Calais migrant crisis: chaos will continue until weekend at least, police warn

Alan Travis Home affairs editor Thursday 30 July 2015

With more migrants expected to attempt to enter the Channel tunnel each night, Theresa May urges Eurotunnel to accelerate installation of £7m security fencing

Migrants step over the fence onto the train tracks at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais-Frethun Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA

Ministers are battling to control the Calais migrant crisis after police and travel operators warned that the chaos on both sides of the Channel would last until the weekend at least.

Dozens of French gendarmerie vans carrying more than 120 officers were sent to Calais on Wednesday afternoon to reinforce the official effort to prevent a renewed overnight attempt by migrants to enter the Channel tunnel to get to Britain.

After an emergency Cobra meeting of ministers in Whitehall, the home secretary, Theresa May, put strong political pressure on the Eurotunnel travel company to accelerate its installation of new £7m UK-funded security fencing around the approaches to the rail terminal at Coquelles.

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Eurotunnel said the railhead had become the target for migrants trying to cross to Britain in recent days as new security measures, including a temporary secure zone for lorries approaching the ferry port, had left the rail tunnel as the weakest link.

The company said 2,000 attempts by hundreds of migrants had been intercepted on Monday. This was followed by a further 1,500 attempts on Tuesday night when a Sudanese man, aged between 25 and 30, became the ninth person to die trying to access the tunnel since June.

Ministers are now braced for nightly scenes of migrants breaching fencing, raising fears of a repeat of the 2002 Sangatte crisis which was only resolved by Britain handing out four-year work permits to 1,200 Iraqis and Afghans and by moving the UK border control from Dover to Calais..

The home secretary, who also held crisis talks with her French opposite number, Bernard Cazeneuve, on Monday, said after the Cobra meeting: “The key thing is to make sure that we have got the security right at Coquelles. We are putting extra security fencing in at the railhead. There have been migrants particularly trying to get into the Eurotunnel and onto the trains before that security fencing is going up. We are pressing to get it up as soon as possible.”

May said the Cobra meeting had also agreed that the Department for Transport and Kent county council would urgently find options to reduce the disruption caused by redeployment of Operation Stack under which the M20 is closed outside Dover to turn it into a giant lorry park for vehicles waiting to cross the Channel by ferry.

However her hopes of early relief for Kent residents and for tourists trying to travel to France were dashed when Kent police announced that Operation Stack would remain in place at least into the weekend.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, who was in Dover on Tuesday, said an extra 120 French police officers would not solve the problem: “I went to Kent yesterday and I saw 148 of them who had made the journey and who were delighted because they had been successful in coming here, having evaded all this security, they actually managed to come here, so unless you do two things we are not going to solve this crisis.”

Vaz said migrants need to be returned to their country of origin once they have no right to stay in France, adding the EU has a responsibility to help Greece and Italy by stopping people crossing the Mediterranean from north Africa.

Lorries queued as part of Operation Stack along the M20 in Ashford, Kent. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

The acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, blamed the government for the fact that people trying to go on holiday were now stuck in traffic jams.

“What the government should be doing is getting the French to process the 3,500 to 4,000 people who are massed at Calais and need to be documented. Either they are genuine asylum seekers who should be given asylum or they should be deported.

“The government should have got on to this months earlier.”

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants agreed that the extra £7m announced on Monday by the government would be better invested in processing asylum applications rather than building higher fences. But they pointed to a Human Rights Watch report that showed Calais migrants were reluctant to claim asylum in France because of the lack of accommodation, lengthy processing times, reported police abuse and hostility from some sections of the local population.

May, however, said that the Anglo-French meeting, which had agreed a new repatriation scheme for the Calais migrants, particularly those from west Africa, was an important step forward.

In a joint communiqué published on Wednesday both countries agreed to work together on a returns programme and to step up their communication campaigns to inform migrants about their right to claim asylum in France and the realities of life for illegal migrants in Britain. Officials hinted at the possibility of joint Anglo-French removal flights to west Africa.

May said: “Ultimately, actually, the answer to this problem is to ensure we are reducing the number of migrants who are trying to come from Africa across into Europe, that we break the link between making that dangerous journey, as it often is for people, and coming to settle in Europe.”

Calais migrant crisis: chaos will continue until weekend at least, police warn | UK news | The Guardian

One dead as 1,500 migrants try to storm Eurotunnel terminal again: French police

 

Photo: Migrants walk along railway tracks at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais-Frethun. (AFP: Philippe Huguen)

Related Story: Britain to beef up border controls at Calais after migrant surge

Related Story: Traffic chaos at French port as migrants stow away in trucks to UK

Map: France

One person has been found dead following another attempt by 1,500 migrants to enter the Eurotunnel terminal in the French port town of Calais, a police source said.

"Our team found a corpse this morning (local time) and the fire-fighters have confirmed the death of this person," a Eurotunnel spokesman said.

The migrant, a man of Sudanese origin believed to be aged between 25 and 30, was hit by a truck that was leaving a cross-Channel ferry, the police source said.

The latest fatality brings the number of migrants who died near the Channel Tunnel terminal site to nine since June.

"Everything happened overnight, and at 6:00am (local time), the police still have quite a lot of work to do," the police source said, adding that "between 500 and 1,000 migrants" were still around the tunnel site.

The overnight attempts at storming the Eurotunnel terminal came just hours after thousands of migrants sought to enter the site on Tuesday, in what was described as the "biggest incursion effort in the past month and a half".

Photo: Migrants gather near the Eurotunnel terminal to try to climb in a shuttle heading to Great Britain. (AFP: Philippe Huguen)

The incident caused serious delays to the Eurotunnel service for much of Tuesday, with passengers held up for around an hour on the British side and 30 minutes on the French side.

"All our security personnel, that is nearly 200 people, as well as police were called in," the Eurotunnel spokesman said.

France's interior minister said 120 additional police officers would be sent to Calais to secure the Eurotunnel site.

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Eurotunnel "must also take responsibility" for securing its premises.

"This is normal... I am not looking to start an argument," Mr Cazeneuve said, as tensions rose between Paris and the Eurotunnel group which manages the tunnel under the Channel.

"The state has multiplied the number of security forces managing the Calais situation by five since 2012."

For several weeks, there have been many attempts by large numbers of migrants to enter the Eurotunnel premises.

Eurotunnel said on Wednesday that it had blocked over 37,000 migrants trying to enter its French premises and make their way to Britain since January.

British prime minister David Cameron expressed concern over the latest attempt to storm the tunnel during his visit to Singapore.

"This is very concerning," he said, adding that Britain was "working very closely" with French authorities to address the situation.

Mr Cameron said Britain was "doing everything we can" to prevent such incidents, including investing in fencing around the area, adding he did not want to "point fingers at people to blame".

The Eurotunnel company itself is seeking 9.7 million euros ($14.64 million) from the British and French governments in compensation for disruption caused by illegal migrants.

AFP

One dead as 1,500 migrants try to storm Eurotunnel terminal again: French police - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Greece’s high price to ruin - Business News | The Star Online

By: LIN SEE-YAN . . . WHAT ARE WE TO DO? Saturday, 25 July 2015

Lessons from the harsh deal

NOBEL laureate Joe Stiglitz is right – the Greek debacle is “about power and democracy much more than money and economics.” Isn’t Europe all about democracy? So, why was the July 13 deal of preconditions to negotiate a third Greek bailout a total surrender? Indeed, it was a worse deal than the one Greek voters rejected in a referendum just two weeks earlier.

