The world seems to have gone mad

That title is the sort of hyperbole that usually makes me snort with disgust but, for once, I can see no other way of describing what is happening in the political and media world. People come up with the most ridiculous comments. Unfortunately, yes I do mean the reactions to what is going on in Greece, though I really had not intended to write about it again so soon.

The number of people who seem to have discovered all of a sudden that "the EU has a democracy problem" is quite spectacular. Apparently, all those discussions about the EU's "democracy deficit" have passed them by; apparently they did not notice what happened when countries voted in a referendum against implementing certain treaties and were made to vote again (with Greece always a reliable cheer-leader for the EU pack and against any change or reform); apparently they have no idea at all how the EU is governed - not through politics but management.

Well, I have news for all these people: the EU has no democracy problem; it was never intended to be a democracy (that is assuming the people in question can actually define democracy). Furthermore, democracy is of little use when you are seriously in debt and are relying on somebody else to fund your lifestyle. Back in the days I had to deal with bailiffs because of money I owed to the local council or the water board, I routinely consulted my household of fluctuating number of humans and cats and each time we voted unanimously against the proposals the bailiffs made about the payment of debts. Sadly, each time our democratic decision was overruled and pay it all we had to.

Then we come to the lunacy of #itsacoup, which people can read on Twitter even if they are not signed up for that particular form of social media themselves. I can only assume that it was started by someone who has no idea what a coup means and has no idea how the EU works (see above). It is, however, rather depressing when one gets a leading eurosceptic like Daniel Hannan coming up with rubbish of that kind.

I managed to miss his article in the Daily Mail on July 6 in which he congratulated the brave Greek people on standing up to the EU bullies and voting no to the proposed bail-out conditions (very similar to the ones they are about to accept). Ha-ha, he said, the Greeks are being threatened with all sorts of nasty things, like not having salaries, pensions and other expenses paid but they said boo to that and if they can do it, so can we. There is a difference between threats of that kind being made by the people who are doing the paying and those who are not. If Mr Hannan really proposes to compare Britain to Greece during the Brexit referendum campaign, we really are doomed: the reaction to that argument will be a colossal support for the staying in side.

He has now produced a film on YouTube in which he pretends to be a broadcaster during the Second World War or the Cold War and tells everyone that yes, this was a coup. As someone who actually was involved in Cold War broadcasting I find this pretentiousness ridiculous but that is what YouTube is for (as well as watching old episodes of The Avengers and listening to various adventures of Paul Temple, which is my preference). No, I really do not think so and, curiously enough, there are people actually in Greece (oh my!) who agree.

Take this article by Andreas Souvaliotis, a Social Entrepreneur (I think I know what that is) who says that au contraire,  Greece: Here Is Why #ThisIsNotACoup. 

That tiny little daily violation of each other's rights is perfectly symbolic of the prevailing national culture in Greece: My freedom does not end where yours begins; it extends indefinitely, unless I'm caught or stopped. It is considered perfectly normal to jump ahead of you at the traffic lights, to smoke where I'm not supposed to smoke, to cheat on my taxes, to cook the nation's books in order to qualify for a currency union, to renege on every single election promise. Those who insist on respecting the rules are considered a little less smart, a little less "Greek" -- and they're often told they are the losers.

That's exactly the country that became financially insolvent recently. My beautiful birth country continues to be the Eurozone's most adolescent, rebellious, blindly self-defeating society. Greece didn't get into all this trouble because its European partners took advantage of it; it went bankrupt because, after more than a generation as a member of a rules-driven, respect-based tight economic community, it never figured out how to play fair, how to fit in and how to build real value. It enjoyed the spoils of membership without ever trying to live up to its end of the bargain; it cheated, squandered, abused, begged for more... and the cycle continued until the financial crisis suddenly brought the entire country to the brink of bankruptcy. And even then, on the strength of charm and an endless stream of fake reform promises over the past half-dozen years, the money kept flowing in from its badly tricked Euro partners in the form of bailouts. And nobody was even humiliated or angry about that. Until now, of course.

Mr Souvaliotis exaggerates the extent to which the eurozone is rules-driven and respect-based, let alone tight economic community but he is spot on about the Greek attitude to it. I have no particular objections to a completely libertarian attitude to life, which is what the Greeks might say they have but I do feel that it is not compatible with an enormous government sector, high pay and pensions and demands that someone else, preferably other countries fund all that. That is all.

Mr Souvaliotis advocates "tough love" and adds this extremely fine sentence that needs to be quoted to a good many people:

Mercy on the Greek state, as a lot of bleeding hearts and newly minted euro-experts have been advocating these past few days, would have only fed a bad culture and perpetuated the problem.

As someone said on another forum: I am looking at you, BBC journalists. Well, yes, the BBC hacks are suddenly dissatisfied with the way the EU has been behaving towards gallant little Greece (unlike the way it had behaved towards gallant little Denmark or Ireland). Again, I can only wonder what their attitude would have been if there had been a right-wing government in that country.

I am also looking at some eurosceptics, led by Mr Hannan and his many acolytes. Mind you, none of these people are quite as hilariously funny as the egregious Owen Jones who has suddenly decided that if the wonderful, extreme left wing government in Greece who just want to get lots of money from everybody else and never pay any of it back is bullied by the nasty EU and even nastier Germany then it is time for us to get out. The Left, he says, must reclaim the eurosceptic cause. All we need is that born-too-late student agitprop purveyor from the SNP, Mhairie Black to decide that the EU is not such a good idea after all. We can but hope that the likes of Owen Jones will swing back to being an idiot on the europhiliac side not an idiot on our side. Still, I am more than a little amused by the unholy alliance of Daniel Hannan and Owen Jones. Way to go, lads.

