America's friends the Greeks held elections last weekend too. All kinds of people were running, socialists, neo-Nazi's (the "Golden Dawn" party), communists. Under Grecian election rules the party with the most votes (nowhere near a majority) gets first dibs on forming a government. That would be "New Democracy," the ruling center-right party. They couldn't form a government. When that happens, the party that came in second gets to try. That would be the Socialists. They couldn't form a government either. When that happens they go to a game of rock, paper, scissors, shoot. No, actually a new round of elections, now set for mid-June. More elections?...we sincerely urge upon our Grecian brethren and sistren rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Somehow, eventually the Grecians will form a new government.
We want whatever the Greek people want.
And whatever the Germans want, and the Dutch, Finns, French. The rub of course is that those different peoples want different things. All (and twelve more) are members of the single-currency Eurozone. The Germans and French (at least the French under former president Nicholas Sarkozy) took the lead in negotiating on behalf of the "troika" (the IMF, European Commission, European Central Bank) fiscal austerity measures that threw Greece into political crisis a year ago. That Greek government, under former prime minister George Papandreou agreed to the measures but not before rioting Grecians surrounded parliament.
The Germans, French and the "northern" Eurozone members are more fiscally responsible than the Greeks and "southern" Europeans. The aid packages were negotiated to help Greece out of their calamitous economic predicament in return for greater fiscal responsibility. That's a good thing. Good Germans, good French, good northern Europeans. All done with the purposes of Greek economic stability and European union. Good and good.
Bad Greeks.
It is bad that Greece got themselves in this predicament, bad that the political chaos will almost certainly undo the negotiated agreements, bad for that matter that the French under new president Francois Hollande, want to "renegotiate" the agreements. The real culprit here however is the Eurozone.
Very bad Eurozone.
The Eurozone is something like a democracy--but only on economic matters. Politically of course, the member nations are completely autonomous. So you have the unwanted situation of the biggest, most fiscally responsible countries, Germany and France, imposing fiscal conditions on smaller, fiscally irresponsible countries without political accountability. The Greek people cannot vote to oust Angela Merkel. The Eurozone is also structured to be a conservative economic democracy. It looks to government deficits, government spending as a percentage of GDP, and like that. All worthy things to look to. The Greek protests last year and the recent French elections however are a leftist critique of the Eurozone's conservative economics: too much austerity, more government spending to grow the economy.
This leftist critique may be wrong but it's what the people of France and Greece want, at least now. If we want what the French and Greek people want and at the same time what the German people want those different ends cannot be met within the Eurozone structure. Whether it's a leftist critique or a rightist critique or an altogether non-directional critique it says here the Eurozone was and is a mistake. You cannot have a "democracy" only in economic matters. The member nations of the Eurozone are too different. The idea that there is something unifying and "European" above the differences among Greeks, Germans, French, Dutch, Finns, Irish, and Italians, is ludicrous. More important than ludicrous, it is impractical, it's not working. The fiscally responsible German people should not have to bail out irresponsible Greeks and should not be put in the position of forcing Greeks to do anything. The Greeks should go through their problems and come up with their own solutions to their problems. They should not be given the "out" of blaming Germany.
Greece should withdraw from the Eurozone.
I like to think that this is an optimistic not a cynical view, that the Greek people, and all nationalities, have a worth independent of how they conduct their economic matters. The Eurozone levels national distinctions in service to the almighty Euro.
Let the Greeks be Greek. And let them go.
