Greek Referendum Poll

[Zanza]

What a silly deal. Greece won't adhere it, it will not solve Greek economic malaise, it will only strengthen anti-EU forces everywhere, it has caused a rift between France and Germany, it will do nothing to make Greek debt sustainable etc. etc.

[crazy canuck]

What a silly deal. Greece won't adhere it, it will not solve Greek economic malaise, it will only strengthen anti-EU forces everywhere, it has caused a rift between France and Germany etc. etc.

Agreed.  This won't help Greece's economy recover but it will ensure that we are talking about the threat of Greece further defaulting for years to come. 

[Zanza]

Article from just about the only British author with sympathies for Germany. 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/30e6bc60-2957-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3fn6bJPzD

Germany's conditional surrender
Gideon Rachman

Rather than risk its reputation, the Merkel government has agreed yet another Greek bailout

Europe woke up on Monday to a lot of headlines about the humiliation of Greece, the triumph of an all-powerful Germany and the subversion of democracy in Europe.

What nonsense. If anybody has capitulated, it is Germany. The German government has just agreed, in principle, to another multibillion-euro bailout of Greece — the third so far. In return, it has received promises of economic reform from a Greek government that makes it clear that it profoundly disagrees with everything that it has just agreed to. The Syriza government will clearly do all it can to thwart the deal it has just signed. If that is a German victory, I would hate to see a defeat.

As for this stuff about the trashing of democracy in Greece — that too is nonsense. The Greek referendum on July 5 was in essence a vote that the rest of the eurozone should continue to lend Greece billions — but on conditions determined in Athens. That was never realistic. The real constraint on Greece's freedom of actions is not the undemocratic nature of the EU. It is the fact that Greece is bust.

Much of the comment about the loss of Greek sovereignty, in the outline deal just agreed, has focused on the idea that Greece will now have to privatise €50bn worth of assets, and that foreigners will supervise the Athens-based fund. Given the record of corruption and clientelism of successive Greek governments, that sounds like a very good idea. But Syriza's deep opposition to privatisation makes it unlikely that anything like €50bn will be raised.

Of course, the dilemma of ordinary Greek people is horrible. I was in Athens last week and felt very sorry for many of the individuals I met, who fear for their jobs, savings and future. But the notion that all this is the fault of cruel Europeans, who have mindlessly imposed austerity on an otherwise healthy country, is a neo-leftist fantasy. Greece has been badly governed for decades and was living well beyond its means.

When the crunch came, the Greek government was running a budget deficit of over 10 per cent of gross domestic product and the private sector was refusing to lend to the country. Without the loans extended to Greece by the International Monetary Fund and the EU, the adjustment to austerity would have been instant and much more brutal. The idea that Greece's creditors have been totally inflexible is also untrue. Private-sector creditors to Greece have already taken a "haircut" in 2012 — and Greek debt repayments have been extended long into the future.

Meanwhile, ordinary Germans, Dutch, Finns and others also have every right to feel aggrieved. When they joined the euro, they were told that there was a "no bailout" clause in the treaty setting up the single currency. That was meant to reassure taxpayers that they would never have to pay the bills of other eurozone countries.

Well, so much for that. There have already been bailouts for Spain, Portugal and Ireland — as well as three packages for Greece. A new loan of €85bn to Greece would be almost double the annual GDP of Serbia, a medium-sized country in the same region. And for all the talk that the Europeans are meanly refusing to write off Greek debts, it is actually well understood that it is highly unlikely that Greece will ever fully pay back the €320bn it already owes.

It is certainly striking that the most vocal denunciations of the eurozone's meanness, in refusing to write off Greece's debts, have come from economists based in countries whose own taxpayers are not on the hook.

This latest iteration of the Greek crisis has also seen a more open rift between France and Germany. The French government emerged as the champions of keeping Greece inside the euro and of easing austerity. France doubtless has honourable motives for sticking up for Greece, to do with European solidarity, geopolitics and the like. But if I were a German taxpayer, I would have been rather chilled by the sight of President François Hollande of France hugging Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, as they left the EU building.

