In this interview with Mediapart, a senior advisor to the Greek government, who has been at the heart of the past five months of negotiations between Athens and its international creditors, reveals the details of what resembles a game of liar’s dice over the fate of a nation that has been brought to its economic and social knees. His account gives a rare and disturbing insight into the process which has led up to this week’s make-or-break deadline for reaching a bailout deal between Greece and international lenders, without which the country faces crashing out of the euro and complete bankruptcy. He describes the extraordinary bullying of Greece’s radical-left government by the creditors, including Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s direct threat to cause the collapse of the Hellenic banks if it failed to sign-up to a drastic austerity programme. “We went into a war thinking we had the same weapons as them”, he says. “We underestimated their power”.
Mediapart
We underestimated their power': Greek government insider lifts the lid on five months of 'humiliation' and 'blackmail'
Christian Salmon
Christian Salmon
ht Phillipe from the comments
5 comments:
Why did they not sue the ECB to neutralise their financial weaponry?
Actually I think it is the opposite. They are overestimating their power. It's a bluff!
"He describes the extraordinary bullying of Greece’s radical-left government by the creditors, including Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s direct threat to cause the collapse of the Hellenic banks if it failed to sign-up to a drastic austerity programme. “We went into a war thinking we had the same weapons as them”, he says. “We underestimated their power”."
Sounds like "maintaining a stable payments system" or whatever the mandate is, heh.
Greeks need to:
1. Prepare for Grexit
2. Grexit
The "power" that the Greek leadership voluntarily bestowed upon their EU masters. They can be turned into emperors with no clothes in an instant.
The Eurozone was always a Vampire Squid project. If you're lending money you always need to retain its value as much as possible over the long term. If that means keeping an economy's employment potential sub-par through austerity constraints so be it, money is always more important than people to Vampire Squids!
"The "power" that the Greek leadership voluntarily bestowed upon their EU masters. "
Let's not forget the puppets that the masters installed, nor the nice shiny Euro coin that was sold to the electorate. Imagine, none of the people in the periphery got the message that unemployment would skyrocket, they would lose their real assets, their mortgages...
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