Pain and pity for the waning glory of Greece
A gorgeous country, engaging people, rewarding cuisine, and the richest remnants of its own history of any country on earth.
Yes, Greece has it all – at one level. At another, it boasts some of the most corrupt people in influential places and some of the worst structures of governance and civic observance on the continent of Europe.
None of what I have said is new. All of it has both predated, and endured during, Greece’s relationship with Europe and with the eurozone.
Brussels knew perfectly well how Greece worked and didn’t work, just as the Eurocrats and the councils of ministers knew how Spain and Italy worked and didn’t work.
And yet Greece has become the tottering workbench upon which Europe struggles to sort its future, its present and its past. It surely must have been obvious to the founding fathers of both the European Union and the eurozone, that a country like Greece would take very much longer and would prove much more expensive to hoist into the European family than, say, Holland or the UK.
It’s one of the reasons de Gaulle said “non” to Britain’s EC membership in the beginning. The UK would have proved a far too powerful and successful a competitor for both the vision and power inside a Europe that was still recovering from the ravaging of wars.
When it came to Greece, decades later, there was no threat, either in terms of vision or power. “Have her in,” came the cry. And she was – not only into the EU, but eventually the euro, too.
Leaving Athens this morning I felt pangs of both pain and pity. For whilst Greece is an agent of her own tragedy, she is powerless to do anything to resolve it. The power – and presumably the elusive vision – is in Brussels. I believe Greece outside Europe or even the euro will trickle away into becoming, for a time, a third world nation.
Further, that this can only be avoided if the eurozone does indeed become a coherent fiscal and political union. Angela Merkel sees this. There are others, too. Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy see it – France and Britain less so.
If Greece is to be “saved” in her European form, she will be saved by decisions taken in Brussels, not Athens. And those decisions will be taken eurozone-wide to cohere all euro members in the nearest thing to a federal system.
That new eurozone will harmonise tax systems, regulate and order the banking sector, and limit the size of sovereign budget deficits. It might happen. If it does not, the demolition of Greece will prove the first casualty of the death of the European single currency.
It is a demolition that will take more than a generation to recover from, even if then. Hence that sense of pain and pity as I looked down from my jet plane window on the retreating hills and temples of beloved ancient Greece.
Follow Jon Snow on Twitter
Related posts:
There are 25 comments on this post
Greece or, should I say the ordinary people of Greece, are no different to other citizens of Europe. Powerless victims to the colossal corruption of colluding criminal vermin, who’ve used and manipulated the system over decades to furnish themselves and their cronies with the Lions share of wealth.
As you view the receding hills and misery of Greece Jon, look at the mountains of poverty and debt in Britain and, cast your eye down on the plains of inequality of all the other EU countries. For this is the reality, not just in Greece but, everywhere. The geographic plates of tectonic fiscal dominance by the minority of greedy ruinous immoral people.
For the Greek people, there is no light at the end of their nightmare tunnel. They are not alone though for, in a few more years they’ll witness the fate of most EU citizens driven into the pits of poverty at the behest of the criminal wealthy scum & corrupt governance. Millions and millions of powerless, voiceless, penniless citizens enslaved into deliberate workhouses matched only by the Dickensian era of horror.
The EU deep seas of misery see most people entangled and drowning, while the clique of wealthy vermin bask in their Yachts
Corruption and fiscal dominance of the few.Your hatred of the West fails to see the similarity with the Socialist states of Asia and Russia.Also the despotic states of the Middle East and Africa.Wherever there is money there is corruption .Wherever there is power there is even more corruption.The democratic right to vote and remove public figures does nothing to remove the inherent corruption,it just moves it on.
I have no sympathy for Greece as their leaders were well aware that they were not only conning their citizens ,but also the European Union.I,neither, have any sympathy for the undemocratic,rotten corrupt system of the EU to which our leaders against the will of the majority,keep us tied without a political mandate so to do.
The EU and Euro can only survive as a federation, controlled from a central point.They are surely aware of that,but unable to take the steps required,because they would not get the will of the majority.
Instead of cancelling the whole doomed project they would sooner drag the global financial system into oblivion.There lies the corruption.
@Adrian, it comes as no surprise that try to smear and stereotype my opinions. Your arrogant presumption of my so called ‘hate of the west’ is your attempt to character assassinate me and, pigeon-hole me into a category of radical views. Predictable and pathetic.