For France also has self-centred reasons for trying to reverse austerity in Europe. This is a country that has not passed a balanced budget, even once, since the mid-1970s. French governments find it almost as hard to push through structural reforms of their economy as their Greek counterparts. After this latest crisis, the French are likely to return to the fray with bright ideas for "strengthening" the eurozone — such as EU-wide social insurance. I wonder who they think might pay for that?

As for the Germans, at the latest summit, they were clearly flirting with "Grexit" — the idea of forcing Greece out of the eurozone. They drew back after numerous warnings, such as the one issued by the foreign minister of Luxembourg, that such a course of action would be "fatal for Germany's reputation in the EU and the world".

Rather than risk such an outcome, the German government has agreed to yet another bailout for Greece. Yet, in reality, the euro is already poisoning Germany's attitude towards Europe and Europe's attitude towards Germany.

The whole saga brings to mind a saying of that great German, Karl Marx — "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." The latest Greek debt deal manages to be both a farce and a tragedy, at the same time.

[Tamas]

Yes, but. Greece tried to show the finger to Europe and hold the euro at gunpoint to get free money.

Instead, Merkel used Cipras to wipe the floor with - he agreed to a much worse deal IIRC that the one he promised to never sign, during the election.

It's a knockout victory for Angela, I think. Politically, at least.

[Tamas]

Article from just about the only British author with sympathies for Germany. 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/30e6bc60-2957-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3fn6bJPzD

Germany's conditional surrender
Gideon Rachman

Rather than risk its reputation, the Merkel government has agreed yet another Greek bailout

Europe woke up on Monday to a lot of headlines about the humiliation of Greece, the triumph of an all-powerful Germany and the subversion of democracy in Europe.

What nonsense. If anybody has capitulated, it is Germany. The German government has just agreed, in principle, to another multibillion-euro bailout of Greece — the third so far. In return, it has received promises of economic reform from a Greek government that makes it clear that it profoundly disagrees with everything that it has just agreed to. The Syriza government will clearly do all it can to thwart the deal it has just signed. If that is a German victory, I would hate to see a defeat.

As for this stuff about the trashing of democracy in Greece — that too is nonsense. The Greek referendum on July 5 was in essence a vote that the rest of the eurozone should continue to lend Greece billions — but on conditions determined in Athens. That was never realistic. The real constraint on Greece's freedom of actions is not the undemocratic nature of the EU. It is the fact that Greece is bust.

Much of the comment about the loss of Greek sovereignty, in the outline deal just agreed, has focused on the idea that Greece will now have to privatise €50bn worth of assets, and that foreigners will supervise the Athens-based fund. Given the record of corruption and clientelism of successive Greek governments, that sounds like a very good idea. But Syriza's deep opposition to privatisation makes it unlikely that anything like €50bn will be raised.

Of course, the dilemma of ordinary Greek people is horrible. I was in Athens last week and felt very sorry for many of the individuals I met, who fear for their jobs, savings and future. But the notion that all this is the fault of cruel Europeans, who have mindlessly imposed austerity on an otherwise healthy country, is a neo-leftist fantasy. Greece has been badly governed for decades and was living well beyond its means.

When the crunch came, the Greek government was running a budget deficit of over 10 per cent of gross domestic product and the private sector was refusing to lend to the country. Without the loans extended to Greece by the International Monetary Fund and the EU, the adjustment to austerity would have been instant and much more brutal. The idea that Greece's creditors have been totally inflexible is also untrue. Private-sector creditors to Greece have already taken a "haircut" in 2012 — and Greek debt repayments have been extended long into the future.

Meanwhile, ordinary Germans, Dutch, Finns and others also have every right to feel aggrieved. When they joined the euro, they were told that there was a "no bailout" clause in the treaty setting up the single currency. That was meant to reassure taxpayers that they would never have to pay the bills of other eurozone countries.