No it is not over yet, not by a long chalk

On another forum someone pointed out that it must be at lest 2,500 years since Iran (a.k.a. Persia) and Greece dominated the headlines to the extent they have been doing for the last week or so. That is true with some exceptions: there was the time six months ago, and a year ago, and two years ago and so on. Nor have the two stories gone away. President Obama may be lauding the nuclear agreement and pretending that it has nothing to do with Congress (memo to the Prez: read that Constitution at last) but Congress does not think so and there are a good many unhappy people in the region, starting with Israel and continuing with most Arab states. So that one will run and run.

What of Greece? Did the runner from Brussels bring the good news as the one from Marathon had done? Not exactly. On the one hand there will be a third bail-out (anyone who is surprised by that has not been paying attention) but on the other hand the terms imposed on Greece are about the same if not worse than the ones they voted against in that referendum. And this time the Prime Minister has accepted them because he had no alternative.

To his and the Greek population's surprise it emerged that they were not holding the whip hand. Far from it: they voted against the austerity plan on the assumption that they will still be getting a bail-out and emergency funds to keep going in the style they seem to have accustomed themselves to. (Well, maybe not quite in that style as anyone who has a transferable skill is leaving or planning to leave the country.) The trouble with that reasoning as I have pointed out before, is that you cannot vote democratically or otherwise about something you cannot control. In other words, for the Greeks to vote in favour of getting more money from other EU member states was pointless - it is the other states that were going to decide on that and they, too, have people and electorates.

The sad truth is (well, sad from the Greek point of view) that it is they who are desperate to stay in the eurozone while the other members do not seem to care all that much. My suspicion is that most of the big banks and government departments in German, France and the other countries have been making various plans for a Grexit and will be more or less prepared. Not fully, of course, as one can never be fully prepared for something like that, but more or less. Whether the Greek government has made any plans remains a moot point. For the time being they are hanging on in there and I do mean the eurozone.

Will the Greek government survive in Greece? That remains to be seen but I predict that they will. No other real alternative is being presented. Tsipras is facing a rebellion in Syriza but is being supported by the opposition parties. A good deal of hysterical nonsense is being spouted:

Greek Energy Minister and Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis said yesterday, “Our so-called partners led by the German establishment, behaved towards our country as being their colony and they are nothing more than brutal blackmailers and financial assassins.”

Clearly, even elementary knowledge of economic facts is not a requirement in the Greek government. As for political understanding, don't even think of it. Greece has been a colony of the EEC/EC/EU ever since it joined and its own political establishment, backed by its electorate has done nothing to change that situation.

Meanwhile, the agreement might (though probably won't) be scuppered by the German Bundestag who seem to think that democracy and voting is not just for the Greeks.

“The package is neither credible nor viable,” centre-right MP Klaus-Peter Willsch told Tagesspiegel.

MPs from the larger of the two centre-right parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Wolfgang Bosbach and Willsch announced their intentions to vote “no” on Friday, just as they have in previous votes regarding Greek aid.

Still, most of the Bundestag’s centre-right, Social Democrats and Greens are expected to vote “yes” on a mandate the German government needs for negotiations on a third bailout for Greece. The Left Party is expected to reject the plan. In a second vote, the Bundestag would later have to agree to the new assistance programme.

The agreement established on Monday (13 July) morning in Brussels is a further attempt to “patch-up cracks in the system with a lot of money”, Willsch said. Among other things, he criticised the scope of the planned €50 billion trust fund. This was already recorded as a privatisation target in the first bailout package, but not even 10% of it was actually achieved.

Hans-Peter Friedrich, the deputy chair of the centre-right group in the Bundestag, expressed his doubts over reform pledges from Greece’s left-wing government.

“I do not believe one word the Greek communists say anymore,” Friedrich told Bild.

Looking at it from another point of view, I cannot help wondering whether the sort of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that is to be seen on the left of our own political spectrum, especially among the europhiliacs, has anything to do with the fact that the Greek government that is allegedly being "humiliated" is of the fairly extreme left-wing variety. Would we see the same if it had been of the right?

Brendan O'Neill has written an excellent piece on the born again left-wing eurosceptics who are in agony because the poor Greeks and their left-wing government is being so badly treated.

But I’m not feeling very welcoming to these latter-day doubters, currently live-tweeting their Euro-existential angst and clogging their newspaper columns with tortured questions about whether the EU really is a ‘great achievement of enlightened internationalism’. (Answer: no, you donuts.) For two reasons.

Firstly because it’s just too late. Where the hell were you guys in 2001, when the Irish people rejected the Nice Treaty and were subjected to a tirade of abuse from EU officials before being made to vote again? Where were you in 2005, when the Dutch and French peoples were libelled by EU officials as racists and xenophobes and ‘the generally pissed off’ for having the temerity to reject the EU Constitution? Where were you in 2006 and 2007 when some of eastern Europe’s elected leaders were told by Brussels to tone down their political rhetoric or face being found in contravention of EU obligations? Greece is far from the first European nation to have its democratic impulse nulled by Brussels bureaucrats.

I’ll tell you where you were back then: you were on the side of the Eurocrats sneering at the pesky masses. You treated criticism of Europe as a kind of mental malaise: Europhobia. And you let it be known that all good people, like you, back the EU, whereas only bad people — racists, nationalists, fat blokes with the St George’s Cross tattooed on their arses — oppose it. You formed a chattering-class ring of steel around the EU, deflecting all critical jabs and barbs as the unhinged mutterings of the generally pissed-off. So, yeah, your Damascene conversion to the cause of Euro-questioning is a tad irritating, to be frank.

The second reason I’m not rolling out the red carpet for these people coming around to a way of thinking they once branded a phobia is because they’re doing it wrong. They aren’t genuinely opposed to the EU; they’re just really angry with Germany. In fact, much of this oh-so-late Euroscepticism, especially from the left, is really anti-German sentiment in disguise. It’s the return of the British disease: a hives-like allergy to all things German and a rash fear that this nation is once again plotting to subject all of Europe to its black, unforgiving boot.

