i see the problem. As comparison many academics and laymen in Finland are in shock that former PM of Finland, Mr. Jyrki Katainen, saw fit to leave his post as Prime Minister of Finland (yes apparently people can just go and do whatever they want for better career opportunities), to get to Brussels to be the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro until 2014. Only to leave Mr. Alexander Stubb, an right-wing social darwinist, to steer the ship into deepers waters.



We can of course thank Olli Rehn for doing an excellent job...before passing the torch to Katainen. A status quo or a deepening crisis is foreseeable. Maybe it will take Antonio Draghi to lower the value of the euro compared to the USD to see at least the economy go up.



it is probable that Rehn has talked to Juncker about Katainens appointment. Katainen, the neoliberal right-wing career opportunist, is not going to make things better for us. We have the past to prove it. He is too young and too neoliberal.



Now Katainen has been appointed by Juncker to be the Commissioner of Growth and Employment from 2015-. This is sad to say but this is a farce and has been for a long time. After crashing almost the whole Finnish economy, unemployment rose his whole term, outsourcing on a massive scale, delivering moral degradation, destroying the historically unpresedented welfare state (one can not blame just on one person but he really did a good job) it should be expected to see this kind of "expertise" going to the top of the European Commission. The corruption of power is a fact. There is of course the chance of blindness, ideologies, simple indifference or negligence, but this behaviour is a serious threat to the whole idea why we wanted the EU, a peace and stability project benefiting all of us. By all these undemocratic and some might say unjust and corrupt nominations by elite power, we could be gloomy and call ouselves "the lost generation" instead of just the "lost decade" as Joseph Stiglitz amongst others have pointed out.



What have we learned? We also have to start questioning (well most of us have done it for many years) the legitimacy of the European Commission and how Europe can function with this current power structure. The EU Parliament should have the executive power. Not the lobbying firms and the European Round Table. A democratic deficit is also a result after what has happened the last decades.



With so many different countries with different cultures, behaviours, structures we should start asking for less centralized power and work together for maybe a stronger alliance, not union. Yes, this is possible due to us humans having an excellent skill on seeing what is good for ourselves both individually and collectively. The EU is simply broken and we have lost a vision for a better future.



As we so often have seen in the past there is a risk when power is in the hands of the few. Especielly people who are not elected for the job. Theoretically, if these kinds of appointments should be done, the people should be awarded jobs according to how they succeeded in the past.



A high moral, sence of justice, integrity and understanding all people's needs should be focused on when we think and pick leaders of future. We can all draw our own conclusions from the past and see where this ship now is going. This is a sad story but we can make it a happier one. Even the smallest things matter. Respectfully

Andrei Sandberg