Greek hopes of ending brutal austerity lie in tatters. All the “red lines” drawn were crossed and Greece was committed to a programme the conservative predecessor would not have dared even consider. All because the Greeks dared to stick a finger in the eye of Europe.

In a nutshell, the “No” referendum vote turned disastrous – no Grexit (exit from Eurozone), but no to “no more austerity” either. Greece’s unsustainable high debt (at 323 billion euros or 177% of GDP) made the two objectives incompatible – just can’t have the cake and eat it!

With voters’ insistence on no Grexit, European creditors saw to it that “no more austerity” became unattainable – so much so Greece was bullied into paying the high political price of a raft of deeply unpopular harsh measures.

“The euro-family has been exposed as a loan-sharking conglomerate that cares nothing for democracy” (S. Moore, Guardian). As a result, its economy that was projected earlier to hit 2.9% growth in 2015 has plunged back into a severe contraction, even prolonged recession. It now has to seek an eventual EU bailout worth up to 86 billion euros in fresh funding over the next three years, and accepting much more cruel conditions to get it, including a 7.16 billion euro bridging loan to keep its finances afloat in the meantime, and up to 900 million euros of fresh European Central Bank (ECB) cash injection into the shuttered Greek banks to keep them open from July 20. ECB support now stands at a cool 130 billion euros.

Harsh deal: Yanis Varoufakis had likened the Brussels deal to the 1919 Versailles Treaty that imposed unpayable reparations on defeated Germany after WWI – Reuters

Debt relief

In the midst of the debacle, IMF (the International Monetary Fund) had warned: “The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go beyond what has been under consideration to date – and what has been proposed by Eurozone authorities.”

As I understand it, Eurozone would only later consider debt maturity extension and rate reduction once Greece delivered as promised. This option of even “a very dramatic extension of Greece’s debt will bring about an unsustainable debt dynamic for the next several decades” (IMF). Moreover, failure by Eurozone to provide stronger commitment on restructuring could prohibit IMF participation (by its own rules) in the bailout.

“Other options include explicit annual transfers to the Greek budget or deep upfront haircuts,” both of which are ruled out as a political non-starter by euro-hawks such as Germany. All this is most sobering. It simply points to continuing high downside risks.

The deal

The deal was Greece’s least-worse choice, reflecting its poor relationship with Europe which has eroded trust and mutual respect. It doesn’t provide for debt relief which the nation so desperately needed. It just sets Greece up for more traumas ahead. It appears, however, that Germany and other creditors have managed to exact severe punishment on the left-wing government on the pretext that “trust needs to be restored” (Merkel).

Sure, Greece urgently needs many of the reforms in this deal, especially overhauls in pension (consume 16% of GDP), including cutting special payments and raising the retirement age to 67. To avoid deep spending cuts, taxes will be raised – corporate taxes to 28% and VAT, up immediately to a uniform 23%. It forces labour reform, bringing long-awaited relief to employers (from strict limits on overtime to generous vacation and severance) and making it easier to fire workers, as well as liberalising product markets (including working Sundays).

The deal created a 50 billion euro fund (under European supervision) from state-owned assets slated to be privatised or wound down. Monies raised will be used to service debt and help create a “buffer” to re-capitalise its “broken” banks, not to promote growth. It imposes intrusive monitoring and micro-management by EU and IMF.

The hard part

Implementation will be extraordinarily difficult and uncertain – amplified by deteriorating social conditions. Greek GDP had shrunk by a quarter over 5 years. Unemployment is at 27% and youth unemployment over 50%. Partly to blame is austerity imposed in the early years, seeking to lower the budget deficit too far too fast. Since then, the drama has become desperate. Having suffered a severe fall in output and living standards, Greek society now faces new hardships. The financial challenges include successfully re-opening banks that have suffered much balance sheet damage.

Huge deposit withdrawals have been funded by ECB’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA). The assets side is eaten up by non-performing loans and dubious bond holdings. They all raise doubts about bank solvency. ECB has since agreed to ease the funding squeeze by providing further access to ELA liquidity. Also, EU has granted new bridging funds to meet immediate debt servicing. All this with the realisation that Greece’s existing stock of debt is already unsustainable.

Tough lessons

The country of Plato has turned tragic. Chancellor Merkel had warned that the path back to normalcy and growth would be long and arduous. Greece will be kept afloat within the Eurozone so long as Athens followed through on the deal. The prospect of Grexit remains.

As I see it, Greeks are right to demand less austerity through more debt relief. Asphyxiating fiscal targets have led to prolonged economic ruin. The new deal is set to perpetuate the experience of the previous two bailouts, with only a slim prospect of debt relief. Worse, European creditors appear to have repeatedly displayed indifference towards popular sovereignty when they steamrolled over most of Greece’s pre-election promises and ignored Greek political realities.

Prof Y. Varoufakis had likened the Brussels deal to the 1919 Versailles Treaty that imposed unpayable reparations on a defeated Germany after WWI. This contributed to deep instability in Germany and indirectly, to the rise of Hitler in 1933. After WWII, Germany was the recipient of vastly wiser US concessions, culminating in significant debt relief in 1953, an action that greatly benefited Germany and the world. Yet Germany has failed to learn the lessons from its own history. It is time for statesmanship to return for the sake of Europe’s future generations.

What then, are we to do

Lesson One: Negotiation with a firm democratic mandate is not enough, when the other side represents voters too, who never signed up for large unconditional transfers.

Lesson Two: Creditors must avoid overreach; but they will not be cowed into subsidising endless delinquency because they believe that for the system to work, it must have discipline.

Lesson Three: Negotiations in desperate situations critically require trust and mutual respect. Once broken down, settlement terms harden and the “accountant” in the creditors’ psyche takes over. Pride can only be reclaimed by the debtor through patience and humility in the complex reality of a very messy and bruising situation.

Lesson Four: The moment a nation starts looking for money, it is already in a bad negotiating position. As the Greek prime minister had admitted: “I acknowledge the fiscal measures are harsh, that they won’t benefit the Greek economy, but I’m forced to accept them.” The alternative is disorderly bankruptcy that will be really catastrophic. The 1997/98 Asian crisis taught nations to build lots of reserves to secure sufficient policy degrees of freedom to avoid precisely such a “Greek situation.”

Lesson Five: Europe needs to reconnect with ordinary citizens; a greater sense of inclusion is required. There is certainly a sense of disconnect and disenfranchisement across the continent.

Lesson Six: Today, the world is suffering from an overhang of debt – since 2007, total public debt in advanced economies rose by a significant 35 percentage points of GDP (up 47 points in Italy, 63 in Japan and 83 in Portugal). Nations can get out of this through: austerity, growth and low interest rates or default. More common than appreciated is to restructure, including hair-cuts. Best is to reform early enough. Most toxic is high debt and low or no growth; or high debt and austerity with little growth. A better situation is to have borrowed mainly in one’s own currency – hence, no need to default since it can print money on the way out. Least painful is via economic growth. Unfortunately, potential growth around the world is now slipping.

So, the decent way out is to take a balanced combination of growth, austerity and punitively low interest rates. Even so, without hair-cuts, it will take a very long time – up to 40 years, by one estimate.

Whatever the outcome, European risk is rising as markets find it increasingly difficult to price in such risk. Financial contagion from Greece is not of concern.

Greece accounts for just 1.8% of Eurozone GDP and 0.3% of the global economy. But its political punch is powerful whether or not Greece remains in the Eurozone – a risk investors can’t ignore.

