by
Ramin Mazaheri
Part
3 - An undemocratic Eurozone produces only hopeless non-democracies
It is
axiomatic that that when politics does not rule – where there is no
law or regulation – the rich are the rulers. It is also axiomatic
that in a climate of total deregulation the richest nation will
benefit the most.
Unsurprisingly,
the US pioneered the concept of mass deregulation in the early 1980s,
which they foisted on Europe as much as possible in order to ensure
the status quo-dominance of US corporations. Washington may have even
created a Frankenstein’s monster, because the Eurogroup has
achieved the American dream of total deregulation even more than in
America.
We owe
Varoufakis a debt of gratitude for extensively detailing the utter
lack of democracy within the Eurogroup. What’s absolutely appalling
is that most media do not hammer these facts repeatedly, but even
seem totally unaware of them.
In this
sense – critique of the status quo – Varoufakis’ book is
essential reading for Europeans who want to know what principles
their society really is based upon. For all the nonsense about
“European work-life balance” and “third way politics”…that
may have applied pre-Eurozone, but it sure doesn’t apply anymore.
After all,
what do you get when your leadership group has no democracy, no
oversight and no records? You get anti-democratic oligarchy: the
richer members controlling the poorer ones:
“…Dr.
Schauble and the Eurogroup had succeeded in overthrowing our
government by asphyxiating us enough for Prime Minster Tsipras to
surrender…our newly elected government could choose any policy mix
it liked as long as it was virtually identical to the calamitous one
imposed by the Troika on previous Greek governments.”
The Eurozone
is, and has always been from its inception as the European Coal and
Steel Community in 1951, merely a cartel of high finance which wants
only to preserve its economic dominance and monopolies. The Eurogroup
is the most anti-democratic, the most brutal and the most
hypocritical aspect of the pan-European project, and Varoufakis makes
that clear in multiple appalling passages.
“When I
asked a friend who played a central role in Greece’s induction
talks how they had managed to convince Germany to let Greece into the
Eurozone, his answer was fantastically unassuming: ‘We just copied
everything the Italians had done, and a few tricks used by Germany
itself. And when they threatened to veto our entry, we threatened
them back that we would tell the world what Italy and Germany had
been up to.”
“Give
me a part of the action, or I rat you out.” Is that not the
very definition of criminal collusion on the part of Greece’s 1%
with the 1%-ers in other nations?
“Of
course, the Maastricht Criteria’s real purpose was to allow into
the Eurozone countries that did not meet these criteria and then
force them to do whatever it demanded to meet them.”
Only France,
Ireland and Denmark held referendums on Maastricht ratification,
anyway.
“When
it comes to countries like Germany and France, the rules are meant to
be broken. But for countries like Greece the rules are the rules are
the rules! Even if they are unworkable and unenforceable. The Greek
state can default against the weakest of Greek and non-Greek
citizens, against pension funds and the like, but its debts to the
ECB are sacrosanct. They have to be paid come what may. But how?”
The loans
are not meant to be repaid, of course, but to exist indefinitely so
that the 1% can live in ease thanks to the curse of compound
interest.
But who was
the first country to break the EU fiscal deficit rules? France and
Germany, in 2003, and they united their power to make sure they did
not face sanctions (and certainly not the Troika). But in 2011, when
countries like Ireland, Greece and others were loaded beyond economic
recognition with (French and German) banker bailout debt, it was a
totally different story.
Francois
Hollande, notably, broke the fiscal deficit rules when France wanted
to increase military spending after the Bataclan attacks. Military
spending, of course, is always ok for the 1%, so the increase was
approved.
France just
announced that they will be under the fiscal deficit rule of 3% this
year – one year early. Even if the “fiscal deficit rule” fig
leaf has withered from overuse, no matter – austerity will continue
anyway in 2018 with 16 billion euros of cuts. Housing and Job
Ministries will be slashed, and the major cuts to social security
will be paid for by slashing the already poverty-line incomes of the
elderly.
These were
just a handful of examples of Eurogroup’s
hypocrisy/tyranny/treachery listed by Varoufakis, but rest assured
that I could add many others.
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