As a matter of fact I, too, am fed up with the stupid cry of "Nazi Germany marches again" and "Merkel is just like Hitler". No, this Germany is not Nazi, Merkel is nothing like Hitler, the country is a democracy and has to pay attention to its own people and, in any case, the other putative donors (there is no point in pretending that these are loans) are not too happy with Greece either.

This is what I said on the anniversary of the bringing down of the Berlin Wall:

And now, my fellow eurosceptics, let us do a little bit of maths. The Federal Republic of Germany, popularly known as West Germany, became a constitutional democracy in May 1949, that is sixty-five years ago. That democracy was strong enough to take in twenty-five years ago a section of Germany that had been a Communist country for forty years. Since then united Germany has had many problems (haven't we all?), both economic and political but it has remained a democracy and there seems not possibility of it being anything else. As against that, the Nazi regime lasted for twelve years. That's twelve years against sixty-five and twenty-five. Could we now stop talking about Germany as being always and for ever potentially Nazi?

Obviously no, we cannot get out of that stupid rut for if we did we might have to think a little more seriously about the present and the future.

Many of the people who have been raising the wicked Germans oppressing the Greeks cry found themselves spluttering with fury when it became apparent that Britain would have to contribute £1 billion to the short-term funding (there really is no money there). The UK is, therefore, opposing any immediate solution that would involve British taxpayer's money. As I am one of them I have no objections to that stance (though it ignores certain other funds) but I am a little perplexed by people's attitude of being generous at Germany's and other eurozone countries' expense.

A diplomatic source said Monday that Poland too would oppose the use of EFSM to provide emergency cash for Greece.

The source added that even some eurozone countries are wary of the bridge-funding idea, saying Greece has enough money to meet its short-term needs.

Other solutions to provide the bridge-funding have been aired, for instance, the use of SMP profits - the profits made on Greek bonds by the ECB and eurozone national banks - or bilateral loans to Greece from countries including France and Italy.

"I foresee those negotiations being very difficult because I don't see many countries having a mandate to give money without any conditions", Finnish finance minister Alex Stubb said Monday.

Arriving at the Ecofin meeting on Tuesday, Luxembourg finance minister Pierre Gramegna said there is "no ready product on the table yet" and that ministers would listen to experts from the euro working group who have been tasked to work on the issue.

According to Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble proposed at Monday's Eurogroup that Greece issues IOUs to repay its debt to the IMF and ECB.

Well, that should solve it. Would IOUs be acceptable to Greek pride about which we have been hearing so much recently?

Just to make things worse, the IMF tells us that they are actually worse than we think. Much worse.

A secret International Monetary Fund study showed Greece needs far more debt relief than European governments have been willing to contemplate so far, as Germany heaped pressure on Athens on Tuesday to reform and win back its partners' trust.

The IMF's stark warning on Athens' debt was leaked as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras struggled to persuade deeply unhappy leftist lawmakers to vote for a package of austerity measures and liberal economic reforms to secure a new bailout.

The study, seen by Reuters, said European countries would have to give Greece a 30-year grace period on servicing all its European debt, including new loans, and a dramatic maturity extension. Or else they must make annual transfers to the Greek budget or accept "deep upfront haircuts" on existing loans.

That is a complex, technical way of saying that Greece is going to be kept going by the rest of us, that debts will not be repaid, that no reforms will be sufficient to solve the problems and .... that we shall all have to keep them going. Even colonies are stronger economically than that.

Is there a solution to any of this? I am not sure anybody knows what it might be. Certainly leaving the eurozone might be a starting point for Greece but it will still have the debts and an dysfunctional economy. Leaving without some idea of what to do next will solve nothing.

As I said, it is not over, not by a long chalk.

About Greece

Yes, I did see the news yesterday but thought I'd wait with the blogging for a few hours in the hopes that somebody somewhere is going to say something interesting. So far, my hopes have been in vain. So, let me get a few points out there.

First of all, it is worth noting that the turn-out for the referendum was lower than expected, only 62.5 per cent though I am told by one knowledgeable reader of this blog that the figure is in line with electoral turn-outs. Of those who turned out 61.3 per cent voted No and 38.7 per cent Yes. Why didn't more people bother to vote? Unlike their jubilant supporters here the Greek population may have realized that they were between a rock and a hard place and it would not matter which way the vote went, particularly as the supposed offer they were being asked to accept or reject was not really on the table any more. 

It is also reasonable to assume that being told to vote Yes by foreign politicians and retired domestic ones who may be said to have got the country into a mess (with some help from the electorate) had the usual counter-effect. Why, said a number of Greek voters, should I listen to that bunch of losers?

What next? Well, nothing good. Prime Minister Tsipras is proclaiming that he now has a democratic mandate to negotiate better deals for funding from the other countries. What he seems to have forgotten is that those countries also have people and popular opinion and they have not been asked whether they want to give more funding on better terms (no strings whatsoever) to a country that is never likely to pay any loans back. 

Meanwhile, the eurozone leaders are planning an emergency meeting but nobody is making any conciliatory noises. In fact "several euro countries' politicians were openly sceptical or hostile". We must assume that Alexis Tsipras might have expected that sort of an attitude. If he didn't he would have been living in an even more detached bubble than other politicians.

The Finance Minister we all got used to, Yannis Varoufakis, has resigned to make the Greek delegation more attractive to the potential donors Greece's EU partners. It's a little hard to tell whether that will work as a different Minister saying the same thing is unlikely to endear himself to those partners.

The new Finance Minister is Euclid Tsakalatos, an Oxford educated Marxist economist, a member of Syriza for some years. This is how Zerohedge describes him, 

An Oxford-educated economist, Mr Tsakalotos has much in common with the political elite of Westminster, having been educated at St Paul's school, before going on to read politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) as an undergraduate. He later completed his PhD in economics from Oxford in 1989.