So, hold a little more cash and be a little more cautious in the second half.

• Former banker, Harvard educated economist and British chartered scientist Lin See-Yan is the author of ‘The Global Economy in Turbulent Times’ (Wiley, 2015). Feedback is most welcome; email: starbiz@thestar.com.my.

Tags: Analyst Reports, Lin See Yan, economy

Greece’s high price to ruin - Business News | The Star Online

German ISIL fighter who returned from Syria denounces group as un-Islamic

By Melanie Hall, Berlin 17 July 2015

The 26-year-old man, named only as Ebrahim B, says prison in Germany would be better than freedom in Syria in an interview from prison with German media

Ebrahim B during the interview Photo: Youtube

A German former fighter for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has given a rare interview detailing the atrocities of the terror organisation, warning potential recruits that it has "nothing to do with Islam."

The 26-year-old man, named only as Ebrahim B under German privacy laws, recounted his experiences in a highly unusual interview before he stands trial in August charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation.

In an interview from a German prison with broadcasters NDR and WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, he described how he was recruited at a mosque in Wolfsburg in northern Germany.

He said he had a difficult time at school and had recently broken up with his fiancée.

"If I had been picked up by a rocker gang in Jamaica or by Hells Angels in America or something, I would have gone along with it,” he said. “I stumbled and fell into the wrong hands".

Ebrahim said the recruiter argued: “How can you sleep in peace, in the warm, with heating, while young Muslims are starving or women are being raped? What happens to you, when you die in Europe and not in an Islamist town? When you die in Europe, you go to hell.”

“They fool you,” he said. “It's explained to you that you as a Muslim are allowed to marry four women. Who wouldn't want to have four women?"

He travelled to Turkey with a friend on May 28, 2014, before crossing over the border into Syria. He was initially imprisoned over concerns that he was a spy, until his recruiter vouched for him.

Ebrahim, a trained massage therapist, claimed that ISIL members are given a choice: "You must immediately decide to either be a fighter or a suicide bomber. In a nutshell, when you go there, you're either dead or dead."

• UK is denying refuge to Christians fleeing ISIL, say church leaders

German prosecutors have accused Ebrahim of willingly signing up to be a suicide bomber, and will argue during the trial that he only failed to carry out an attack in Baghdad, Iraq, because the plot was foiled in time by the Iraqi authorities.

Ebrahim returned to Germany in August 2014 after accompanying wounded fighters to a hospital in Turkey and defecting, according to the charges.

He was arrested in November and charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation in May.

He warned: “If you see that your daughter or son has fallen into such a scene, or is slowly drifting from you, find the motive, why are they behaving like that. Take a lot of time for the person, show them, that you’re his real family.”

“Islamic State [ISIL] has nothing to do with Islam,” he added. “Prison in Germany is better than freedom in Syria."

An estimated 260 German nationals have returned to the country after fighting with ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Many are under official observation or have been arrested by the authorities.

German ISIL fighter who returned from Syria denounces group as un-Islamic - Telegraph

British taxpayers 'protected' as Osborne strikes deal on Greek loans

By Matthew Holehouse, Christopher Hope, Colin Freeman in Athens 15 July 2015

Compromise with Juncker ought to insure Britain against Greek default, but it has soured Downing Street's relations with the European Commission

The Chancellor is prepared to back the European Commission president's controversial plan to revive a mothballed bailout programme Photo: Julian Simmonds

British taxpayers will not be left exposed for another Greek bailout, George Osborne hopes, under a compromise struck with Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Chancellor is prepared to back the European Commission president’s controversial plan to revive a mothballed bailout programme that draws in the entire EU, in exchange for guarantees that British liabilities will be underwritten to protect UK taxpayers.

Mr Juncker’s decision to tear up a binding written agreement given to Britain in 2010 that the European Financial Stability Mechanism would never again be used to rescue the Eurozone has further soured relations with David Cameron, who now doubts whether he is able to trust him.

Mr Cameron fought a lonely and unsuccessful battle to block Mr Juncker’s appointment last year, but he will now play a major role in Britain’s renegotiation.

“Of course you can’t trust Juncker. That is why he didn’t vote for him,” a source close to the Prime Minister said. Mr Cameron has endorsed an explosive call from the International Monetary Fund for Greek debt relief.

Mr Osborne had furiously denounced Mr Juncker’s plan to revive the EFSM, which uses the EU budget as collateral on cash raised on the open market, to provide up to 7 billion euros in bridging loans to Greece to stave off collapse as it is hit with 12 billion euros of debt repayments in the coming weeks. Leaving British taxpayers exposed was a “non-starter,” he said on Tuesday. "The Eurozone needs to foot its own bill."

Despite scepticism from Germany on the Juncker plan on Tuesday, it became apparent that Britain would struggle to find the allies to block the plans at a vote.

Under a compromise backed by the Commission, the EFSM rescue package could still go ahead. But Britain’s £690 million in liabilities, as well of those of other non-Eurozone states, will be insured using Greek funds known as SMP profits held by the European Central Bank. Time is of the essence - with Greece owing 4.2 billion euros to the European Central Bank on Monday - and diplomats said there was strong support for the plan among financial officials from member states.

“We are immovable on the principle that British taxpayers’ cash should not and will not be on the line in any Eurozone bailout,” said a Treasury source.

"It is because we have refused to compromise on our principles that the Commission is now proposing ways to specifically ring-fence us from any risk. As far as we are concerned this is a red line and we think that message is now being heard and understood."

However, Stephen Booth, of the Open Europe think tank, said Mr Juncker’s decision to toss aside an agreement made by 28 heads of government to mothball the EFSM and to make the Eurozone responsible for its own bailouts raises “fundamental issues of trust”.

EU officials argued the agreement made at a summit in December 2010 was merely “political” and had no legal force.

“Today’s developments are a boon to those who would like to see the UK leave the EU, and for good reason,” said Mr Booth. “This type of political agreement, so readily jettisoned in a moment of Eurozone panic, is precisely the type of agreement Cameron may, at least in part, be relying on to secure his negotiations and sell them to the British public. This episode will only increase the domestic pressure for the UK to secure treaty changes to underpin EU reforms.”

John Redwood, the former Welsh Secretary, said tearing up the agreement was an “absolute outrage” and a “slap in the face”.

Mr Cameron secured the assurance in exchange for backing greater Eurozone integration. He subsequently told the Commons it was a “black and white, clear and unanimous agreement that from 2013 Britain will not be dragged into bailing out the Eurozone.”

The agreement was trumpeted in the 2015 Tory manifesto as “the first ever return of powers from Brussels.”

Members of Syriza, the Greek ruling party, attacked the British stance as heartless.

Nikos Xydakis, a deputy culture minister in Syriza, told the Telegraph: "Mr Cameron must explain to the European people and 11 million Greeks why he wants them to suffer a social crisis. This is not about politics, this is about human souls.”

British taxpayers 'protected' as Osborne strikes deal on Greek loans - Telegraph

No, the Greek agreement is not a coup and if you think it is, you're an idiot

By James Kirkup 13 July 2015

Likening today's German government to the Nazi regime is offensively stupid

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Union, cancels summit of Eurozone leaders as talks drag on Photo: AFP

Arguing with Twitter hash tags is like urinating into a hurricane, and a particularly stupid and self-righteous hurricane at that. But sometimes, you just have to do these things anyway, and dry yourself off afterwards. So here goes: no, this is not a coup.

