Ελλάδα και Ευρώπη σε σημείο καμπής

“Καθώς θα λάβουν χώρα εκλογές σε όλες τις χώρες του Νότου εντός του 2015, αυτό θα μπορούσε να είναι η αρχή ενός πολιτικού ντόμινο πρόκλησης προς το υφιστάμενο status-quo.”

Ο ευρωβουλευτής του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ Γιώργος Κατρούγκαλος  θεωρεί πως η μελλοντική κρίση στην Ευρώπη θα είναι πολιτικής φύσης και όχι οικονομικής και πως οι εξελίξεις στην Ελλάδα θα είναι καθρέφτης των μελλοντικών ευρωπαϊκών.

GREECE | ATHENS: In 1943, the commander of the occupation forces in Northern Peloponnese, near the small town of Kalavryta, issued the following announcement: “The law-abiding and peaceful Greek population is called to choose between security and tranquillity, ensured by the German army, and the disaster, which is awaiting them if they continue to be enticed by some rebellious elements”.

Do not make a mistake. I am not among those who portray, in the demonstrations against austerity, a poster of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an SS officer. This is equally racist and idiotic as the representation by the German tabloids of Greeks as the lazy and frivolous grasshoppers, who live at the expense of the hardworking ants of the North. (By the way, Greeks work longer hours than Germans and most other Europeans, whereas the private debt of Greek households is considerably lower than the EU average.)

However, Ms Merkel, reflecting the radical change of Germans' attitude toward European integration, is imposing on the EU an equally extreme dilemma: it is either the German Europe (i.e. the continuation of the austerity policies) or disaster. This persistence is quite counterfactual. It has resulted in economic stagnation and rising unemployment, the “Great Malaise”, in the words of Joseph E. Stiglitz.  In contrast, the opposite expansionist strategy of quantitative easing has led the United States to an imposing growth of 3.8% and an important decrease of unemployment. Similarly, Abenomics, an effort to increase wages in order to boost economy, has inversed Japan’s long-term downward trajectory. Despite these facts, the new rules of economic governance, such as the Fiscal Pact, not only have not recognised austerity’s counter productiveness, but to make things worse, have imposed additional fiscal constraints.  

They failed to face and remedy the basic cause of the EU crisis, which is the imbalance between economic integration and the monetary union in the Eurozone. Without huge fiscal transfers, the euro inevitably results in persistent trade imbalances between the more competitive core countries – especially Germany – and the less competitive countries of the South. Therefore, the deficits of the latter are just the flipside of the coin of the surpluses of the former. This structural defect could have been corrected by some kind of mutualisation of the debt (eventually issuance of Eurobonds), which Germany vehemently rejects.

As elections will take place in all countries of the South within 2015, this could be the start of a political domino challenging the existing status-quo

Hence, the more alarming thing is not that Europe is at the grips of deflation. More worrying is the outcome of the permanent division of EU into creditor and debtor countries. The latter are now lesser states. I have addressed to Commissioner Katainen a question regarding the violation of the social rights by the so-called Memoranda policies in Greece. (The Memoranda include the austerity program, which is supervised by the Troika of the lenders, namely the Internatioal Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the Europea Commission). His reply was apocalyptic: The Charter of Fundamental Rights has no application and the Greek citizens cannot be protected by it, as the Memoranda are not EU law. Isn’t this very similar to a neo-colonial situation, where only the citizens of the metropolis have full rights?

These trends undermine both the legitimacy of the European Union and the political stability of the member states. Therefore, future crises in the EU will be political, not economic, in origin. But the crisis may also turn out to be an opportunity. We need to reboot Europe’s collective psyche away from stagnation and towards hope. The tipping point for that will very probably be Greece, which since 2010 has become the field of a huge social experiment of implementation of the purest neoliberal agenda. The recipe of the Memoranda called for horizontal reduction of public expenses, deregulation of labour law legislation and a massive transfer of wealth from the public to private sector through privatisations. Its results: the Greek economy has shrunk by 25%, a world record for peace time; unemployment reached 28% (above 55% for the young workers) and half of the population is under or near the poverty threshold. More spectacularly, the debt has swelled. It was at 120% of GDP when Greece entered the program and it has ballooned to 178%!

This abysmal failure meant the end of the experiment. The Greek guinea pig has escaped. In the coming months, SYRIZA, a party of the left rejecting both austerity and the corrupted political system of Greece, will very probably be in power. As elections will take place in all countries of the South within 2015, this could be the start of a political domino challenging the existing status-quo.

What would the Germans do if faced with this perspective? We know what they did back in 1943 when the Greeks rejected their ultimatum: they burned down Kalavryta. They locked all women and children in the local school and marched all men and boys over the age of 14 up a hill where they gunned them down. Then they set the school on fire. The women and children managed to free themselves from the flaming school at the last moment with the help of an Austrian soldier. The following day they buried the 600 corpses of their husbands, brothers and fathers even with their bare hands.

Former foreign minister of the conservative New Democracy, Dora Bakoyannis, insinuated that Greece’s lenders will try to “burn” SYRIZA in a similar way, so as to send the signal to PODEMOS, the new rising part of left in Spain, and to the rest of the South that there is no alternative other than the prevailing neoliberal sado-monetarism. I don’t believe that. This would be a suicidal move towards the disintegration of EU.  However, in any way, Greece is going to be the mirror of Europe, for the best or the worst.

Πηγή: NEWEUROPE