The
unflinching support for the EU and its institutions is not about
preventing European countries from becoming “Afghanistan.” Not
about preventing collapse. Not about the inconvenience of long lines
at passport control. It is about promoting an ideology, a specific
worldview, a vision for the way the world should work.
by
Michael Nevradakis
Part
4 - The EU’s democratic deficit, hypocrisy, and the human cost
The
austerity regime in Greece has been far from victimless. Repeated
reports from the United Nations and the Office of the High
Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) have found that the austerity
measures imposed in Greece are in violation of international law and
the basic human rights of the Greek people, who have increasingly
been impoverished during the crisis as a result of the successive
pension and wage cuts and reductions to social services that have
been imposed.
For a while,
the “European family” demonstrated “solidarity” with Greece
and its people. Such “solidarity” movements cropped up in early
2015 in particular—movements that were fully supportive of the
SYRIZA-led coalition government, notwithstanding the signs that were
evident from the very beginning that SYRIZA was not the leftist,
anti-austerity force it was portrayed as being. Instead, their
“solidarity” protests in European and North American cities,
replete with SYRIZA flags, and their accompanying social media
hashtag #ThisIsACoup, gently chastised the “bad Europeans” for
“blackmailing” the well-intentioned “leftist” government of
Greece.
Peculiarly,
these mild protestations against the “bad Europeans” were never,
ever accompanied by suggestions that Greece consider a departure from
the EU or the Eurozone, even as a negotiating tactic. Instead, the
Greek people have, by the very same people who displayed
“solidarity,” often been lectured about Greece’s responsibility
towards the rest of the “European family” and chastised for such
matters as the petty corruption of not issuing a receipt for small
purchases.
Indeed, it
has often been Greece that has been called upon to display
“solidarity” without reciprocation. With Greece beset by many
dozens of destructive forest fires in recent weeks, the EU obliged
Greece to send two firefighting airplanes to Albania—itself not a
EU member-state—but France refused a request to send planes to help
Greece’s overextended fire brigades extinguish the Greek blazes.
This
mentality has made its way into the Greek political psyche. Prime
Minister Tsipras’ victory speech on January 25, 2015 was full of
pro-EU zeal, featuring many references to saving Europe, but none to
saving Greece. The main opposition party, New Democracy, has helped
organize several “remain in Europe” rallies since 2015 and has
repeatedly positioned itself as a “responsible” and
“outward-looking” alternative to the “leftist” SYRIZA.
Nary a word
is mentioned, however, about the EU’s apparent disdain for
democracy. As mentioned earlier, its executive branch, the European
Commission, is wholly non-elected. Nor, for that matter, are the EU
commissioners themselves. One such commissioner, EU trade
commissioner Cecilia Malmström of Sweden, has said quite accurately
that she “does not receive her mandate from the European
people.”
The
non-elected president of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, himself
embattled by the LuxLeaks scandals in the recent past, has stated
that “there can be no democratic choice against the European
treaties.” Sadly though, he hasn’t addressed the hypocrisy of
lecturing Greece about “reform” whilst being embroiled in
scandals of his own.
In turn,
Germany’s apparent finance minister-for-life, Wolfgang Schäuble,
who apparently also acts as finance minister of Greece and Spain and
Italy and Portugal, has said “[e]lections change nothing. There
are rules.” The sovereign judicial institutions of an EU
member-state have also been openly questioned when decisions don’t
go the EU’s way, as was the case recently in Greece. Solidaridad!
This author
received an in-your-face taste of the EU’s brand of democracy in a
2013 visit to EU institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg. During this
visit, a succession of technocrats shed all pretense and demonstrated
their disdain for democracy and the very concept of the nation-state.
Their talks were peppered with such quotes as “The labor force
should be ‘flexible’ and should ‘diversify;’”
“Mussolini dealt with the situation;” “There are
regions of Italy which we wish Brussels could govern directly;”
and “We believe in a single European consciousness.”
Compare these with the Nazi quotations presented earlier in this
piece.
During this
series of talks, the technocrats and their partners in academia
arrogantly attributed the EU’s economic perils to three simple
factors: “Bad design. Bad luck. Bad decisions: Greece.” Revealing
the EU’s possible endgame, we were further told that “the
nation-state is a 19th-century construct, and nothing lasts forever.”
Further
demonstrating the utter lack of democracy and accountability in the
Nobel Prize-winning EU, it should be noted that the European Central
Bank (ECB), which holds the economic fate of the EU’s member-states
in its hands, has only one mandate in its governing documents:
maintaining price stability — reflecting a longstanding German
aversion to inflation of any sort. Nothing in the ECB’s
constitution requires it to enact policy with social mandates, such
as full employment, in mind. Indeed, the ECB itself does not lend
directly to member-states but exclusively to private banks, from
which states are then obliged to borrow at higher interest rates.
Perhaps best
demonstrating the contempt with which the EU elite and its supporters
view democracy and popular will, numerous parliamentary votes and
referendum results that have not gone the EU’s way have
systematically been subject to re-dos and overturned. For instance,
Ireland rejected the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by referendum in 2008. A
“relatively small member state” daring to “hold up” attempts
at further EU integration was considered intolerable by the powers
that be, and a new vote was called. Amidst tremendous pressure,
voters wilted and accepted the treaty in the new referendum.
Similarly,
Irish voters rejected the EU’s Treaty of Nice in 2001. This
surprise result was also deemed unacceptable. A new referendum was
scheduled in 2002, the usual pressure on voters piled on, and the
Treaty approved by Irish voters the second time around.
In 2013,
Cyprus’ newly-elected government of President Nikos Anastasiadis
rejected an EU-proposed “bailout” that would have resulted in a
“haircut” of bank deposits ranging from 6.6 percent to 9.9
percent. Indeed, not one vote in favor was cast in parliament. De
facto EU boss Germany was not impressed. Under stifling pressure and
amidst threats of “imminent” bankruptcy, the parliament caved and
passed a modified, but still onerous, “bailout” bill and haircut
in a second vote.
In Greece,
of course, the “leftist” SYRIZA government felt no obligation to
even pretend to show resistance, despite the absurd “#ThisIsACoup”
rhetoric that it tacitly supported behind the scenes. The July 2015
popular referendum overwhelmingly rejecting the EU’s austerity
proposals was swiftly overturned and replaced by an even more severe
austerity package, all in the name of keeping Greece “in Europe”
(as if it would float away to Antarctica otherwise).
Following
the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, elitist, pro-EU scholars
from such “safe space” institutions as the London School of
Economics recoiled in disgust at the “tyranny of the majority.”
Clearly, voters were not as well-informed as pro-EU ivory tower
intellectuals. This sentiment is not a recent phenomenon, however:
similar views were expressed over a decade ago following the
rejection of the proposed EU “constitution” by French and Dutch
voters in 2005.
Therefore,
it is no surprise that in the EU today, non-elected authorities are
the ones who, for instance, tell countries what to grow and what not
to grow (EU common agricultural policy), or whether or not a
state-owned national air carrier can be allowed to continue to
operate. A private and high-cost quasi-monopoly (Aegean Airlines)
along with a smattering of low-cost airlines with a limited range of
destinations has replaced Greece’s Olympic Airlines, which
undoubtedly had been mismanaged but nevertheless connected Greece to
North America and Australia. In neighboring Turkey, Turkish
Airlines—unimpeded by EU “competition” regulations and
half-owned by the Turkish state—flies to the most countries and
fourth most destinations in the world.
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