Well, so much for that. There have already been bailouts for Spain, Portugal and Ireland — as well as three packages for Greece. A new loan of €85bn to Greece would be almost double the annual GDP of Serbia, a medium-sized country in the same region. And for all the talk that the Europeans are meanly refusing to write off Greek debts, it is actually well understood that it is highly unlikely that Greece will ever fully pay back the €320bn it already owes.

It is certainly striking that the most vocal denunciations of the eurozone's meanness, in refusing to write off Greece's debts, have come from economists based in countries whose own taxpayers are not on the hook.

This latest iteration of the Greek crisis has also seen a more open rift between France and Germany. The French government emerged as the champions of keeping Greece inside the euro and of easing austerity. France doubtless has honourable motives for sticking up for Greece, to do with European solidarity, geopolitics and the like. But if I were a German taxpayer, I would have been rather chilled by the sight of President François Hollande of France hugging Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, as they left the EU building.

For France also has self-centred reasons for trying to reverse austerity in Europe. This is a country that has not passed a balanced budget, even once, since the mid-1970s. French governments find it almost as hard to push through structural reforms of their economy as their Greek counterparts. After this latest crisis, the French are likely to return to the fray with bright ideas for "strengthening" the eurozone — such as EU-wide social insurance. I wonder who they think might pay for that?

As for the Germans, at the latest summit, they were clearly flirting with "Grexit" — the idea of forcing Greece out of the eurozone. They drew back after numerous warnings, such as the one issued by the foreign minister of Luxembourg, that such a course of action would be "fatal for Germany's reputation in the EU and the world".

Rather than risk such an outcome, the German government has agreed to yet another bailout for Greece. Yet, in reality, the euro is already poisoning Germany's attitude towards Europe and Europe's attitude towards Germany.

The whole saga brings to mind a saying of that great German, Karl Marx — "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." The latest Greek debt deal manages to be both a farce and a tragedy, at the same time.

[alfred russel]

it will ensure that we are talking about the threat of Greece further defaulting for years to come.

Probably inevitable whatever happens. Some countries have the knack. See Argentina.

[Zanza]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/opinion/roger-cohen-the-german-question-redux.html

The German Question Redux

Europe, once again at a moment of crisis, faces the quandary of how to deal with German power. The German Question is back.

It has existed, in different forms, since 1945, that moment of complete self-annihilation the Germans call "Stunde nul," or Zero Hour. How to rebuild the country while keeping it under American tutelage? How to ensure it remained a political pygmy even when it had grown from the ruins to become an economic titan? Whether to reunite it, and how to do so within the framework of NATO and the European Union? How to integrate Germany so completely in Europe that it would never again be tempted to stray down some wayward path, or "Sonderweg"?

By the early 21st century, these issues had been resolved. The United States had helped fashion the German Federal Republic and underwritten its security. The European Union had defused Franco-German enmity, Europe's perennial scourge; a tacit understanding gave France political primacy even if Germany had the economic muscle.

German unification had been achieved without German neutrality at a moment of Russian weakness and American deftness. A common currency, the euro, had been introduced that obliged Germany to give up the Deutsche mark, revered symbol of recovery, and bound the country's fortunes irrevocably to the rest of Europe. A united Germany, anchored in the West, its borders undisputed, existed within a Europe whole and free.

The heavy lifting was done. America could lay down its European burden. If a French intellectual had observed in Cold War days that he liked Germany so much he was glad there were two of them, now, slowly, Europeans were getting used to one of them.

But the euro was a poisoned chalice. Conceived to bind Germany to Europe, it instead bound far-weaker European countries to Germany, in what for some, notably Greece, proved an unsustainable straitjacket. It turbo-charged German economic dominance as Berlin's export machine went to work. It wed countries of far laxer and more flexible Mediterranean culture to German diktats of discipline, predictability and austerity. It produced growing pressure to surrender sovereignty — for a currency union without political union is problematic — and this yielding was inevitably to German power.

Two other developments thrust Germany into the very leadership role its history has taught it to mistrust. France grew weaker. De Gaulle's all-powerful presidency became an indifferent sort of office presiding over a country of sullen introspection. No fig leaf could disguise that the Franco-German partnership was no longer one of equals. Europe, perhaps to Henry Kissinger's belated satisfaction, had a phone number — in Angela Merkel's office.