Go read my comments properly. You’ll then determine that what I hate is, people responsible for poverty, misery, inequality, spin, lies, corruption, media domination, repression of citizens and control of the sheeple. And that summaries every country because, in every country there are people that conduct these evil deeds.
You paint..’Socialist states of Asia and Russia and, also the despotic states of the Middle East and Africa” as worse than all in the world yet, you choose to ignore the reality that it’s every country. It’s the human selfish agenda through corrupt, collusive, crony orchestration.
Instead of trying to smear my opinions, try take your blinkers off and think for yourself outside your prejudice, narrow minded, shallow, closed minded box.
Good debate is only conducive if people remain open minded and break the mould of brainwashings.
good debate does not use the language you choose to use of those you disagree with.I’m not smearing your opinions,infact if you read my reply i’m agreeing with much of it,but i prefer debate and differences to be in moderate language which you normally seem unable to use
You don’t need Adrian to “stereotype” your opinions. Your choice of adjectives does that for you.
Which pragmatic model of Government do you suggest would avoid the corruption you describe and would lead to ‘equality’; whatever that means?
I do, however, agree that the EU has turned corruption of Power into an art form and that bankers should pay for their incompetence!
Your fantasy ‘harmonised’ Eurozone could only have a chance of operating if all the senior managerial government and banking posts in the Med states of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal etc. were occupied by seconded accountants from Germany, Finland, Austria, Holland etc.
As that is neither practical nor politically feasible, it will never happen.
Thus the same old story will repeat ad infinitum – the ‘poor’ (i.e. inefficient, corrupt, pick your own adjectives) states will make promises which they have no intention or capacity to deliver. The sponsoring (i.e. hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding) states will let them get away with it again until the next crisis. Go back to Start, Do not pass Go, Do collect €200…..
Sooner or later, probably later, it will finally be agreed that the Euro Emperor really does have no clothes on, and then there might just be a chance of breaking the cycle. Until then, it’s just throwing more good money after bad. The worst thing is, it’s my money, whatever Osborne pretends.
Globalisation
An Irishman sat with an Italian woman
watching a Japanese designed television,
which had been assembled in China,
and on which rested upon a Danish designed
shelving unit, which was contextually appropriate
as the television-series which they were watching
was a Danish-Swedish co-production.
They were drinking a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
from Worcester Crystal,
which they had purchased in a British supermarket chain
with their hard-earned Euro,
the fate of which, according to the English newspapers,
rested in the balance of the outcome of the G8 summit,
which the American president was chairing,
and who was hosting the recently elected French Prime Minister,
and who were both pondering the economic stability
of the entire Greek nation.
Effortlessly apt.
My response to the above posts is that they are both equally valid, though I wouldn’t presume to act as arbiter. Even so, why assume that Mr Martin has a ‘hatred of the West’? Like many of us, he may be speaking from dire personal experience, and that of relatives and friends – those who lost jobs, homes, and mortgages around 2008. Some took their own lives. The global financial system is hardly a model of moral probity. Cresus in “Confessions of a Rotten Banker” shows how many international bankers and investors, as well as multinational proprietors, have no loyalty to any nation. They are an elite, cosmopolitan class who have few scruples and few attachments. Their callous detachment is bolstered up by a laissez-faire/survival of the fittest world view. They justify their enormous wealth on the basis that they’re smarter than the poor fools who have lost their jobs and had their homes repossessed. They’ve been told how smart they are by their university professors, and they believe it. Cresus proudly describes how he defrauded his own bank out of millions, before disappearing to the fiscal paradise of Andorra. He did it because he knew that he would get away with it.
The Euro – the new ‘Babel’ ?
‘Those who do not learn from history…’ let us make it ancient history – the Greeks know a thing or two about that!
I would like to congratulate Jon Snow,Faisal Islam and the Channel 4 team for an interesting, informative and balanced report from Athens on Channel 4 news last night(Mon 18.06.12). You interviewed a variety of Greeks with different opinions about the crisis and possible solutions.It was refreshing to listen to the Greeks’ view of what is happening in their country rather than to hear speculations and condemnations from outside Greece.
