Auteur: Burgercomité-EU

“Going back to a national currency, my God, that will be a huge setback,” says a woman, walking away from the Alpha Bank cash machine off Syntagma Square near the Greek parliament in Athens. Her bid to withdraw euros has been unsuccessful: cash has dried up at the ATM.

After the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s shock announcement to call a referendum this weekend, queues have started lining up outside banks in Athens, lending credence to fears of a renewed “run” on Greek banks. Near Syntagma Square, Greeks continued to line up outside ATMs in an effort to withdraw some savings to help with payments as uncertainty remained about whether banks would open today.

Dimitrios Dedes, a retired military serviceman, was queuing outside the Ethniki Bank, the National Bank of Greece, further down from Syntagma. The 55-year-old said he would only withdraw some cash for daily expenses. How will he vote in Saturday’s referendum? he was asked. “No,” he says.

“We must chase fear away and gain our sovereignty back. What kind of Europe is this? It is using the euro as a tool of submission. A country’s strength is reflected by its independent flag flying high and control over its national currency – it’s time we regain our currency before we lose both.”

Lees verder op The Independent >>>

A hundred and one years ago on Sunday, gun shots rang out in a city in southern Europe. Few at the time paid much heed to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife as they drove through the streets of Sarajevo. Within six weeks, however, Europe was at war.

Make no mistake, the decision by Alexis Tsipras to hold a referendum on the bailout terms being demanded of his country has the potential to be a Sarajevo moment. The crisis is not just about whether there is soon to be a bank run in Greece, although there is certainly the threat of one. It is not just about whether the creditors overplayed their hand in the negotiations, although they did. It is about the future of the euro itself.
Greek banks to stay closed on Monday
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There will be much talk in the next few days about how Greece can be quarantined. The three people who have been leading the negotiations for the troika – Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, Jean-Claude Juncker of the European commission and Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank – can still cling to the hope that Tsipras will lose the referendum next Sunday.

In those circumstances, the Syriza-led coalition would have little choice but to hold an election. The return of a government headed by, for example, the centre-right New Democracy, would open up the possibility that Athens would sue for peace on the terms demanded by the troika.

There is, however, no guarantee of this. The troika was certain last week that Tsipras would fold when presented with a final take-it-or-leave-it offer. They were wrong. The Fund, the ECB and the European commission made a fatal misjudgement and have now lost control of events.

Lees deze column van Larry Elliott verder op The Guardian >>>

The idea that Greece partly deserves its fate reflects an order in which wealth trumps democracy. We should fight a narrative that enfeebles us all.

‘This is our political alternative to neoliberalism and to the neoliberal process of European integration: democracy, more democracy and even deeper democracy,” said Alexis Tsipras on 18 January 2014 in a debate organised by the Dutch Socialist party in Amersfoort. Now the moment of deepest democracy looms, as the Greek people go to the polls on Sunday to vote for or against the next round of austerity.

Unfortunately, Sunday’s choice will be between endless austerity and immediate chaos. As comfortable as it is to argue from the sidelines that maybe Grexit in the medium term won’t hurt as much as 30 years’ drag on GDP from swingeing repayments, no sane person wants either. The vision that Syriza swept to power on was that if you spoke truth to the troika plainly and in broad daylight, they would have to acknowledge that austerity was suffocating Greece.

They have acknowledged no such thing. Whatever else one could say about the handling of the crisis, and whatever becomes of the euro, Sunday will be the moment that unstoppable democracy meets immovable supra-democracy. The Eurogroup has already won: the Greek people can vote any way they like – but what they want, they cannot have.

Lees verder op The Guardian >>>

After three crises in as many days, the collective performance of the eurozones governments inspires little hope or confidence in their crisis management.

Five years from its inception, the world’s biggest bailout of a sovereign state will grind to an excruciating halt on Tuesday, theoretically leaving Greece high and dry and on its own under a leftwing government bitterly accusing the EU elite of deliberately using the country as a neo-liberal laboratory.

If the experiment has been a disaster for Greece, it is also a colossal failure for Europe, with the result that at the very apex of leadership the EU nowadays resembles an unhappy assembly of squabbling politicians locked in what could not be called an “ever closer union”.

Take just the last few days. On Thursday leaders at a summit contemplated formally for the first time, however briefly, the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. By three o’clock on Friday morning they were all at one another’s throats in an unseemly quarrel over who should take part in accommodating a mere 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece over two years, and on what terms. On Saturday, 18 governments of the eurozone cut Greece off and initiated a process that could end in pushing Athens out of the currency and perhaps out of the union.

Three days, three crises, and a collective performance that inspires little hope or confidence in their crisis management.

The air is already thick with recrimination, not just between Greece and the rest of Europe, but among the Europeans. France says that Greece must be saved, Germany says impossible. The European commission is seeking to revive negotiation that are on their deathbed. The Finnish finance minister, Alex Stubb, is looking forward to the funeral. The International Monetary Fund is at odds with the Europeans over the levels of Greek debt.

Everywhere there is the sight of leaders seeking to escape responsibility for a sorry state of affairs.

Lees verder op The Guardian >>>