EU Budgets – Growth 2018
The growth forecast for 2018 are set to be lower than expected , uncertainty with the German elections of Sep 2017 , as well as the situation regarding Merkel’s minority coalition.
Additionally , Gemany’s revenue streams are not fully accounted for , thus items like the uncertainty of reporting of the North Sea oil that is ‘missing’ in the German & EU revenue coffers (both Tax & commercial exploitation) are now a serious concern.
Merkels at one point stood out as the EU’s ‘Iron Lady’ , being extremely efficient at eliminating opposition figures and pushing through her desired proposals. However ‘Mama’ as she is at times referred to has shown a weakness in reading the financial pictured , both locally and EU wide. Thus when a ‘finance shortage’ occured in the EU , Greece was to blame. Sure enough the Greeks did play a role in the EU financial theatre, but but but , the biggest issue that everyone missed was that since Merkel came to power she has avoided the German South West Africa Issue.
Well some might argue, who wants a piece of Africa , its all 3rd world, costly and not worth it. Well Anglo America does , they mine 30 million carats of diamonds from the region and sell into it straight to the USA (38%) of the global market. Good healthy cash flow, and this is per research :source-wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Namibia)
Diamond
Diamond remained the most economically significant mineral commodity produced by the mining industry of Namibia. The country produced about 2% of the world’s gem-quality diamonds, which placed it as the eighth-ranked producer of gem diamond in terms of value.[5][when?] Diamonds contributed N$2,5 billion (US$235 million) in revenue to the government in 2013.[7]
Namdeb Diamond Corp. (Pty.) Ltd., which was a joint venture between De Beers Centenary AG and the Namibian Government, with each having 50%, was the country’s leading diamond producer. During 2006, Namdeb, its contractors, and its subsidiaries produced more than 2,000,000 carats (400 kg). The partners also negotiated the Namdeb Sales Agreement in 2006, which created the Namibia Diamond Trading Co., to sort and value the volume of Namdeb’s production that would be marketed to the domestic diamond-cutting industry.
Thus since 2005 , the Germans have lost $235 million *2 ($470 million at least per annum) (de Beers and Namibia Goverment are in 50/50 share agreement).
Hence since 2005 Germany has lost more than $ 235 Million , and in 2012 , the production increase to 30 million carats pa, thus if memebers of CDU , CSU look at Merkels track record , she did indeed efficiently eliminate opposition, but the German EU cash flow problem lies in the German accounts.
It is time for Germany to acknowledge the issue and deal with it as it will no longer be possible to blame Greece for the next round of crises to hit the EU. Even the US President Donald Trump will be astounded at the financial losses incurred by Merkel via the Namibia issue and IFRS reporting of Germany’s assets in its accounts.