The second development was that the United States decided it was time to leave Europe to the Europeans. In a matter of war and peace — President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and his stirring up of a small war in Eastern Ukraine — Washington is not even a party to the Minsk accords that constitute an attempt to clear up the mess. Germany, of course, is. How times have changed.

Precisely the thing that Germans were most uneasy about, and their neighbors, too, has now occurred. Germany dominates Europe to a degree unimaginable even 15 years ago. When I lived in Berlin around the turn of the century, Germans were still debating whether they could ever be a "normal" country and whether they could ever feel "proud." Now such rumination just seems quaint. Germany has decided it has no choice but to assume its power.

It wants to use it well. But its domination is stirring resentment, on a massive scale in Greece, where flip references to the Nazis are common; in France, where the feeling has grown that German severity with an already humiliated Greece is overblown; in Italy, where German-imposed austerity is resented; and in other countries of high unemployment and economic stagnation, where old anger toward Germany has not been entirely effaced by the passage of seven decades.

In Britain, the case for staying in the European Union has been complicated by the fact that, as a non-euro country, it will never be part of the inner sanctum of power, the German-dominated eurozone. Anti-European British politicians, not to mention the powerful anti-European Murdoch press, find plenty of fodder with this theme.

Yes, the German Question is back. Is German domination compatible with further European integration or will it prove a fracturing force?

Merkel has tried to tread a fine line between the rage at Greece within her center-right party and her determination to hold the euro — and Europe — together. She has resisted the many German voices saying, "To heck with Greece. Enough!" But, overall, notwithstanding the provisional Greek bailout deal reached after marathon negotiations, she had erred on the side of rigidity, austerity and responsibility lessons. German methods are good for Germans. But if Berlin now wants all Europeans to follow those methods, the Europe that offered postwar Germany a path to salvation will break apart.

[Valmy]

Germany will bring order and discipline.

[garbon]

Just a tad dramatic.

[Valmy]

Just a tad dramatic.

August 1914 or August 2015?

[crazy canuck]

it will ensure that we are talking about the threat of Greece further defaulting for years to come.

Probably inevitable whatever happens. Some countries have the knack. See Argentina.

The Technocrats could at least have proposed something which would have been realistic for Greece to achieve.  This way it is easy to predict what is going to happen if Greece accepts this deal.  Greece's economy will continue to perform poorly.  It wont be able to meet its payment obligations.  The Technocrats will claim that Greece was given a fair deal but have reneged and Yi will go on about why we should not blame the lender.

[Drakken]

That it will even pass in legislature in the Greek parliament is not even certain : coalition partners are already turning on Syriza, the latter MPs are calling in sick or abstaining, and their supporters are imploding.

Finland is also throwing sand in the cog on its own, refusing to send any money into either the bailout or the bank relief bridge funds.

[Zanza]

Did those retards seriously suggest that the "privatization fund" in Luxembourg should be the "Institution for Growth in Greece"? Which happens to be owned by the German state-owned KfW bank, which has Wolfgang Schäuble as its chairman? Why the fuck didn't they just create some new EU-operated institution? With a horde of lawyers at their call, that can't be too hard, no? Is there anything worse than a privatization fund headed indirectly by Schäuble from a political narrative perspective? What the fuck.

[crazy canuck]

Did those retards seriously suggest that the "privatization fund" in Luxembourg should be the "Institution for Growth in Greece"? Which happens to be owned by the German state-owned KfW bank, which has Wolfgang Schäuble as its chairman? Why the fuck didn't they just create some new EU-operated institution? With a horde of lawyers at their call, that can't be too hard, no? Is there anything worse than a privatization fund headed indirectly by Schäuble from a political narrative perspective? What the fuck.

Or rather it fits this particular political narrative rather well. 

[crazy canuck]

Someone sent me this, they picked it up from Twitter.

If only there were a Greek word for a victory that is in fact a defeat & a German word for pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.