#thisisacoup has been trending in various parts of the world for several hours over the latest Greek talks. Let’s skim over the awkward fact that Twitter and public opinion are not the same thing and deal with the argument – such as it is – that lies beneath the hysteria and hyperbole. A coup is what happens when a group of people, foreign or domestic, seize power in a country by force or coercion. I’ll allow a bit of poetic licence in political conversation about Greece, so I won’t bother with the literalist argument that it’s not a coup because there are no tanks or guns or men in uniforms involved.

Instead, the argument seems to boil down to suggesting that because the Greek government is about to sign up to policies advocated by foreign governments and international organisations, Greek democracy has been thwarted. After all, the Greek people voted against something like the proposed deal in a referendum last week. Isn’t it undemocratic for that view not to prevail here?

• Greece strikes deal with creditors - live reaction

Here’s a quick Politics 101 lesson for the #thisisacoup mob: Greece is not a direct democracy. It is a representative one. That means that the Greek people elect their governments to make decisions on their behalf. Referendums are not binding in Greece; they simply advise the government of the day on the views of the people. (That’s set out in the Greek constitution, a set of rules put in place by elected Greek politicians in 1975 after the country, er, got rid of its military rulers.)

To repeat: the Greek people elect their governments. Those governments do things, things like spending, taxing and borrowing. If the Greek people don’t like those things, they can sack their government and get another one. The things that Greek governments do, things like spending, taxing and borrowing, have consequences. One of those consequences is that Greece has run out of money and needs to get more money from someone else. Hence the negotiations in Brussels, where the people who will provide that money are asking for conditions before giving them that money.

Are those conditions extreme, draconian and potentially counterproductive? Quite possibly, yes. Is Greece under enormous pressure to accept them, and facing horrible consequences if it says no? Oh yes: the pressure is vast, the consequences truly terrible. And are the negotiations slanted against Greece, because Germany has more money and political clout within the EU than Greece? Yes. But so what? Germany is a bigger, richer country than Greece. That’s just a fact of life. Welcome to the real world, kids.

And while we’re on the subject of Germany, can I just suggest that the “voice of the people” argument cuts both ways here. Angela Merkel and her government are answerable to the German people, whose taxes are on the line in this deal. The Chancellor is doing the job she holds in the German democratic system, and she’ll be held accountable for her actions by German politicians and voters through that system.

Very few of the #thisisacoup crowd seem to be worried that the sovereign will of the German people is being ignored in the Greek talks, even though it almost certainly is: a referendum in Germany would very likely see German voters seeking even tougher conditions on Greece, or immediate expulsion from the Eurozone. When the pious hash tag brigade care as much for the Germans’ popular sovereignty as they do for the Greeks’, they’ll be worth listening to.

Instead, they seem to prefer childish and nasty references to the Second World War. On this point, I’d like to briefly set aside any pretence of courtesy or respect of the views of others and say this: if you compare the actions of the democratic German government led by Angela Merkel to those of Nazi Germany, you are not just an idiot but a hateful, small-minded and bigoted idiot.

Yes, Greece is under a lot of pressure to accept another bailout, and some of the conditions being attached to that bailout are stupidly harsh. But that is not the same thing as Greece being compelled by force to accept. If the Greek people do not like the deal that their current government is about to accept, they can sack that government and get another one, one that might chose to withdraw from the deal and pursue other policies, policies which would have consequences of their own.

This is not a coup. Anyone who thinks it is should grow up and join the real world.

No, the Greek agreement is not a coup and if you think it is, you're an idiot - Telegraph

The euro ‘family’ has shown it is capable of real cruelty

Suzanne Moore Monday 13 July 2015

Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker seek to justify their Greek bailout deal, but what kind of family asset-strips one of its members in broad daylight?

German chancellor Angela Merkel. 'By infantilising Greece, Germany resembles a child who closes its own eyes and thinks we can not see it.' Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

The seemingly indestructible Angela Merkel can go without sleep, and still manage a half smile and speak about Greece’s wish to remain in “the euro family”. This may sound reasonable and pleasant. All families have their little local difficulties, don’t they? But they work through them. People see reason. When they are forced to.

By infantilising Greece, Germany resembles a child who closes its own eyes and thinks we can not see it. We can. The world is watching what is being done to Greece in the name of euro stability.

It sees a nation stripped of its dignity, its sovereignty, its future.

Greek crisis: Tsipras faces fight over bailout, and misses another IMF bill - as it happened

Analysts believe Alexis Tsipras could lose power amid the backlash over the deep economic reforms, and asset sales, he agreed to in Brussels

Read more

What kind of family, we might ask, does this to one of its own members? Even Der Spiegel online described the conditions that have been outlined as “a catalogue of cruelties”, but perhaps we should now put it another way, given Jean-Claude Juncker has denied that the Greek people have been humiliated. Juncker instead says that this deal is a typical “European” compromise. Yes, we see.

The machinations of financial institutions (the troika) have been exposed as much as the institutions themselves. Who runs these banks, and for whom? Twitter slogans talk of the three world wars: the first waged with guns, the second with tanks and this third world war waged by banks. Extreme? Well, there clearly is more than one way to take over a country.

The Eurozone and Germany want regime change in Greece, or at least to split Syriza. Alexis Tsipras has fought tooth and nail for something resembling the debt restructuring that even the International Monetary Fund acknowledges is needed. The incompetence of a succession of Greek governments and tax evasion within Greece is not in doubt. But the creditors of the euro family knew this as they upped their loans, and must now delude themselves that everything they have done has been for the best. It hasn’t, and now that same family will go in and asset-strip in broad daylight a country that can no longer afford basic medicines. In three days Greece is supposed to push through heaps of legislation on privatisation, tax and pensions so it can be even poorer.

Grexit may have been avoided, but divisions in Europe are growing

Mary Dejevsky

While the Greece deal has averted an open split, old-fashioned geopolitics is pulling even longstanding EU members in different directions

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There is to be no debt forgiveness in this family. Tsipras has to sell this to his people so the banks can reopen. His endurance has been remarkable, and more will be needed. The unsustainability of Greek debt, even if the country could achieve growth, remains. The words trust and confidence keep being used but by the wrong people. Trust is gone in this European project. François Hollande, ever the pseudo–mediator, may rattle on about the history and culture of Greece. Its value has actually been shown. Its value is purely symbolic. It is worth nothing.

The euro family has been exposed as a loan-sharking conglomerate that cares nothing for democracy. This family is abusive. This “bailout”, which will be sold as being a cruel-to-be-kind deal is nothing of the sort. It is simply being cruel to be cruel.

The euro ‘family’ has shown it is capable of real cruelty | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian

Destination Greece: Meet the migrants fleeing the war-torn Middle East for a better life in Europe

Foreign Correspondent 

By Europe correspondent Barbara Miller  Tuesday 14 July 2015

Photo: A group of around 40 Syrian men, women and children, cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece in a rubber boat arranged by people smugglers. (ABC News)

Related Story: The curious art of migrant spotting in Greece

Map: Greece

It is just after 3:00am and so dark I worry we might run over migrant boats without even noticing them.

Suddenly the radar picks up what could be one a short distance away and we are racing towards it.

We are on patrol with the coast guard on the Greek island of Kos, a few nautical miles off Turkey.

Within a couple of minutes, we have drawn up alongside the migrant boat, seven metres long, packed with men, women and children.

Photo: Mohammad (centre) and his friends get their registration papers from the Kos police which allow them to travel to Athens (Foreign Correspondent)

Rescuing migrants has become routine for the coast guard, but that does not make it easy.

