Politics

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Oct 2018
12:21pm, 22 Oct 2018
5,498 posts
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Jovi Runner
Fellrunning - personally I don't buy into the EU helping to avoid European wars. Having read a lot about the history and ongoing aims and objectives of the EU the greater divides and "divide and rule" strategies of pitting the richer northern European countries against the poorer southern ones is likely to increase the risk of war rather than reduce it IMO. There is certainly no love lost for the Germans in Greece IMO! A common utterance I hear in Greece (which I visit pretty regularly) is "the Germans are doing financially to us now what they didn't achieve miiltarily in WW1/WW2" With that as the prevailing view (anecdotally at least) I don't thinkthat's going to reduce the chance of future wars. Only one country but I suspect Mrs MErkel is not too popular amongst the people of a lot of Southern European countries.
Oct 2018
12:42pm, 22 Oct 2018
7,690 posts
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simbil
Regarding Greece, did any of our elected politicians disagree with the EU approach?
Oct 2018
1:26pm, 22 Oct 2018
5,499 posts
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Jovi Runner
simbil - I suspect a lot did privately but not publically. My own feeling is that it's only a matter of time before France/Germany decide to turn the screws similarly on other countries.
Oct 2018
1:42pm, 22 Oct 2018
7,691 posts
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simbil
The government of the day believed in UK austerity so I suspect they had no problem with Greek austerity, but there may have been many labour MPs very opposed and as you say some private reservations.

I don't believe there is a Franco-German agenda against the South though. In the Greek debt crisis, few other EU finance ministers were sympathetic to Greece, most were on board with pressing a deal that involved Greek austerity. Or to put it another way, I believe what the EU did was the the democratic majority will of the EU people via the people'e elected representatives.

Germany get a bad rap, but Germany were helpful with the refugee crisis accepting 890,000 refugees rather than trying to make it a problem to be solved by the poor south.

The UK were not so helpful.
Oct 2018
3:08pm, 22 Oct 2018
5,500 posts
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Jovi Runner
simbil - I;d recommend reading any of Yannis Varoufakis books on the EU with regard to the Franco-German alliance! I'm not convinced any of the real people in the EU would have chosen to inflict the level of austerity seen in Greece. It really is bad there. Many pensioners have seen their incomes slashed by 40% - it's not uncommon to see 70/80 year olds routing through the bins in Thessaloniki to find food. Can you imagine if your grandparents State pension was slashed by 40% - I don't think anyone would vote for that had they known that would be the consequence.
Oct 2018
3:11pm, 22 Oct 2018
1,981 posts
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Fellrunning
So you control the excesses of the Franco German axis by withdrawing from the single most influential forum which might exert collective leverage?
Oct 2018
3:18pm, 22 Oct 2018
5,501 posts
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Jovi Runner
Fellrunning - that's like saying even though you might vehemently disagree with what the orgainisation stands for you can only change it from within which is of course nonsense. Many apologists for historical atrocities have presented that as their argument.
Oct 2018
3:25pm, 22 Oct 2018
7,582 posts
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Markymarkmark
I strongly suspect change from within works about half the time..... Wisdom is knowing which type of half we're looking at.

The EU doesn't have a monopoly on implementing heartless and/or stupid policies (or even good policies in stupid and heartless ways) though, does it. We are quite capable of doing similar things in the UK without the EU's intervention - think Universal Credit.

On the plus side, assuming we go through with leaving, at least we're not actually doing it at gunpoint. :-o
Oct 2018
3:49pm, 22 Oct 2018
7,692 posts
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simbil
Jovi, I get that is bad in Greece and it is a terrible situation built on a sequence of bad decisions by all concerned. I don't single out the EU or particular members as being primarily at fault though.
This is how I see it:
The EU should not have allowed Greece to join in the first place. I believe they turned a blind eye to Greek finances in their ambitions to expand.
Having let Greece in, they should not have lent them so much money. By the same token, the Greek elected government should not have borrowed so much money and the Greek people should not have been happy with the level of borrowing.
When the debt crisis hit, Greece had a choice of 2 bad paths, do what the lenders want or default and fall out of the euro. The people narrowly chose to leave but the government chose not to. It's a mess.

Yannis Varoufakis was not in favour of Brexit if I remember rightly, for the change it from within reasons. I find him interesting, though I'm not sure I always find him completely credible.
Oct 2018
4:19pm, 22 Oct 2018
3,195 posts
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jdarun
I'd be interested in hearing Jovi's pain-free solution to the Greek debt crisis.

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