of Hubert Védrine, former foreign minister.He who has not grasped the rules and fails to protect its interests. This is particularly evident in relations with China, became the first trade and investment partner of the Old Continent. The EU has a trade deficit with China of 169 billion (in 2010) of similar magnitude to balance US-China (205 billion euros). But the complaints vis-à-vis Beijing are very far from achieving the shouts of Washington. The Committee of Foreign Trade of Parliament held on October 11 a special session on Sino-European trade.As responsible for relations with the Far East in the European administration, Helena König wanted to do things in perspective: "It is clear that for European companies in China is a source of profits" at she said, with emphasis on German and French companies in China. Certainly.
Unfair competition of the "Made in China"
This can not hide everything no fax cash advances. First of all the unfair competition of the "Made in China", which led last week the U.S. Senate to vote for the first time, a bill accusing Beijing of "manipulating its currency." Or access the Chinese market, fully controlled, as we see "a rush of China in Europe." This is the title of the study that came to write scathing François Godement Jonas Parello-Plesner and for the European Council on Foreign Relations. They describe an all-out acquisition strategy.The recovery of ailing brands such as Volvo and MG in the car, the establishment of SMEs. Beijing has established a fund of 2.8 billion euros to assist innovative German SMEs to develop partnerships with their Chinese counterparts. This may take the form of real industrial cities, as in Florence, on the outskirts of Florence, where 4 800 small businesses employing 40,000 Chinese expatriates in Mainland China are a bridgehead offshore.
Faced with this wave, "Europe has no information or regulations," stigmatizes Francois Godement. The Bulgarian ambassador in Paris, Marin Raykov, explains how his country, not having been able to interest the French car manufacturers, has brought the Chinese Great Wall Motor to manufacture cars in Bulgaria.Deindustrialization and fiscal difficulties of the southern states are an ideal soft underbelly.
With its 3.2 trillion (dollars) of foreign exchange reserves, Beijing appears in turn as the white knight to the rescue of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Hungary. Last summer, a delegation from the Italian Treasury, modern-day Marco Polo, visited with great ceremony in Beijing to his court. It was rumored that the Chinese central bank holds 25% of all European public debt. Information without foundation, insists Francois Godement. Unlike the U.S. Treasury, following precisely the holding of Treasury bonds by Beijing and publishes its figures, Europe has no statistical tool.Like Greece, which has Eurostat in September 2004 that its accounts were rigged, had not a lesson.
This lack of information is a godsend for Beijing, which keeps his secret. What easy conquest, according to the principle of "divide and rule", as old as the Roman Empire, the British had returned to their use to colonize the Middle East.