The US credit crunch and Europe

According to Dutch daily De Volkskrant, the US's rescue plan for alleviating the financial crisis will lead to a shift in America's political power at a global level, and Europe will feel the consequences. "So to close the huge gap in the US budget, cuts will have to be made in the public sector. Well, the American dream had already become a nightmare for the poor Americans anyway. Major cuts in military spending were not to be expected. America is still a far cry from accepting the fact that it is no longer in a position to stipulate what happens in the world. The rest of the world is less and less willing to accept this. This will create new tensions that America will think it can solve through military means. For this reason alone Europe must pull itself out of the mess it's in unaided. But a common European foreign and security policy is still a long way off. One of the reasons for this is that along with the UK the Netherlands rejects almost every proposal America doesn't approve of."

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