Greece Debt Crisis - Après Oxi

Deleted User wrote: »

Marine le Pen states "Austerity and the Euro are Siamese twins" and cites Krugman whilst encouraging Greece to leave the euro.

Just the ally Tsipras was hoping to have :-)

From Nigel Farage (my bold):

If you have got the courage you shold lead the Greek people out of the eurozone with your head held high.

Yes it will be tough for the first few months, but with a devalued currency and friends all over the world you will recover.

Wow - "a few tough months", that's either delusion or straight out bare-faced lying.

Bob24 wrote: »

MEPs are really giving Tsipras a good beating (not that he doesn't deserve it).

Wondering how he will react as it is becoming clear Grexit has now became plan A.

It's high time he faced effective opposition from elected parliamentarians who aren't tainted as much of the Greek parliamentary opposition has been.

The way this is playing out is very bizzare

All the E.U. finance ministers are complaining that Greece have no proposals

Greece have a very obvious proposal. They want a write off of Greek debt and an end to the anti growth austerity that has seen Greek GDP collapse, or else they will pull out of the euro and default on all the ECB debt.

While the E.U. berate the Greeks for not bringing any proposals to the table, it's the ECB that have no plan for Greece to emerge from their economic crisis. Further tax increases and cuts to government spending will deflate the Greek economy even further. The ECB 'plan' is demonstably not working for Greece.

The IMF agree with Greece that the debt is unsustainable. The ECB are the fringe extremists who are trying to bully everyone else and they can not justify their own policies with reference to any coherent economic theory.

Deleted User wrote: »

Marine le Pen states "Austerity and the Euro are Siamese twins" and cites Krugman whilst encouraging Greece to leave the euro.

A supposed left-winger whose chief supporters in the EP so far have been Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen?

As I've said elsewhere, Syriza is not a left-wing party - it's a party of xenophobic nationalists.

And that's why the likes of Farage and Le Pen are fans.

Akrasia wrote: »

The way this is playing out is very bizzare

All the E.U. finance ministers are complaining that Greece have no proposals

Greece have a very obvious proposal. They want a write off of Greek debt and an end to the anti growth austerity that has seen Greek GDP collapse, or else they will pull out of the euro and default on all the ECB debt.

While the E.U. berate the Greeks for not bringing any proposals to the table, it's the ECB that have no plan for Greece to emerge from their economic crisis. Further tax increases and cuts to government spending will deflate the Greek economy even further. The ECB 'plan' is demonstably not working for Greece.

The IMF agree with Greece that the debt is unsustainable. The ECB are the fringe extremists who are trying to bully everyone else and they can not justify their own policies with reference to any coherent economic theory.

Regardless of what they would like, it is just a hard fact that Greece showed-up with no written proposal yesterday, not sure how you can deny that ...

The ECB's mandate is around monetary stability, noone is expecting it to come up with a plan for the Greek economy (this is the job of the Greek leadership, the EZ's finance ministers, and to some extend the IMF).

Lastly, if Greece wants to follow the proposals of the IMF they could have mentioned that earlier - but we all know aside from the ones they have cherry-picked they don't are not interested in what the IMF is saying (which is much more demanding than what the EU is asking for and is why Syriza has regularly asked for the IMF to be excluded from a potential 3rd bailout plan).

Deleted User wrote: »

Not a single concrete reform proposal. Tsipras talks about tax reform, anti-corruption and counter acting clientelism in the abstract, that's not enough. Substance is required over soundbites.

It would have been helpful if he had given the European Parliament a list of reforms that the current Greek government had implemented in these areas since January.

Surely tax reform, anti-corruption measures and measures to counteract clientelism can be taken by the Greek government on its own initiative?

These are desirable goals to achieve in and of themselves even if Greece had a smoothly running economy.

According to many reports, Syriza has failed completely on the clientelism front, with a number of high profile supporters of Syriza being appointed to juicy public sector jobs, along with relatives of Syriza's leadership being appointed - e.g. Tsipras' cousin now has a job with Greece's foreign ministry.

And then there's the Syriza Speaker of Greece's parliament who simply shrugged off the fact that her mother had claimed child benefit for her up until two years ago, when she turned 37.

Syriza has also largely ignored Swiss offers to co-operate with Greece over bank accounts held by Greek citizens in Switzerland.

Based on what it has actually done since taking office, Syriza has proven to be little different to New Democracy or PASOK:

Ryan Heath ‏@PoliticoRyan 2 hrs2 hours ago

SLAM: Verhofstadt says #Syriza is just as bad at clientelism as past Govts - cites 12 of 13 new civil service directors from Syriza #Greece

Deleted User wrote: »

The debt was sustainable in December, and is now unsustainable. What has changed?

You've got me there!

Deleted User wrote: »

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (Polish Independent) calls for a military coup in the style of Pinochet and the destruction of the European Union.

Another Friend of Syriza? :eek:

In essence, Syriza is receiving support mainly from hard-left MEPs and right-wing (some far right-wing) eurosceptic and nationalist MEPs.