Not much in the international eye at present, Greece festers
in quiet misery and poverty. After the second Greek bail-out of €110bn began to
be released in December, the German paper Handelsblatt
voted the Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, “Politician of the Year” for
delivering the far-reaching demands of the IMF-EU-ECB “Troika”. The parallel is
Hitler and Quisling or Stalin and Ulbricht, for like Quisling and Ulbricht,
Samaras has shamefully betrayed his people.
Samaras, heading an ideologically incompatible New
Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left Coalition, with New Democracy ministers
only, has surrendered Greek sovereignty hook, line and sinker. Economic policy,
even at a micro level, is set by the Troika; its officials must approve
decisions at some 20 government departments; a senior German civil servant,
Horst Reichenbach, is in effect head of the Greek administration; the Greek
parliament, with its comfortable Coalition majority, nods through whatever the Troika
demands. Rulings from the Greek
Constitutional Court challenging the legality of
some legislation are ignored. Greece
is in effect a Eurozone Colony and Reichenbach is her Gauleiter.
Much of this might be accepted by the Greeks as the
inevitable penalty of defeat and failure had there been some evidence that the
Eurozone’s economic policies were leading to the recovery of Greece. No such
evidence is forthcoming; indeed quite the opposite – the Eurozone’s policies
are economically illiterate and are rapidly impoverishing Greece. As I
can observe in person, the country is in its fifth year of recession,
production is in free-fall, the retail trade has collapsed, unemployment stands
at 26% and tragically youth unemployment exceeds 50%. Yet the Troika piles on
more property taxes (a double dose in 2013), it eggs on the ramshackle Greek
banks to increase the pace of repossessions, utility prices are the highest in
Europe and the most vulnerable in society – the elderly, the children, the
handicapped and the sick – see allowances, benefits and pensions cut, often by
60%. Ahead of a cold winter, heating oil was, through higher duty, increased by
50% resulting in an 80% drop in consumption. The population has been freezing,
but the government does not care – the Eurozone’s tax revenue target will be
met, it claims. This is pure Brussels
sadism in my view, which looks upon the Greeks as laboratory animals to be
experimented upon mercilessly to test its crackpot economic theories.
The misery of the Greeks is deeply upsetting. Proud people,
whose businesses have failed or who have lost their jobs, are reduced to
clothing themselves in charity shops and eating at church soup kitchens. There
is a scant welfare state buffer. Extended family solidarity helps but I have spoken
to several who are trying to move to Germany,
Britain, Australia and
other destinations hoping for a new life – and many are not so young. Sadly
many others do not have the personal skills or adventurous spirit to move and
have to make the best of their native country.
To add to the causes of anger in Greece,
it is as clear as ever that Greece
is a political slum with corruption endemic from the top down. The trial begins
soon of former PASOK defence minister Akis Tsachatzopoulos (once a candidate for
prime minister) charged with money-laundering on a huge scale; allegations
involving senior New Democracy figures rumble on in the long-running Siemens
scandal: worse still, speculation swirls around a €550m deposit in Switzerland
supposedly linked to Margarita Papandreou, widow of flamboyant 1980s and 1990s
prime minister Andreas Papandreou and mother of recent lack-lustre PASOK prime
minister George Papandreou. Searching questions are required.
This deposit came to light in conjunction with another scandalous
cause célèbre, the so-called Lagarde
List. Many Greeks, including tax-dodgers, have salted their money away in Swiss
and other overseas bank accounts. A whistle-blower at the HSBC branch in Geneva compiled, probably
illegally, a list of over 2,000 Greek depositors. This list was acquired by France and
handed over in 2010 to the then Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou
by his opposite number Christine Lagarde, now head of the IMF.
Papaconstantinou, a bright PASOK technocrat without much political clout, sat
on the list, did not disclose its existence to the world, did nothing to chase
tax-dodgers and, worse, seems to have deleted the names of three of his
relatives. After he left, the ministry claimed the list was “lost” but Lagarde
soon provided a duplicate. The allegation is that Papaconstantinou, perhaps
with the connivance of his successor Venizelos and prime ministers Papandreou
and Papadimos, deliberately suppressed this information to protect their
wealthy political, business and ship-owning friends. An investigation of at
least Papaconstantinou looks likely. Amid the suffering of the population, this
affair adds to the noxious stink emanating from the Greek political “elite”.
It is not easy to identify the villains of this saga. Are
they the Brussels plotters and Eurofanatics like
Merkel, Schauble, van Rompuy and Junker tying Greece ever more tightly to their
yoke? Are they the successive crooked Greek politicians and professionals of
all kinds for the last 30 years who have brought their country to her knees,
destroying all integrity and the rule of law? In any event, the bright hopes of
a generation of ordinary Greeks have been clouded and eclipsed. The present
fetid government of Greece
seeks generous investors. My advice would be on no account to invest a penny.
Until corruption has been rooted out, any business will be harassed and
cheated: property rights will be ignored and property itself hugely taxed. Greece has
sadly become a failed, felonious and kleptomaniac state.
Greece
will have to await its own Maggie Thatcher or more likely a ruthless “Sea-green
Incorruptible,” a modern Robespierre to cleanse the filthy stables. Meanwhile
the fate of Greece
will make good Europeans pause as they rush towards “ever-closer union” and the
scepticism of British Eurosceptics can only further deepen.
SMD
9.01.13
Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
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