Behind Germany’s refusal to grant Greece debt relief – Op-Ed in The Guardian

Yanis Varoufakis

Tomorrow’s EU Summit will seal Greece’s fate in the Eurozone. As these lines are being written, Euclid Tsakalotos, my great friend, comrade and successor as Greece’s Finance Ministry is heading for a Eurogroup meeting that will determine whether a last ditch agreement between Greece and our creditors is reached and whether this agreement contains the degree of debt relief that could render the Greek economy viable within the Euro Area. Euclid is taking with him a moderate, well-thought out debt restructuring plan that is undoubtedly in the interests both of Greece and its creditors. (Details of it I intend to publish here on Monday, once the dust has settled.) If these modest debt restructuring proposals are turned down, as the German finance minister has foreshadowed, Sunday’s EU Summit will be deciding between kicking Greece out of the Eurozone now or keeping it in for a little while longer, in a state of…

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Greece and Grexit

Deadly Medicine

Just before the Eurogroup’s summit, several prominent economists appealed to Chancellor Merkel in an open letter, asking that she take the Greek referendum as an opportunity for a course correction in the policy toward Greece. Among the signatories are Jeffrey Sachs, whose shock therapy is being held responsible for the serious economic collapse in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, and former State Secretary in the German Ministry of Finances, Heiner Flassbeck. “The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working,” write the economists. “As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy … and made the external debt crisis far worse.” The “humanitarian impact” has been “colossal.” For example “40 percent of children now live in poverty,” the “infant mortality is sky-rocketing” because of the austerity policy. “The medicine prescribed by Berlin and Brussels has bled the patient,” write the authors, not cured the disease. “It is having an impact on those, who were not even born at the beginning of the crisis.”[2] This is why the austerity dictate must be ended.

An Important Partner

Washington has even become involved in the debate. Yesterday, Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke by telephone to US Minister of Finances Jacob Lew and President Barack Obama. They spoke particularly about an accommodation loan, that Athens quickly needs, to bridge the gap until a third bail-out package begins, according to reports. Obama has “hopes” for an agreement that will definitely keep Greece in the Eurozone. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton also made similar demands. The EU must urgently “defuse” the crisis, says former Secretary of State and possible presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. “I want to see a resolution.” After all, Greece is “an important partner.”[3]

Geostrategic Bridgehead

For the USA, Greece is in fact an extremely important NATO partner. The political scientist Johannes Varwick has emphasized this point. According to Varwick, for the West, Greece serves as a “geostrategic bridgehead to the Middle East,” which was already “the reason” to have “Greece as a NATO partner in 1952.” To this date, “nothing has changed” in this respect, explains Varwick. It must be absolutely “avoided that there is a dislocation on NATO’s southeast flank,” explains the political scientist. “That means that as a prerequisite, for a stable opposite shore, the European realm must first of all, be stabilized, and therefore Greece …, even from a security policy standpoint, is a serious problem.”[4] Western allies’ support for Greece maintaining its expensive military budget is also due to its exposed geostrategic position. According to the SIPRI Institute in Stockholm, just last year, after the catastrophic cuts in pensions and social expenditures had long since been made, Greece invested a good 2.5 percent of its GDP in its military – much more than any of the other European NATO member countries. Last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that this must continue to be the case: “That is important for all.” Military spending were “not the reasons for the financial crisis in Greece.”[5] The Tsipras government has agreed to maintain the higher-than-average military spending.

No Other Option

Sunday, the EU special summit will make its final decision on Greece’s future. The Tsipras government either will then comply with the wishes of the Greek population, or again be forced to submit to the German-EU austerity dictate – possibly a bit veiled cosmetically. Berlin, as yesterday’s Eurogroup summit has confirmed, leaves no other option open.

via www.german-foreign-policy.com.

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