The Greek situation
is difficult, but the explanation quite simple: creditors want to ensure they
get paid by the Greek citizens, no matter what. The Greek population doesn’t want
to pay for money they didn’t ask for, nor did they benefit of. The government
doesn´t know what to do; it was elected to defend Greece against the “Troika”
to put end, once and for all, to the austerity measures that have dramatically impoverished
the country in the last years, but it is pressured by its European partners to
continue with those same contractionary policies. How to decide? Referendum
this Sunday.
The
situation is very unfair with the average Greek citizen. In the last 5 years,
the Greek have seen their salaries drastically reduced, in many cases they have
lost their job, their social services have been cut, and their international
reputation damaged. Today the Greek have no access to whatever savings they
might have. Now they are told that it is not enough. This coming Sunday the
Greek citizen has to choose between voting yes, meaning he has to continue paying
for debts he didn´t contract nor he enjoyed, accepting even more cuts and
social regression, or voting no, meaning that he accepts the consequently damage
implied by having no access to credit and of Greece potentially leaving the
euro.
On the one
hand, voting no would imply changes, probably big ones, some probably painful.
Will those changes be as painful as austerity measures have proven to be? On
the other hand, voting yes would imply accepting past corruption and
legitimatizing future one. Voting yes would mean to accept that mismanaged
banks have to be saved at the expense of social welfare. Voting yes would be
accepting that austerity works, when it does not. Voting yes would mean that “technocracy”
(whatever that means today) beats democracy, that money beats ethics.
The Greek rightly
wonder why more austerity. What is the logic of promoting more austerity when year
after year of austerity the situation has only got worse? All over the world the
emphasis has moved from “wrong” austerity to pro-growth policies. Even the IMF
has warned about the dramatic consequences of austerity (see "Austerity doesn´t work") and has recommended
to promote growth. But for Greece the recipe continues to be drastic cuts. Yes,
some further budgetary adjustments seem sound, as reducing military spending,
but further “killing” effective demand (and literally killing some Greek along
the way) makes no sense in the long run. As Nobel laureates Josep Stiglitz and
Paul Krugman argue, Greeks should vote no if they don’t want to get into an eternal
down-spiral of more austerity and lower income (see "Grecia al borde").
Policies
aside, the Greek (and many Spanish) wonder with what legitimacy those in the
IMF and the Eurogroup can ask for more austerity, when they keep on increasing
their already shameful salaries and expenses. The same IMF of Rodrigo Rato
(alias “Rata”, now prosecuted by the Spanish Justice). The same IMF of DSK (who
as IMF director spent thousands in private parties with prostitutes, and now also
prosecuted by the Justice).
Some other basics
about the Greek situation that should not be forgotten: 1. The crisis, in its
major part, was not created by the Greeks; it came from shameful financial
practices, mainly in the US. That spread all over Europe, 2. The European Central
Bank has, since its creation, implemented monetary policies only in the benefit
of Germany (see BCE polices), 3. Germany, the main creditor, still owes lots of money
to Greece, and not form a distant past, but from the end of the WWII (Greek
citizens from that time are still alive; they are asked to pay the Germans even
when the Germans didn’t pay them in the past!!). 4. Greece has actually done
what asked for; it has not worked.
It is fashion,
and easy, to criticise Greece from Brussels and Frankfurt. But the Greeks have
done enormous sacrifices already, translated in significantly lower living
standards and very precarious situation for many of them, now facing
unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion. With pain they have done what told
to do, to cut expenses and recover fiscal surplus, and have achieved it. The
situation has only got worse...
Rather than
attacking the Greeks I want to thank them. They gave us not only an amazing
yogurt, but also philosophy, modern science, democracy, and the “western”
values we are nowadays so proud of. And we never paid them back (only maybe the
yogurt). Today, when Europe is ruled by command and control, the Greeks are once
more the champions of democracy; they defend their right to democratically
decide their future, whatever it might be. A privilege that we didn’t have in
Spain. And as Krugman and Stiglitz, and many others say, I am totally sure of
what I would vote this Sunday if I was a Greek.