The migrants are panicked and fearful, the sea is relatively rough and their flimsy boat could capsize if they all rush to clamber onto the coast guard vessel.

There are just four coast guard officers on this patrol, who are now responsible for 40 migrants.

First you have to convince them to get off their unseaworthy boat.

"Where are we going my friend?" shouts one man.

"Greece, Greece," answers the coast guard officer.

"Greece? You sure my friend?"

What the migrants do not want is to be picked up by the Turkish coast guard before they reach Greek waters.

That is what happened to Mohammad and his friend on their first attempt to reach Europe.

They were brought back to Turkey and put in open-air detention for a night.

The next day smugglers arranged another boat and they set off again, this time making it to Greece.

Video: Men, women and children are rescued from a boat by Greek coastguard (ABC News)

People smugglers 'the essence of badness'

Mohammad, a 28-year-old sound engineer from Damascus, detests the people smugglers he had to pay to get here.

On the scene: the port

Scores of migrants who have been plucked to safety overnight from flimsy rubber boats can be found each morning at the Kos port.
As their names are taken and passports checked, they huddle together in small groups beside the few belongings they could bring with them.
Most have just one small bag. It is the very young and very old who get to you most.
The children have colourful life jackets in pinks and blues, some with prints of shells and sea creatures.
They look totally inadequate for the dangerous voyage they have just undertaken. The babies have no life jackets.
An older man stands out amongst one group. He walks slowly, holding the hand of a young child.
He is probably only in his late 50s, but it seems life has wearied him. How much must he already have been through?
How bad can it have been for him to set out on this journey and dare to start again?
The child's other hand is held by a younger man, presumably the father. Three generations have risked this journey to Europe into an uncertain future.
There is no sign of the little boy's mother.

"Smugglers are you know ... they're like the essence of badness," he says.

Mohammad says he had no choice but to enter Europe illegally with their help.

"If we had a formal way to go to Europe, I wouldn't think of going this way," he says.

He says repeated attempts to get a visa for a European country failed.

"Even if you pay money, if you say that, 'I am a millionaire, I have a million dollars', or a million something, they won't give you a visa because you are Syrian."

He has come here with his brother's friend Yamen, a dentist — middle-class Syrians fleeing a war they want no part in.

"I don't see fighting your brother is a good cause," Mohammad says.

Mohammad and his friend can afford to pay for a cheap hotel room in town while they wait to be processed by Kos authorities.

Many others must make do with the abandoned and dilapidated hotel, the Captain Elias, which serves as emergency accommodation for the migrants.

It is dirty and overcrowded, there is no electricity and water is only available from an outside tap.

The local authorities say they cannot afford to pay for a proper reception centre, and Athens has no money either.

"It is already asking the municipal councils for money in order to pay its current debt," Kos mayor George Kyritsis says of the central government.

"We should perhaps start a campaign telling the Europeans, 'look at the situation, you share the responsibility for this situation'.

"I believe that Greece wants to help but it does not have the means, but Europe looks like it does not have the will to help."

Immigrants dreaming big

Another Muhammad, this one from Pakistan, says staying at the Captain Elias is not so bad.

He feels safe here because no-one bothers him.

"You can't sleep on the roads, on the parks, because you don't know anybody, you haven't relatives here, you haven't friends here," he says.

"This is a totally strange country for you."

Photo: The Kos Coast Guard ask a group of migrants for their identifications. (ABC News)

Muhammad's journey has brought him from Lahore in Pakistan, through Iran, Azerbaijan and then to Turkey — where he worked for six months to raise the $805 smugglers demanded for a place in a flimsy rubber boat to Greece.

Work as a mill worker dried up at home, he says, as a result of electricity shortages.

Now I am free, now I have a chances, because in front of me is the whole Europe.

Pakistani immigrant Muhammad

Muhammad has spent two weeks on Kos waiting for registration papers which will allow him to leave Kos and travel on to Athens.

There he will try and find work on the black market or try and move on to another European country less broke than Greece.

Unlike his Syrian namesake, Muhammad probably will not apply for asylum, as he is an economic migrant.

His prospects of ever being anything other than an illegal immigrant are slim, but he is dreaming big.

"Now I am free, now I have a chances, because in front of me is the whole Europe," he says.

"I have lots of opportunities and Inshallah (God willing) I will do something better for myself."

As he picks up his papers at the Kos police station he beams with joy and gives us the thumbs up.

"Do you pray for us?" he laughs.

"We shall be successful, Inshallah."

Source: UNHCR

• In the first six months of this year, 68,000 asylum seekers and migrants arrived on the islands of Greece. Greece has now overtaken Italy as the main point of sea entry into Europe.
• More than 85 per cent of those arriving in Greece are from countries experiencing war and conflict, principally Syria (57 per cent), Afghanistan (22 per cent), and Iraq (5 per cent).
• Comparing the first four months of 2014 and the same time period in 2015, there has been a 1,251 per cent increase in the number of migrants and asylum seekers arriving on the island of Kos. Between 100 and 300 arrive each day.
• Of the many Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, only three have formal reception facilities for migrants and asylum seekers. Kos has no formal facilities for the arrivals.
• More than 4 million Syrians have fled their country on account of the conflict there.
• Around 90 per cent of Syrian asylum seekers arriving in Greece want to find asylum somewhere else in the European Union, mostly in Germany and Sweden. More than half intended to apply for family reunification once they were settled.
• In May, the European Union asked member states to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea who have landed in Greece and Italy.

Destination Greece: Meet the migrants fleeing the war-torn Middle East for a better life in Europe - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Islamic State steps up North African expansion campaign with Egypt-Italian consulate bombing

 

A high-profile bombing of Italy's consulate in Cairo by jihadist group Islamic State was a "warning" to Egypt and a step up in the conflict against the West, an Arab affairs expert has said.

Photo: Egyptian security officials inspect the site of the car bomb attack, the first on a foreign mission since Morsi's ouster. (Reuters: Mohamed Abd El Ghany)

Related Story: One dead after blast strikes exterior of Italian consulate in Cairo; IS claims attack

Related Story: IS attacks

A car bomb struck the consulate on Saturday, killing a civilian and wounding nine people in the first attack on a foreign mission in Egypt since jihadists launched an insurgency against the country's security forces two years ago following a crackdown on Islamists.

Islamic State (IS) claimed the car bomb attack, following calls by the group's spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani urging strikes on Western targets wherever possible.

"I don't think it was about Italy specifically, I think it was about a Western country," said HA Hellyer, an Arab affairs expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

The bombing was a clear warning to Cairo, he said.

"This way terrorists get to say they are able to get the government in the centre of Cairo, close to a metro station, underneath a major highway bridge, at a foreign institution, but at the same time, without inflicting (huge) casualties — this time."

Photo: Experts say the bombing is a clear warning to Cairo. (AFP: Mohamed El Shahed)

The consulate's location in downtown Cairo made it a target, said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.

The mission is housed in an historic building between Ramses train station and Tahrir Square, amid a maze of streets filled with people, vehicles and vendors.

"Security there around is kind of difficult to keep if you compare it to security measures at the UK or the American embassy," the diplomat said.

"So it was an easy target in a way."

Prime minister Ibrahim Mehleb said on Saturday Egypt was at war and urged the world to unite against terrorism after the car bomb attack, a state-run newspaper reported.

"The time has come for the world to unite in facing terrorism, which now threatens the entire world," Mr Mehleb said.