The 55-year-old, who was born in Rotterdam, served as the chief economic spokesman and effective shadow finance minister for the Syriza-led government.

Unlike Mr Varoufakis, Mr Tsakalotos is no party outsider. He has been a member of Syriza for nearly a decade, serving as an MP in the Greek parliament since 2012.

Like many of his fellow Leftist parliamentarians, Mr Tsakalotos's background is as a jobbing Western academic rather than a career politician, having taught at the universities of Kent and Athens.

Yes, he is definitely a Marxist and wants Greece to stay in the euro.  There is something else about him: he seems to be quite friendly with Gerry Adams. Ruth Dudley Edwards tweeted a link to this article. Scroll down to picture number 4 with Mr Adams and Mr Tsakalatos.

The Telegraph had a good article about Mr Tsakalatos. No doubt those eurosceptics and would-be eurosceptics who are whooping with joy at the Greek vote will dismiss all this as nasty enemy propaganda but then they are not the ones who will have to suffer from the consequences of actions or lack of them by Greek politicians, elected by the Greek people and cheered on by them until payment day came around.

Let me say this now that I am profoundly depressed by what is happening in Greece not because the country is special in European history - it is not in its modern guise - but because this should not happen in any country. There is a mass exodus of the economically active and highly educated younger population to Germany in the first place and to other countries as well. (By the way, what exactly are we going to hear from the jubilant UKIPers when Greeks will come here and "take away the indigenous population's jobs?)

Nevertheless, I tend to dismiss all talk about proud Greeks and the humiliation inflicted on them. Ever since Greece has been a member of the EEC/EC.EU it has been largely supported by that organization, that is our money, through various funds and subsidies at first, loans later on. It seems that none of that humiliated the proud Greeks as much as the idea that they should pay the loans back.

For the moment we hear nothing about the possibility of Grexit, restoration of the drachma and attempts to build up the economy, painful though that process might be. Not so but far from it. We hear happy chortling about new funding and the need to keep Greece in the euro (as explained by Greek leaders, past and present). Well, we shall see.

I have a better idea

Some of this blog's readers would have seen one of the loopiest ideas in connection with the Greek crisis (going on for several years if not decades), the idea of crowdfunding. This amounts to a call to the people of Europe or European Union (which it is remains unclear) to contribute a small amount in order to rescue the Greek people from the mess they and their politicians have landed themselves in.

Thom Feeney, the onlie begetter of this idea explains it all here. The article is well worth reading in its entirety but here are a few choice quotes:

So, sat at the table after dinner, I started a crowdfunding campaign to try to rescue the Greek economy. Some basic maths told me that I only needed the entire population of Europe to donate €3.19 (£2.26) to reach the amount of the bailout fund. I included some nice perks for donating, including a Greek salad and holiday in Athens for two, and set up a page on IndieGoGo and a Twitter account.

To start with, someone ought to have pointed out to Mr Feeney that the population of "Europe", that is the EU as well as others through the IMF have already donated a good deal more than €3.19 to Greece and not a lot has been solved.

Secondly, somebody should have asked him who was going to pay for all the goodies that donors will receive (even on the assumption that a holiday in Athens for two would not be particularly expensive at the moment) and who will pay the people who will be organizing the various perks and their delivery.

Thirdly, I hope somebody reminded him that on past experience, even if he raises the required money (over and above the expense mentioned) and gets it to the Greek people, somehow by-passing the government and its many many minions, he will have to do it all over again in about six months' time, maybe sooner.

I set up the crowdfunding campaign to support the Greek bailout because I was fed up with the dithering of our politicians. Every time a solution to bail out Greece is delayed, it’s a chance for politicians to posture and display their power, but during this time the real effect is on the people of Greece.

I wondered, could the people of Europe just have a crack at fixing this? Less talk, more direct action. If we want to sort it, let’s JFDI (just effing do it)! On Tuesday, between leaving for work and returning home, the crowdfunding page had raised over €200,000 in around six hours, which was incredible. This isn’t just about raising the cash, though. In providing the perks, we would be stimulating the Greek economy through trade – buying Greek products and employing Greeks to source and send the perks out.

The way to help a struggling economy is by investment and stimulus – not austerity and cuts. This crowdfunding is a reaction to the bullying of the Greek people by European politicians, but it could easily be about British politicians bullying the people of the north of England, Scotland and Wales. I want the people of Europe to realise that there is another option to austerity, despite what David Cameron and Angela Merkel tell you.

The reaction has been tremendous, I’ve received thousands of goodwill message and as I write almost €630,000 has been pledged by more than 38,000 donors. Many Greek people are messaging me to say how overjoyed they are to hear that real people around Europe care about them. It must be hard when you think the rest of the continent is against you.

I trust Mr Feeney has already invested in the Greek economy, perhaps went on holiday there every year since the crisis began and bought many goodies that come from that country. Otherwise, his slightly off-beam lectures on economic reality are pointless.

Anyway, the truth is that €630,000 will get us nowhere and if Greece wants to get out of the mess it is in (I am sure it does) there will have to be some hard economic thinking in that country. Lots of weepy crowd-funding and hand-outs will get us nowhere.

Having said that, I may remind everyone that I do have a much better idea and that, too, involves public fund raising or, as it is known nowadays, crowd-funding. Let us put together the money needed to buy the remaining Parthenon Marbles and bring them over to the British Museum. About a third of the original are no longer in existence but at least two thirds will be reunited and well looked after. Now that is something I am happy to contribute to. As to Greek salad (something I can and do make) or signed whatever from Tsipras - pfft. And that goes for that holiday in smog-ridden Athens. Let us buy the Pathenon Marbles.

Some good news and a modest proposal

As we all watch with great fascination the ever more violent civil war in UKIP (pity the poor blogger who has to keep on top of things) it is good to be able to report that there is some good news around.