I agree with you entirely. I recommend Channel 4 News to friends and acquaintances in preference to other UK television and press news sites. I find it sad and surprising that there seems to be so much recourse to conventional, national stereo-types that have little or no validity: the Spaniard with his large sombrero hat lazing in the sunshine etc. If people visit Madrid or Barcelona, they can’t fail to notice what thriving and dynamic cities they are. These are just two European examples. This widespread tendency towards national stereo-typing greatly confuses the terms of the debates, in my view. It also plays into the hands of those who have their own agenda in wanting to undermine the eurozone.
Innocent, decent people who paid their taxes and saved for their pensions for decades are watching their lifetime efforts being smashed for the sake of “coherent fiscal and political union”. They find it hard to pay the electricity bill, they don’t benefit from any kind of medical insurance even though they have paid a fortune for it all their lives, Justice is non existent and -ABOVE ALL- the most important thing a person has in his life, HOPE, is gone…
I see it, my mother sees it, thank God my father is not alive to see it….
Spare us your pain and pity, sir. It is more than obvious that you don’t have a clue about what is going on in Greece. You can take your top hat now and run to Ascot.
Nobody knows whether it was Albert Einstein who said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” All I know is that you do not need to be a genius to agree with the statement.
The idea of the European Union and later the Euro were academic, theoretical concepts dreamt up by frightened men who wished to avoid another war with Germany. They had not the slightest chance of succeeding without full political and economic integration.
What staggers me is that anyone with half a brain could believe that different states containing people of different cultures, with different values, with different societies and constitutions and varying degrees of xenophobia could so arrange their finances that their relative exchange rates would remain static, in perpetuity! For that is what a common currency implies!
Further, success would rely on politicians being people of integrity who would honour international agreements when they stand a real chance of losing power domestically.
(to be continued)
It is a ‘no-brainer’ why Germany wishes to retain the Euro. It can export its goods at an artificially low price without worrying about a very uncompetitive exchange rate for the DMark!
There is, however, absolutely no logical reason (other than ‘bail out’) why Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy and even France would wish to retain a currency which makes their exports uncompetitive. Why buy Spanish when you can buy German?
It is axiomatic that political and economic integration does not exist across Europe. We have recently seen that various electorates have rejected the diktats of the unelected technocrats of the European commission with national politicians rejecting previously agreed austerity measures. Ireland simply gave up!
It would be insane to ignore these factors. Constantly to throw taxpayers money over and over again at saving the Euro and expecting a different outcome is, therefore, also insane!
Do you seriously think that the Germans would accept an Italian Finance Minister or the French a Portuguese Agricultural Minister or the Dutch a Defence minister from the Balkans? And what would be the common language of the USE? Esperanto!
Just to play Devil’s advocate….
The configuration of the EU is very similar to that of the UK, only bigger.
Germany is the powerhouse, generating all the money, slick, efficient, continually growing. The peripheral states operate quite differently, with a very different cultural base and behaviours.
Now compare and contrast. In the UK, London is the powerhouse, the peripheral parts (Merseyside, North East, Scotland, Northern Irelans, Wales etc) tick-over unprofitably, largely fuelled by the support of the London-generated wealth in tax redistribution.
The key difference is that the UK grew organically over many centuries, with a common currency and a dominant language throughout, sharing and supporting the same democratic institutions.
The impossibility of the EU fantasy is that they could ever think of achieving that level of integration, but on an even larger scale, with even greater differences, within a generation or two. It can’t happen, it won’t happen and any attempts to force it to happen will meet
such popular resistance as has never been seen before in peace-time. But they’re either too thick, or too gravy-trained, to realise that.
An interesting point, Mudplugger, but limited because most people in UK wish to remain like that; even the Scots and the Welsh.
The same is not true of Europe where we see a Devil’s alliance of Politicians.
Those from rich Nations want the Status Quo to remian because they can trade at an artificially low level and get richer.
Those from poor Nations want the Status Quo to remain because they cannot see the rich Nations allowing their ‘Fatted calf’ to die!
This is, of course, why politicians in Europe hate Democracy. Given a referendum, without the prophets of doom, almost all countries would vote against this financial lunacy.
France (Mitterand) and Germany (Kohl)have much to answer for in forcing the Euro on Europe. A stupidity breathtaking in its naivety.
Free trade does not require a common currency but a single currency does require Political union.