Attack indicates growing reach of Islamic State: Egypt expert

Photo: Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shukri (R) meets with his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni in Cairo, Egypt. (Reuters, file photo)

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi told reporters that the attack "can have random aspects, to show the logistical ability to hit a Western nation".

He said Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the only one who can "save" Egypt.

"This is my personal position and I am proud of my friendship with him and I will support him in the direction of peace because the Mediterranean without Egypt will be absolutely a place without peace," Mr Renzi said.

This attack indicates the ambition and reach of IS. It's a significant development... We can't assume how sustainable the expansion is, but it's an attempt to expand.

Michael Hanna, an Egypt expert with the Century Foundation think-tank.

Italy and Egypt have shared close political and economic ties for years, with Mr Sisi visiting Rome shortly after winning a presidential election last year.

Egypt has been rocked by violence since then army chief Mr Sisi overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

In an ensuing government crackdown, hundreds have been killed and thousands imprisoned, mostly supporters of Mr Morsi.

Jihadists say their attacks are in retaliation for the crackdown.

Saturday's bombing shows the growing reach of IS jihadists in staging attacks in mainland Egypt and not just in North Sinai where militants have killed scores of policemen and troops.

Attacks in Sinai are claimed by IS's Egyptian affiliate "Sinai Province," but Saturday's attack was claimed by a group calling itself "IS in Egypt".

"This is the first attempt to establish a new IS affiliate in mainland Egypt," said Michael Wahid Hanna, an Egypt expert with the New York-based Century Foundation think-tank.

"This attack indicates the ambition and reach of IS. It's a significant development... We can't assume how sustainable the expansion is, but it's an attempt to expand."

AFP/Reuters

From other news sites:

• Yahoo!7 News: After bombing, Italy PM hails Egypt's Sisi as 'great leader'

Islamic State steps up North African expansion campaign with Egypt-Italian consulate bombing - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us

Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister Saturday 11 July 2015

Debt restructuring has always been our aim in negotiations – but for some Eurozone leaders Grexit is the goal

‘Wolfgang Schäuble [Germany’s finance minister] is convinced that, as things stand, he needs a Greek exit to clear the air.’ Illustration: Noma Bar

Greece’s financial drama has dominated the headlines for five years for one reason: the stubborn refusal of our creditors to offer essential debt relief. Why, against common sense, against the IMF’s verdict and against the everyday practices of bankers facing stressed debtors, do they resist a debt restructure? The answer cannot be found in economics because it resides deep in Europe’s labyrinthine politics.

In 2010, the Greek state became insolvent. Two options consistent with continuing membership of the Eurozone presented themselves: the sensible one, that any decent banker would recommend – restructuring the debt and reforming the economy; and the toxic option – extending new loans to a bankrupt entity while pretending that it remains solvent.

Official Europe chose the second option, putting the bailing out of French and German banks exposed to Greek public debt above Greece’s socioeconomic viability. A debt restructure would have implied losses for the bankers on their Greek debt holdings.Keen to avoid confessing to parliaments that taxpayers would have to pay again for the banks by means of unsustainable new loans, EU officials presented the Greek state’s insolvency as a problem of illiquidity, and justified the “bailout” as a case of “solidarity” with the Greeks.

To frame the cynical transfer of irretrievable private losses on to the shoulders of taxpayers as an exercise in “tough love”, record austerity was imposed on Greece, whose national income, in turn – from which new and old debts had to be repaid – diminished by more than a quarter. It takes the mathematical expertise of a smart eight-year-old to know that this process could not end well.

Once the sordid operation was complete, Europe had automatically acquired another reason for refusing to discuss debt restructuring: it would now hit the pockets of European citizens! And so increasing doses of austerity were administered while the debt grew larger, forcing creditors to extend more loans in exchange for even more austerity.

Our government was elected on a mandate to end this doom loop; to demand debt restructuring and an end to crippling austerity. Negotiations have reached their much publicised impasse for a simple reason: our creditors continue to rule out any tangible debt restructuring while insisting that our unpayable debt be repaid “parametrically” by the weakest of Greeks, their children and their grandchildren.

In my first week as minister for finance I was visited by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Euro group (the Eurozone finance ministers), who put a stark choice to me: accept the bailout’s “logic” and drop any demands for debt restructuring or your loan agreement will “crash” – the unsaid repercussion being that Greece’s banks would be boarded up.

Five months of negotiations ensued under conditions of monetary asphyxiation and an induced bank-run supervised and administered by the European Central Bank. The writing was on the wall: unless we capitulated, we would soon be facing capital controls, quasi-functioning cash machines, a prolonged bank holiday and, ultimately, Grexit.

The threat of Grexit has had a brief rollercoaster of a history. In 2010 it put the fear of God in financiers’ hearts and minds as their banks were replete with Greek debt. Even in 2012, when Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, decided that Grexit’s costs were a worthwhile “investment” as a way of disciplining France et al, the prospect continued to scare the living daylights out of almost everyone else.

‘By the time Syriza won power last January, a majority within the Euro group had adopted Grexit either as their preferred outcome or weapon of choice against our government’.

By the time Syriza won power last January, and as if to confirm our claim that the “bailouts” had nothing to do with rescuing Greece (and everything to do with ring-fencing northern Europe), a large majority within the Euro group – under the tutelage of Schäuble – had adopted Grexit either as their preferred outcome or weapon of choice against our government.

Greeks, rightly, shiver at the thought of amputation from monetary union. Exiting a common currency is nothing like severing a peg, as Britain did in 1992, when Norman Lamont famously sang in the shower the morning sterling quit the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Alas, Greece does not have a currency whose peg with the euro can be cut. It has the euro – a foreign currency fully administered by a creditor inimical to restructuring our nation’s unsustainable debt.

To exit, we would have to create a new currency from scratch. In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the US military’s might, three printing firms and hundreds of trucks. In the absence of such support, Grexit would be the equivalent of announcing a large devaluation more than 18 months in advance: a recipe for liquidating all Greek capital stock and transferring it abroad by any means available.

With Grexit reinforcing the ECB-induced bank run, our attempts to put debt restructuring back on the negotiating table fell on deaf ears. Time and again we were told that this was a matter for an unspecified future that would follow the “programme’s successful completion” – a stupendous Catch-22 since the “programme” could never succeed without a debt restructure.

This weekend brings the climax of the talks as Euclid Tsakalotos, my successor, strives, again, to put the horse before the cart – to convince a hostile Euro group that debt restructuring is a prerequisite of success for reforming Greece, not an ex-post reward for it. Why is this so hard to get across? I see three reasons.

Europe did not know how to respond to the financial crisis. Should it prepare for an expulsion (Grexit) or a federation?

One is that institutional inertia is hard to beat. A second, that unsustainable debt gives creditors immense power over debtors – and power, as we know, corrupts even the finest. But it is the third which seems to me more pertinent and, indeed, more interesting.

The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The Eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state.

And there’s the rub. After the crisis of 2008/9, Europe didn’t know how to respond. Should it prepare the ground for at least one expulsion (that is, Grexit) to strengthen discipline? Or move to a federation? So far it has done neither, its existentialist angst forever rising. Schäuble is convinced that as things stand, he needs a Grexit to clear the air, one way or another. Suddenly, a permanently unsustainable Greek public debt, without which the risk of Grexit would fade, has acquired a new usefulness for Schauble.

What do I mean by that? Based on months of negotiation, my conviction is that the German finance minister wants Greece to be pushed out of the single currency to put the fear of God into the French and have them accept his model of a disciplinarian Eurozone.

Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us | Yanis Varoufakis | Comment is free | The Guardian

Greece proves left wing parties don’t have a chance of delivering in power

Aaron McKenna February 28th 2015

They’re good at protesting and making noise, but they have no workable policies.

SYRIZA IS THE hardest of hard left parties, the “Coalition of the Radical Left” to give it its unabbreviated title. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, entered politics via the Communist Youth of Greece; and top finance man, Yanis Varoufakis, is a self-described “liberal Marxist”. The party has coalition parts with titles ranging from “Anticapitalist Political Group” (snappier in Greek) to “Communist Organisation of Greece”, “Internationalist Workers Left” and “New Fighter.”

It is this pedigree that moved Paul Murphy, Socialist Party TD and Anti Austerity Alliance campaigner, to visit Greece for their election win celebrations. Murphy commented in a statement on Syriza’s victory that “the election of a Left government in Europe is an historic moment that opens up new opportunities”.

Tsipras spoke with Gerry Adams on the phone and then took the time to name check Sinn Féin in his victory speech, saying that they would carry forth the “new era” of left in the ascendency by sweeping to victory in next year’s election. Sinn Féin, like many left wing parties around Europe, took the time to heartily congratulate Syriza on their victory. The hard left had finally got some true believers into power.

Promises, promises

Syriza won the Greek election on the back of promises quite familiar to followers of parties like Sinn Féin or the Socialist/AAA groupings. The party promised to stand up to the Troika, which bailed the country out, and send them packing. Syriza promised not only to halve austerity, but to introduce increases in welfare and the minimum wage. The party has said that it will first halt and then reverse the privatisation of state companies.

Immediately following their entry to high office, the new Marxist finance minister went on a tour of European capitals to propose favourable debt deals for Greece. The Greeks would propose no new bailout, the expulsion of the Troika and abandoning of all commitments made in the bailout programme. Instead the Greeks would move to “growth linked” bonds to fund the national debt.

European countries would lend the Greeks money, and the Greeks would pay interest depending on whether or not the economy grew. Of course if the economy didn’t grow because government policy screwed it up, not an unimaginable scenario in Greece, the Europeans would be on the hook to lend even more and receive no interest payments for it. This from a country that already enjoys borrowing costs closer to Germany’s than their own eye watering near-10% rates demanded for Greek debt on the open market.

We hear the same message from Ireland’s left wing parties

We are used to hearing all of this sort of a message from the left in Ireland. If only we got tough on the Europeans and grabbed them by the lapels in some heavy negotiations, we’d get a much better deal. We could scrap Irish Water, the property tax, high income taxes and all while expanding public spending programmes. We’d write off our debts, regardless of the fact that most Irish government borrowing is related to day-to-day spending rather than banking debt, and get the Europeans to “pay their share”, which will be precisely however much we want it to be.

Twenty-nine days is precisely how long it took the hard left vanguard in Greece to fail in this strategy and capitulate to reality. It was 29 days from the day Syriza took office till they turned around and accepted a four month bailout extension, agreed to continue with privatisation programmes and stick to financial targets set out by prior governments.

These hard-line communists and Marxists didn’t capitulate because the capitalist lizards who run the world economy zapped them with their brain rays in a meeting of the Eurogroup. They’ve performed a complete retreat because they were sat down and had to look at their policies – not from the comfortable chairs in opposition, but from the reality of government.

Had the Greek government proceeded and been refused their entirely one-sided proposal to allow them continue to spend whatever money they wanted at expense to European taxpayers, then Greece would have faced catastrophe. Forced ejection from the Eurozone and even further economic ruin for their basket case of a country would have been the simple result. Communists know better than most what a collapsing economy looks like.

What next?

You can blame the Troika – now renamed “the institutions” in Greece’s sole victory in this whole affair – and hard-nosed Europeans for rejecting Syriza’s plan. I suspect if you were living in a country that is a net contributor to this sort of a no-strings-attached bailout, you’d be quite happy with the hard-nosed attitude. The proposals made by Syriza were simply mad, pie-in-the-sky stuff that would never have worked.

Now the question remaining for voters in Ireland and Spain and other countries is, what next? The hard-line stances of the Pearse Dohertys and Paul Murphys of this world, we now know from direct experience, will go nowhere. Their talk of throwing off the shackles of our debt, like it’s just as easy as walking into a Eurogroup meeting and declaring our intention, is clearly nonsense. Their policy proposals are madcap stuff we know won’t work.

We’ll cut and abolish taxes, they tell us; cull our debts and increase spending dramatically. The rich, we’re told, will pay for it all; just the same way as François Hollande swept into power with promises of nebulous wealth taxes that ultimately went nowhere.

Protesting and making noise is not the same as leading

The left is an empty vessel. They’re good at protesting and making noise, and being against this and that. But they have no workable policies and now we see directly from Greece that you can put the most virulent communists into power and they’ll get you nowhere once they start to try to defy the laws of gravity.

Ireland has the fastest growing economy in Europe. The government is unpopular and so are new taxes like the water charge, but where Greece is facing more decline we’re on the way up and out. We’ve got debt deals and done bank restructurings that have written down the real cost to Irish taxpayers of interest payments. We’re paying extortionate amounts, and we should never have been foisted with much of the banking debt we do have, but so too we’ve borrowed a lot to just keep the nurses and teachers paid and welfare flowing. We’re limping, but recovering.

Our recovery could be wrecked

In a sense that might make the election of the far left in Ireland a more worrying prospect than in Greece. There, the forces of reality stayed the hand of the communists when they got to power. In Ireland, our recovery could be wrecked by seeing some madcap alliance of Sinn Féin, Socialists and left wing independents getting a hold of an economy that’s just about picking itself up off the floor.

The flight of capital when Syriza came to power, some €20 billion in all, will damage Greece considerably. In Ireland, a similar run on capital and caution from overseas investors at what kind of mad policies we’d get would severely dent our capacity for recovery.

We’ve seen how quickly the hard left fails when it gets into power. It’s probably best if we don’t flirt with letting them and their snake oil solutions take power here.

Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. He is also involved in activism in his local area. You can find out more at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna. To read more columns by Aaron click here.

Greece proves left wing parties don’t have a chance of delivering in power

Greece debacle marks the failure of German leadership in Europe

8 July 2015 3:36PM

In Greece, with one in four unemployed, the people have voted (once again) for an end to self-defeating austerity imposed from abroad. In Brussels and in Berlin, officials and ministers declare their loyalty to a 'European' vision of monetary and fiscal rectitude that might have borrowed its name from Foucault ('discipline and punish') or Dostoyevsky ('crime and punishment'). Across the whole southern half of the continent — from the Pillars of Hercules to the outer approaches to the Hellespont — unemployment has robbed a generation of a future.

Only a decade ago, Europe was mostly remarkable as a place where history had stopped. Nothing symbolized this more than the euro. Today, the single currency is the emblem of a crisis not just in Europe's stagnant economy but in the whole idea of European political unification.

How did we get here?

Greece's sins — and there are many — have been endlessly detailed. Cooked books. Corruption. Waste. In Denmark, where I live, the story stops here: profligate Greeks.

But Greece has not imposed a depression on itself. If Athens' economic position in 2010 was parlous, by 2012 it was catastrophic. What brought this about was not Greece's failure to stick to the medicine meted out to it, but the medicine itself. We now know that even the IMF questioned the remedies ceaselessly recommended.