It seems that the Greek government has very sensibly decided not to pay Mrs Clooney's exorbitant fees follow her advice about going to the International Court of Human Rights to claim the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum.

Mrs Clooney reportedly submitted a 150-page report to the Greek government this week urging it to formally request the repatriation of the marbles and take Britain to the International Court of Justice if it refused.

But Greece's culture minister Nikos Xydakis told the country's Mega TV: "One cannot go to court over whatever issue. Besides, in international courts the outcome is uncertain".

He said he believed attitudes to the future of the Marbles were slowly changing and would favour Greece in a diplomatic approach.

That, I suspect, is a polite way of saying "we are not going to get those Marbles and may as well accept defeat with dignity and not spend huge sums on the case when we are trying to show ourselves to be really poor and in need of help".

Meanwhile, here is my modest proposal: the Greek government is really rather short of money; a good many people think that the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles should be reunited though, as it happens, about a third of the original are missing, having been destroyed over the centuries. Why do we not have a public subscription to buy the Marbles that are still in Greece and are not nearly so well looked after as the ones here and bring them over to the British Museum. I appreciate that a new gallery would have to be built but the Museum has been expanding in any case and something could be arranged.

One source of cash might be those disillusioned UKIP donors who may well be looking for some better cause to support.

Well, what else can HMG say?

Yesterday's Starred Questions (I think they are now known as Oral Questions in a further attempt to make the House of Lords as useless as the House of Commons but this blog prefers the traditional name) included one about the new Greek government and HMG's relationship with it.

Absolutely top-hole, said Baroness Anelay of St Johns who happens to be the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office:

My Lords, the Government’s first priority is to establish a strong working relationship with Greece’s new Government. Last week, the Prime Minister called Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the telephone to congratulate him, and yesterday the Chancellor met the new Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis. The UK remains committed to working closely with the new Government on the full range of bilateral, EU, NATO and wider international issues.

Well, fairly top-hole anyway.

Lord Clinton Davis, a former Commissioner and a man who is, therefore, in receipt of a handsome pension from the European Commission but he does not have to declare that as an interest, followed his original question by the following:

My Lords, are not the poor and many middle-class people in Greece enduring unbelievable hardship? What are the United Kingdom Government able to do to mitigate this disaster? Are the people of Greece able to look forward in any way? It is hardly surprising that they are resorting to radical measures. What can the Government do, given that Britain is a member of the European Union, to alleviate their plight?

The Minister then proceeded to give the noble Peer some elementary lessons in EU structures:

My Lords, we are indeed a member of the EU, but we are not a member of the eurozone; so I would gently say to the noble Lord that we are not directly involved in Greece’s debt repayment negotiations, and nor indeed should we be. Of course, we are open to the discussions with the Greek Government, as I explained in my first Answer. The discussions yesterday were cordial and constructive, and that was the interpretation of both the Greek Finance Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I say, we are open to discussions, but since we are not a member of the eurozone we are not the country that will take the decision about how the Greek Government may decide to present their plans—which possibly will be next week. I know that they are working hard to achieve that.

The rest of the discussion amounted to very little. After all, what can anyone say at this stage? We have no idea what the Greek government will come up with and what of their initial proposals will be real as opposed to just bargaining chips.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch did say the unsayable (he often does, as readers of this blog know):

My Lords, given the euro’s catastrophic effect on jobs and prosperity, should not our top priority be to encourage Greece, and indeed the other euro member states, to abandon it? If that led to the collapse of the whole project of European integration, would that not be hugely beneficial to us all? Just in case the Minister does not agree with me, can she tell noble Lords what is now the point of the European Union and its wretched euro?

To which HMG in the shape of Baroness Anelay replied:

My Lords, it is clear that the stand-off between Greece and the eurozone is fast becoming the biggest risk to the global economy and is a rising threat to our economy at home. I say that, and indeed the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it yesterday after his meeting with the Greek Finance Minister. It is up to Europe to come to a conclusion which means that Greece can remain part of the euro, that the European Union can prosper, and that jobs and growth can continue. That is the way forward for success in Europe and for the success of this country in Europe.

Not much else it can say.

Not looking good

Greece, readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear, is still in trouble and, as that great economist, Vicky Pryce put it in today's Evening Standard, this shows that the Eurozone's troubles are not over (did anyone actually believe they were?). In fact,

Stock markets across Europe have been falling as Greek troubles threaten to bring down the whole EU economy.

Ms Pryce ought to realize that there is no such thing as "the whole EU economy" but, clearly, Greece's continuing troubles do not help. Neither do the various other problems:

This time Greece is not alone. There are worries about growth prospects in China, concerns about the struggling Japanese economy, and fears that the decline in the price of oil reflects a slump in demand due to weakening world growth. In the UK, the FTSE 100 was 6.6 per cent down in the week, as energy companies took big hits, with Brent crude falling to $61 a barrel on Friday, less than half the price of $115 a barrel in June this year. Concerns about stagnation and deflation led to widespread falls in stock markets across the eurozone.

With Italy back in recession and France in increasing difficulty, one might imagine Greece’s problems are small by comparison. After all, the country represents no more than two per cent of the eurozone’s GDP. But it has become the symbol of the eurozone’s sustainability.

Greece’s fresh problems have been exacerbated by a return to political instability. Greece had been given an extension of two months to meet its bail-out conditions for the final instalment for its €250 billion loan from the “troika” of the European Central Bank, European Union and IMF. This in turn meant that Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras could not obtain agreement to exit the conditional arrangements of the bail-out package by the end of this year, as Ireland and Portugal have done.

So, a snap presidential election by MPs will happen and the EU is apparently worrying:

EU commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Greece against electing "extreme forces" into power and said he would prefer "known faces" - so far the strongest intervention of the EU top brass in the Greek campaign.

"I think that the Greeks - who have a very difficult life - know very well what a wrong election result would mean for Greece and the eurozone," Juncker said during an Austrian public tv debate with EUobserver and several other Brussels-based journalists.

