Eric
Tousaint’s study of the odious debt doctrine
by
Eric Toussaint
Part
12 - Why the US repudiation of the debt claimed from Cuba in 1898 is
relevant to Greece today
I can’t
resist drawing a parallel with the current situation in Europe. The
comparison with the Washington-Madrid-Havana conflict in 1898 is of
capital importance if we study the situation of Greece and other
countries such as Cyprus or Portugal in the 2010s.
After
2010, many recent studies demonstrate that the amounts Greece is
being held responsible for were never transferred to the Greek
authorities. They served mainly to repay private foreign banks, in
particular French and German ones.
Since 2010,
credits have been granted to Greece by 14 States of the Eurozone, by
the IMF and by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which took
over from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), because
Greece no longer has access to the financial markets (in another
context, like Cuba under Spanish domination).
Thus the
loans are in fact borrowed by third parties and then imposed on
Greece under extremely harsh conditions. Less than 10% of the debt
amounts imposed on Greece since 2010 have actually transited via
Greece’s budget, and those sums have been used to finance
counter-reforms and privatisations.
The
borrowers mentioned above get financing from private European banks
and then use their credit to repay them without the borrowed amounts
ever actually going to the Greek treasury. It can be demonstrated
that these loans have been of no benefit to the Greek people. They
have not improved the country’s economic and financial situation.
Quite to the contrary.
It should
be added that, initially, the 14 countries of the Eurozone who
granted credits to Greece made profits at the country’s expense by
practising abusive interest rates (between 4 and 5.5%) between 2010
and 2012. The IMF also profited at Greece’s expense, as did the
ECB.
That
Greece is a borrower nation has been a fiction since 2010. That
fiction serves the interests of the principal powers of the Eurozone,
beginning with Germany and France. These major powers themselves
defend the interests their major corporations, be they banking,
industrial (and in particular arms makers) or commercial firms. The
major powers have convinced 12 other Eurozone member countries and
the IMF to maintain the fiction, with the complicity of the Greek
authorities. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the ECB
participate in furthering the narrative. Big capital in Greece
(banking, commercial – e.g. shipping – etc.) itself profits from
the situation.
Source
and references:
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