But Germany, above all, insisted. In the middle of a global recession unprecedented in severity since the 1930s, there would be drastic cuts to pensions and welfare spending; an admittedly bloated public sector would lose thousands of jobs; the rights and conditions of those still in work would be dramatically eroded; national assets would be sold off at fire-sale prices. What's more, Berlin would do nothing to stimulate demand at home or elsewhere in the Eurozone to compensate for its collapse in the Aegean. On the contrary, Germany, with a trade surplus greater than China's, would make a budget surplus a requirement under federal law.

What explains Germany's behaviour? The first part of the answer can be found in the personality of its chancellor.

At the end of last year, Angela Merkel was the Western world's favourite politician. Responding to the global interest, a long and revealing biographical essay in the New Yorker notes 'scientific detachment' (Merkel is by training a quantum physicist), 'caution under dictatorship' (she grew up in East Germany) and 'reticence' as her defining personal qualities. A senior German official described her as 'about the best analyst of any given situation that I could imagine...She looks at various vectors, extrapolates, and says, "This is where I think it's going."'

But in regard to Greece,  that only raises the question: did she? Is this really where she thought it would end? Is this, in fact, what she wanted?

Certainly, Greece needed reform. But Merkel is on record as saying that she never considered Greece fit to join the euro. The punishment for Athens' profligate dishonesty should be so tough that, in her words, 'nobody else will want this'.

Usually praised for her foresight, Merkel has led Greece and Europe to the brink by failing to see what should have been obvious from her much-vaunted reading of German history: that cutting public spending in the middle of a global recession to satisfy the demands of foreign creditors would create the depression-like conditions that have ever been a boon for political extremists; and that, if such measures were forced upon Greece by a foreign government, the principles of democratic politics on which the EU is built would be flagrantly undermined.

But what matters to Merkel is not Europe but Germany. She can (and does) take Europe for granted. As Merkel's predecessor Helmut Kohl is quoted as saying in the New Yorker, she is interested in power, and Germany is its base.

The New Yorker notes that, as a former East German, Merkel has a real commitment to the overriding importance of personal freedom and national self-determination (note her many statements, for example, on Ukraine). But she is nonetheless 'a learned democrat' and a learned Atlanticist. And growing up a world away from the 1950s and 1960s 'fathers of Europe' (de Gasperi, Monnet, Schuman and Spaak), she's no less a learned European. Far less than her predecessors Kohl or Gerhard Schröder, thinking like a European doesn't come at all naturally to her. And the crisis has shown it.

In Germany, her policies are wildly popular.

The country's most popular politician for over a decade (if she has recently lost that position to her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, it's because he's seen as even more a monetary and fiscal disciplinarian than she is), Merkel is known to her people as Mutti ('Mum'). She's perfectly in tune with Germans' perception  of debt as a sign of moral failing, the legacy of a Lutheran mentality compounded by the still traumatic memory of 1930s Weimar hyperinflation and the red carpet it laid for the Nazis.

Among others, Thomas Picketty has pointed out that, in 1955, saddled with the costs of two world wars, West Germany was itself the recipient of the kind of debt relief that Germans would deny Greece today. Its late enemies, including Britain, France and Greece, wrote off half the national debt.
'Fortunately', Picketty observes, 'we were more intelligent (then).'

But Greece's (and Europe's) tragedy is that Germany's instincts are stronger than its memories. And there's nothing in Merkel's personality or experience to lead her to jog those memories. Germany's tragedy (and Germany will suffer too from this debacle) is that Germans' own interests could only be defended by acting in contradiction to their supposed national values and perceived (but not, it bears repeating, their complete actual) history.

This is not unusual. In 1957, Henry Kissinger observed that:

The whole domestic effort of a people exhibits an effort to transform force into obligation by means of a consensus on the nature of justice. (…) But the international experience of a people is a challenge to the universality of its notion of justice, for the stability of an international order depends on self-limitation, on the reconciliation of different versions of legitimacy.

That is, foreign policy is challenging because it can often demand a course of action that would be rejected as wrong or unjust in a domestic setting — even adherence to a quite different set of values from those that form the basis of domestic peace.

'Not for nothing', Kissinger continued, 'do so many nations exhibit a powerful if subconscious, rebellion against foreign policy, which leaves the travail of the soul inherent in arriving at decisions unrewarded, against this double standard which considers what is defined as "justice" domestically, merely an object for negotiation internationally.'

If Germany's mistakes with regard to Greece have a single cause, it is that the country has misidentified a foreign-policy problem as one of domestic policy, and erred in its remedies accordingly. For the resolution of the Greek debt crisis demanded the domestically indefensible: debt forgiveness or its mutualisation through the issue of common 'euro bonds'; looser Eurozone interest rates and looser German fiscal policy; and the initiation of a serious movement towards a more complete fiscal and political union.

Faced with the challenge, the German governing class balked. It resorted to all it knew about itself, ignoring what it could learn from the study of the world around it, even as far as declining to consider Germany's own place within in it. When Kissinger writes that 'a statesman will tend to have great difficulty legitimising his policy domestically, because of the incommensurability between a nation's domestic and its international experience', it's noteworthy that, especially on Greece and the euro, Merkel has not encountered any such difficulty.

On Greece, it is clear that Merkel has failed the test of statesmanship.

It is quaint now to recall British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterand's opposition to German reunification in 1990. Even then, the idea of German tanks in London or Paris was absurd. But what if what their fears were justified not by World War III but by the rise to a position of leadership of a power unready for the burden of its responsibilities? (Their consternation at Bonn's precipitate 1991 recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence was a sign of things to come.)

For the duration of the Cold War, such a foreign policy as Germany had ('Ostpolitik') was in fact domestic policy: the reunification of East Germany to the West. Germany was reunited in 1990. That it has struggled ever since to define its post-reunification goals in Europe and the world is a truism. Yet even more than West Germany during the Cold War, East Germany, whose leadership took directives religiously from Moscow, was a country without a foreign policy. So where, in the East before 1989 or in the West thereafter, would Merkel have learnt the principles of sound foreign policy? Where, more to the point, would Germans?

From the start, Merkel has been committed to making sure that Germany's domestic experience of the euro crisis was to all intents and purposes the only relevant experience of the crisis at a European level. This was a successful strategy for ensuring her domestic popularity, and the German population hasn't challenged it (nor has Germany's strange kind of democracy helped stimulate debate; the Government is as a grand coalition of the country's two largest parties; there's effectively no Opposition). But it was disastrous when it came to ensuring Germany's long-term interests. Already Berlin is having trouble where in the recent past it has always succeeded: lining up the leaders of the Eurozone's other big states (France, Italy and Spain) behind its positions.

Make no mistake. The Greek referendum was a defeat of German leadership in Europe.

True, whatever happens from here, the economic pain will fall on Greece and its people. But the big loser from last weekend's far-from-pointless referendum will be Germany. Whether a new deal is reached which still contains the element of 'punishment' the German Government considers so important to impose, or if Greece defaults and leaves the euro, Germany will have shredded its claim to leadership in Europe. For that leadership will have been shown to rest not on consent or voluntary submission to a strong Germany claiming to act in the interests of all, but on force and the threat of economic Armageddon.

Kissinger saw power (the perception of what is possible in relations between states) and legitimacy (the perception of what is just) as the two inseparable elements of a stable international order. In a classic miscalculation of its own interests, Germany has traded legitimacy for power. There's no going back now.

Greece debacle marks the failure of German leadership in Europe