He steered clear of explicit political advice ahead of presidential elections in Greece next week but said: "I wouldn't like extreme forces to come to power."

The presidential elections - to be held in the Greek parliament on 17 December - could trigger early parliamentary elections, if there are three failed attempts to elect a president.

Will the Greeks listen to these wise words? Who can tell? Just in case, Pierre Moscovici, the Economics Commissioner has flown to Athens for last minute negotiations:

Moscovici’s visit is meant to focus on reaching agreement on the last economic reforms Greece must make before the final tranche of €1.8 billion from its €240 billion bailout is paid out - however the dynamics of the presidential election are set to take centre stage.

Antonis Samaras’ governing coalition, led by the centre-right New Democracy party, brought forward the presidential elections this month in a bid to stave off early parliamentary elections that it fears could bring the left-wing Syriza opposition to power.

The vote will be held in the Greek parliament on 17 December. It could trigger parliamentary elections, if there are three failed attempts to elect a president.

The government is reliant on the support of several minor parties for its majority and has raised the spectre of Greece being forced out of the eurozone if Syriza takes power.

Meanwhile, things are not looking good in Belgium, either. Indeed, it has been "paralyzed by a general strike".

The entire Belgian airspace is closed on Monday (15 December), as well as high-speed trains from Brussels to London, Paris and Amsterdam and local buses, trams and metro lines, as part of a general strike over public sector cuts.

Schools, government offices and private firms are also likely to be closed on Monday. Garbage will not be picked up and newspapers will not be delivered.

Serious traffic jams are expected around Brussels and Antwerp, with transport trade unions calling on truck drivers to join in and "paralyse the country".

Trade unions already staged a huge march which ended in violent clashes with police a month ago, when the government first announced the plans to save €11 billion over the next five years. The measures include scrapping an automatic indexation of salaries next year and raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 from 2030.

Belgium last month was flagged up together with Italy and France and given time until March to bring its budget in order or face extra scrutiny from the EU commission.

Unlike France, Belgium is sticking to the three-percent budget deficit rule, but its public debt is set to reach 107.8 percent of GDP in 2017, compared to 104.5 percent last year. Under EU rules, countries should keep their public debt below 60 percent of GDP.

If memory serves me right, this kind of thing was not going to happen once the euro was established.

This might sound familiar

I have been re-reading Harold Nicolson's Diaries and Letters and have now reached the third volume, which starts in July 1945 when he lost his parliamentary seat and returned to literary activity as well as the odd lecture here and there.

This is what his son and editor of the three volumes, Nigel Nicolson wrote:

On 25th October [1945] Harold Nicolson flew to Greece to give two lectures in Athens, one on Byron, the other on British democracy. His visit coincided with a new crisis in Greek politics. Greece had had no government since the resignation of Admiral Voulgaris earlier that month, and the Regent, Archbishop Damaskinos, was searching for a new leader to stabilize the country politically and economically. 

 On October 31 Harold Nicolson went to see the Regent.

I find the Regent sitting enormous with his back to the window. We have coffee and cigarettes. After compliments of the highest order the Regent tells me that the Royalists and the Liberals are meeting this afternoon to agree on a joint programme. I ask who would be Prime Minister in such a fusion. He says it would probably be 'a neutral'.I say it would have to be a pretty strong neutral. The Regent says the parties would be so evenly balanced that great strength would not be required. I say the economic situation is far more urgent than the political situation. He makes a helpless gesture indicating 'What would you?'.

On returning to London Nicolson spoke to Hector McNeil, who was then Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. This is his entry of November 6:

I go to see Hector McNeil at the Foreign Office. He is being sent out to Athens to examine the situation and to 'assist Greece in her efforts for reconstruction'. I tell him that the economic situation comes before anything else, and that to my mind no existing Greek politician or group of politicians have the guts or the repute to apply to the situation the drastic remedies which it needs. The only thing to do is to choose the best Government, and then to assist it by appointing British advisers to the Ministries of Finance and Supply.

Some things have changed. Britain, clearly, is no longer in a position to help or advise the Greeks in their choice of government but the EU has tried to do it on our behalf. The Communist party is no longer as strong as it used to be and not as heavily armed. For the following year, 1946, civil war broke out in Greece in real earnest.

Greece makes unwelcome appearance

As it is the German election campaign, the appearance is very unwelcome. Chancellor Merkel who remains favourite to win but it is not clear by how much has tried to keep the subject of Greece out of the campaign. Not so the Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble.

Yesterday he cheerfully announced at an election event in northern Germany that there will have to be another "programme" in Greece. Not that this is exactly a surprise to anyone but the German electorate cannot relish the thought of it.

Some news items of interest

First off, Greece. These last couple of years have been quite dizzying for those who follow affairs in that country - never has it been so high up in the news so often before. Well, not since the Battle of Navarino and Lord Byron's demise.

The Greek Parliament has passed a Bill which is supposed to cut the civil service by 15,000 by the end of next year. It seems that this Bill has gone against the constitution, which had guaranteed public sector jobs for life. That, I have to say, is the most bizarre constitutional practice I have ever heard of. In fact, I am rather surprised that the infamous Constitution for Europe a. k. a. the Lisbon Treaty did not have an Article of that kind in it.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Continent and the spectrum, Iceland has just taken another step away from EU membership.

Centre-right opposition parties in Iceland are set for a return to power with all the votes counted after Saturday's parliamentary election.

The Independence party polled 26.7% and the Progressive party 24.4%, putting them on track to win 38 of the 63 seats.

The ruling Social Democrats' share of the vote dropped to below 13%.

Not only are the two parties that will now negotiate likely to try to concentrate on economic growth, they are also, much more importantly, eurosceptic.

Two new parties performed particularly well: Bright Future, which won six seats, and the Pirate party, with three.