As you say, Mudplugger, it will never happen hence my view that we should consign the Euro to the dustbin of history and lampoon its supporters.
Agreed.
It was revealing at the G20 to hear El Presidente Barosso (why was he there ?) say “In the EU we don’t need lessons in democracy or economics”.
Oh, the deep irony of it.
Of course! But as Politicians always say, he wasn’t doing or saying anything illegal or untrue.
No, but he was simply ignoring all of the lessons on democracy and economics!
In modern parlance, they are all a shower of ‘love children’!
Most of the comments above ditto my feelings to a lesser or greater degree. I can’t help feeling amongst this financial doom and gloom though Greece is about to cradle a new civilisation : a diiferent civilisation.I don’t often trust my inuit to go with feelings, but there is something ‘in the air’. By the importance in itself of Greeces’ rise or fall ..where do all roads lead to ?
As always, Mr. Snow, a paragon of journalistic integrity and a respectable moral interrogator!My news is so much he more informed by you and your colleagues and I absolutely loved your discussion about disability politics. As always, balanced and self-depricating and informative! Kudos
Jon,
Tut tut.
And still no words against the international banking and economics system that got everybody into this fix for the umpteenth time?
Sometimes I think J.K. Galbraith wasted his time writing “The Great Crash” (1954), “American Capitalism” (1952) and “The New Industrial State” (1967).
He at least tried to warn everybody what lay in store. How sad we can’t say the same thing about Western mainstream media – then again it requires the ability to look further than the end of your nose, something apparently well beyond Brit hack journos.
What is being done to Greece is a disgusting, cowardly attack on its innocent citizens. It is thievery by pin suited mobsters and liars in the IMF, World Bank, Bilderberg Group and all the rest of the cheap hoods who control capitalism.
For all the hypocritical breast beating and propaganda, you can be absolutely sure of one thing – IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. Capitalism cannot operate any other way; its only alternative is fascism.
All you need do is read history and learn its lessons.
Even if Jon agreed with you – and I don’t know whether he does or not – he wouldn’t be able to say so on Channel 4 News. The Channel would probably be prohibited from broadcasting altogether. Anybody who’s ever done a journalism course also knows that ‘balanced reporting’ means that several angles have to be presented, even if the journalist doesn’t really want to give them all air time. I also think that Jon and his team are sometimes being provocative – to stir viewers and readers into a response in one direction or another – usually preferable to apathy and indifference. The fact that comments are moderated but rarely censored is a very good sign.
I am surprised at how such a well-informed and intelligent observer seems to buy the little morality play so flattering to Frankfurt and Brussels.
It is interesting to keep an eye on what economically literate American observers have been saying from the start — that the Eurozone was a very, very sub-optimal currency area. In the early noughties flooded the periphery with cheap money pursuing a monetary policy tailored for the core. Now with the periphery burning — youth unemployment heading for 50% they pursue a tight money policy and *demand* that the bad debt be nationalized by the periphery countries, conveniently protecting the core banks that did so much to inflate the bubble.
As a matter of urgency we should be taking putting the entire ECB staff on a Macro-101 course and let the IMF try and dig us out of the crisis in the meantime.
Whatever the Greek sins they pale into insignificance next to this reckless, elite-driven folly now threatening the world economy.
Hi Jon, and All,
Its been a while since I responded here, I’ve been rather busy of late.
Yes, Greece has it all – at one level. At another, it boasts some of the most corrupt people in influential places and some of the worst structures of governance and civic observance on the continent of Europe.
Really Jon, is this claim accurate. We live in a Country where our leader David Cameron comes on the news saying he wants to stamp out this culture of entitlement, how absurd this is. He himself comes from this exact culture, he was after all entitled to benefit from his fathers wealth was he not. I’d argue that some of the worst are a bit closer to home.
You see I joined some groups in edinburgh after reading Carn Ross book ‘The leaderless Revolution’ and we have got quite politically active. I’ve been following documentary’s such as ‘the 4 horsemen’ ‘Future my Love’ and ’97% Owned’, I read people like Lesley Riddoch’s articles. I find Eigg an inspiration and feel that Rio should have been boycotted, save the air miles and do something useful instead, the issues are to deeply worrying not too.
Very apt blog here.
http://www.arkadiansystems.com/?p=716