Greek agony drags on as Asphyxiation Bloc wins
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
TelegraphUK
June 18th, 2012
Europe’s establishment is delighted by the victory of New Democracy and pro-asphyxiation bloc. This relief is unlikely to last much beyond today, if that.
Greece’s new leaders have a mandate from Hell. Almost 52pc of the popular vote went to parties that opposed the bail-out Memorandum in one way or another. There is no national acceptance of the Troika’s austerity policies whatsoever.
The hard-Left Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras is arguably more dangerous in opposition, now fortified with big bloc of seats in Parliament. He can lacerate the government without responsibility as the state sheds 150,000 public sector workers, a fifth of the total.
It was for this outcome that the Greece’s elected government was toppled last year in an EU Putsch. We now learn from ex-premier George Papandreou that this was “all Sarkozy’s fault”.
France’s leader refused to let Papandreou call a referendum on the bail-out terms (which would almost certainly have passed), and Chancellor Angela Merkel went along with this shoddy act of EU colonialism. The EU threatened, in effect, to cut off Troika payments. The PASOK government was replaced by an EU-appointed technocrat.
A frightening precedent was set, and for no purpose. All the EU has achieved is to replace a truculent Greek parliament with one that is completely unworkable.
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