The Social Democrats saw their share of the vote fall dramatically to 12.9% (nine seats) while the Left-Greens' vote fell to 10.9% (seven seats).

Social Democrat leader Arni Pall Arnason, while disappointed, refused to acknowledge that the two centre-right parties had been given a major vote of confidence. "Their democratic mandate to change society is absolutely zero," he said.

Of course, one needs to talk one's own party up in politics but this is overdoing things somewhat.

Next time ...

... you see Greek demonstrators brandishing pictures of Chancellor Merkel in Nazi uniform remember that Golden Dawn, the self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi party has members in the Greek Parliament and its current support stands at 12 per cent. They are doing considerably better than UKIP is here and that is not just because of the different electoral system.

Der Spiegel reports that the party is forming links with German Neo-Nazis, particularly in Bavaria and Nuremberg.

About that Peace Prize

As readers of this blog know, I tend to dissolve into hysterical laughter whenever the Nobel Peace Prize is mentioned. Until they give it to the US Marine Corps for bringing more peace and freedom to more places than there are countries in the UN, the whole thing will remain a joke. Nevertheless, it was a particularly joyous occasion when the EU, that corrupt and undemocratic organization got it for keeping the peace and promoting democratic values and freedom. (Oh dear, I am sorry, you will have to wait till I stop laughing.)

David Hughes, who is the Daily Telegraph's chief leader writer, is not happy with the whole concept of freedom in the EU. Specifically, he is worried about freedom in Greece. Well, press freedom. No journo ever worries about any other kind but, I suppose, even worrying about press freedom shows that his heart is in the right place.

The silence from Brussels is deafening. In Athens a Greek newspaper editor, Costas Vaxevanis, faces imprisonment for printing a list of prominent Greeks who have squirrelled away their fortunes in Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes. He could spend two years in prison if convicted. This assault on the freedom of the press exposes the deep fissures in Greek society – between a moneyed elite who ruthlessly game the system for their own ends, and the hoi-polloi who are bearing the brunt of austerity measures.

The Greek press is rallying round but the EU is doing nothing.

What exactly is the EU supposed to do? Send in the marines? That would be the Royal Marines and I cannot see such a move being particularly popular or effective, though I have the highest possible regard for that fine body of men and, I believe, nowadays women. Maybe they could share that Peace Prize.

Of course, it can make a stiff pronouncement but does the EU believe in democratic freedoms all that much? The EU, after all, thinks that  a referendum that is comes out with the wrong results should simply be run again (and, presumably, again) to get the right result.

Besides, we know what would happen if the EU or some part of it did intervene. We would get the usual "Nazi invasion" screams from all sides, especially from the Golden Dawn, whose spokesman, according to this account, read out, approvingly, from the Protocol of the Elders of Zion.

Peace in our time

Readers of this blog will recall that the European Union received its Nobel Peace Prize for, among other reasons, bringing peace and prosperity to Southern Europe, after years under authoritarian dictatorship and civil war. Well, how is that shaping up, one wonders.

Two items of news provide some sort of partial information as it is difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on in the country as a whole.

The Daily Mail gives us a story with suitable pictures of young neo-Nazi gangs attacking immigrants, their homes and businesses and daubing swastikas on walls. I presume these are not the same gangs of young people who greeted Chancellor Angela Merkel with jolly Nazi uniforms and pictures of her as Hitler. The Greeks really do have to make up their minds whose victims they are. (Answer: their own and, especially, of their politicians but they do keep electing them.)

Meanwhile, Golden Dawn, which has representatives in Parliament, denies that they are neo-Nazi (all a misunderstanding, guv) but proclaim that they are Greek nationalists who want Greece to be reclaimed by Greeks. That, of course, is a laudable aim but it is not entirely clear how they propose to do it beyond getting rid of all immigrants.

One of the complaints voiced by those attacked by the gangs is that the police proclaim themselves to be too busy to investigate them. Given how often we hear that in this country, I am not sure that is necessarily sinister but the BBC has gone after another story that also demonstrates that there is peace and love and joy across the European Union, even its southernmost members.

There is, according to this, evidence that some of the police are in collusion with Golden Dawn, the anti-immigrant party that uses neo-Nazi symbolism purely for aesthetic reasons. In parenthesis, let me add how odd it is to see the Daily Mail and the BBC going after the same story from the same point of view. They usually do it only if there is something anti-American involved.

It is hard to tell how wide-spread the problem is and whether it is true that Greeks are preparing for a civil war. Golden Dawn undoubtedly has 18 members of Parliament, which indicates electoral success and support. How much of that is protest voting is hard to tell. Given the venality and incompetence of most Greek politicians, protest voting is quite understandable though, for some reason, it did not go to any party with more or less liberal (in the real sense of the word) policies.

That the situation is extraordinarily difficult there one cannot deny; that there seems to be no solution proposed beyond pleas to the EU (or the German government) to lighten the burden is also clear. I don't exactly believe stories of people starving as they are usually produced by organizations who hope to raise money for themselves on the back of those stories. But that there are extremist groups hoping to benefit from the mess is certain. Will that lead to a civil war in the near future? Given modern Greek history, the chances of that are very high.

I suppose they could take this advice from City AM: Greece must stop hitting snooze and wake up to economic reform. Somehow, I don't think they will. Decades of national victimhood are not easy to overcome.

One election result still outstanding

Last Sunday there were three elections. The French parliamentary ones that went largely as expected (though Ségolène Royal lost her seat and the first round against First Girlfriend Valérie Trierweiler and Marin Le Pen's niece has become the youngest MP (one of two for the NF) while auntie lost by 118 votes.

The French electoral system was changed from proportional representation to first past the post in the late eighties specifically to keep the National Front out. This does not seem to be working any more.

The Greek election went as one would have expected and, truth to tell, nothing much has changed though they do now have a government.

That leaves the second round of the Egyptian presidential election, the results of which will be announced tomorrow but the Muslim Brotherhood is already declaring victory. Whether they will be able to keep it remains questionable. The general opinion is that the military will not give up power.

The Wall Street Journal has a sober appraisal of what is likely to happen in the country but seem to be under the misapprehension that there was a moment from the fall of Mubarak (who may or may not have died) when the army was not in control. The truth is that it was an army coup that toppled Mubarak not a popular revolution. Since then the Supreme Council of Armed Forces has been in power. More than that: the army owns a great deal of Egypt's economy. As this article puts it:

Until this very day, the role of the military establishment in the economy remains one of the major taboos in Egyptian politics. Over the past thirty years, the army has insisted on concealing information about its enormous interests in the economy and thereby keeping them out of reach of public transparency and accountability. The Egyptian Armed Forces owns a massive segment of Egypt’s economy—twenty-five to forty percent, according to some estimates. In charge of managing these enterprises are the army’s generals and colonels, notwithstanding the fact that they lack the relevant experience, training, or qualifications for this task.

The military’s economic interests encompass a diverse range of revenue-generating activities, including the selling and buying of real estate on behalf of the government, domestic cleaning services, running cafeterias, managing gas stations, farming livestock, producing food products, and manufacturing plastic table covers. All this information is readily available on the websites of relevant companies and factories, which publicly and proudly disclose that they belong to the army. Yet for some reason the military establishment insists on outlawing any public mention of these activities.

The question we have to ask ourselves, disregarding the analysis given by the media, is whether that is the worst case scenario for Egypt.

Inevitable, really

When things go wrong, blame someone else; when things are really difficult, start beating up those who look a bit different. That seems to be happening in Greece where it has become a little hard to go on and on about Chancellor Merkel being the new reincarnation of the Gestapo because she thinks Greece should try not living on German money since the Golden Dawn has done well in the elections.

It seems that the usual anti-foreigner riots are beginning to break out with journalists who try to film what is going on getting beaten up as well. I assume the fact that the journalist in question was Israeli was merely a coincidence.

I do love the comment made by the Greek ambassador to Israel:

The ambassador emphasized that the attack was "an isolated incident and is in no way indicative of the overall situation in Athens, where citizens and visitors enjoy a safe, secure and hospitable environment."

He added that the incident does not reflect or represent Greek values or traditions, a people who "have fought hard in their history not only for freedom, but also for the freedom of thought and expression, non-discrimination and tolerance."

Uh-huh!

Meanwhile the BBC has seen fit to report the "far-right MP's" assault at his left-wing colleague, who happens to be female, which makes the story even more piquant.

Of course violence is not new in Greek politics nor is it confined to what our media calls "the far-right". Left-wing demonstrators murdered three bank employees (one of whom was pregnant so it is really four people killed) during strikes in 2010.

Attacks on right wing politicians by trade unions are not unknown and neither is violence in debates by Communist MPs. Still, an actual brawl in Parliament may be raising political discussion to a new level.

"Greece's best hopes now lie in a return to the drachma"

So says Der Spiegel. Man the barricades - those evil Germans are on the move again, talking sense at last.

Election in Greece

Reuters reports that there will be a snap election in Greece on May 6. What makes it a "snap election" I wonder.

Here are the figures

As readers of this blog know I have very little time for Open Europe's endless call for that elusive reform of the EU. However, when they deal with facts, they are worth listening to as they have the resources and they use them to produce good research of primary material.

Here is their analysis of the second Greek bail-out. The figures are not good. Well, you would not have expected them to be so. Reading the key points will take a couple of minutes. Then go and have a stiff drink.

Stupid, tedious and counterproductive

That is all I can say about the recent upsurge of Germanophobia as part of the Greek crisis. The Greeks are spending all the time they can spare from rioting and burning fine buildings producing pictures of German leaders in Nazi uniform because, forsooth, they have dared to say that it is time the country started cutting back on its insane spending  that use other people's money.

Furthermore, it would seem that Angela Merkel shows herself to be an heir to Hitler when she begins to suggest through policy if not words that, perhaps, Greece would be better off outside the eurozone. Well, wouldn't Greece be better off with her own currency? Of course, she would and almost everyone has now acknowledged it. Yet the same people who proclaim that this, indeed, is the only solution, painful though it might be in the short term also scream abuse at Germans because that is what they are, in all probability trying to achieve.

The Boss on EURef is fed up and so am I. Let me count the ways in which this dumb.

The Greeks are going to get nowhere by screaming that it is not their fault, guv, not even their venal and incompetent politicians' fault but that of the nasty Jerries.

The newspapers that are producing improbably and misleading stories implying that democratic Germany not wishing to pour more money into Greece is exactly the same as Nazi Germany invading it are merely turning everybody's attention away from the real problems that have to do with the eurozone and the European project in general. But then, that is exactly what the Daily Wail wants to do.

Last but not least, this is playing into the colleagues' hands. As this blog has argued, the best way for the EU to cease to exist is for Germany to accept that it is an ordinary democratic state (as it has been despite all problems ever since the late forties in part and the early nineties in whole). Screaming that they are all Nazis, whipping up hatred and fear of Germany is exactly what the europhiliacs want for it is the best, indeed the only argument they have to promote the EU as the answer to a non-existent problem. Just how stupid are those eurosceptics (not least UKIP) who are playing this game?

How convenient

The Greek economic crisis is being blamed for all sorts of things, including poor security at their museums though reading the story of the break-in at the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity one can't help wondering whether the story would have been different at any other time. Still, this gives politicians a chance to pontificate and try to make everyone feel guilty:

The mayor of Olympia has told me there is a direct link between today's burglary and the policy of cuts and Greece's economic crisis.

He said he was very angry at the situation and the international community needed to realise how important these treasures were for Greece.

But not, obviously for some Greeks who do not mind stealing the treasures and smashing others in their eagerness to get to them.

At least the Elgin Marbles are safe.