"...
I don't believe this theory that Troika comes here and tell us what
to do. Not at all. And this because Troika consists of 15
middle-level and 4 or 5 higher-level officers. No one has nobel
prize, no one is a politician, no one has lived in Greece for 50 or
60 years. What did they do? They have come with a general concept, a
plan, a specific perception and recipe, which applied in various
countries, and in 3 or 4 months they built hundreds of thousands
guides, decisions, etc., based on this recipe. It's impossible all
this stuff to have written by 15 people in 3 months."
"A
parallel business has been set. This business is, forces of the Greek
neoliberalism, bank CEOs, former bank executives, big law bureaus
that serve specific interests, and all this system informs, makes and
evaluates suggestions that flood Troika. Troika takes all this stuff
to embody it to a general plan which finally shapes its proposition
because Troika didn't know anything about Greece, didn't know [for
example] how many heavy occupations we have, how many must be cut. A
middle-level officer couldn't know how the Greek tax system works."
"...
the Memorandum was not only what these interests wanted here, but
also some instructions from our lenders abroad, thus it was a mix of
the lenders' orders abroad and banking interests as well as business
interests inside the country. All this thing was fixed and then they
came and told us 'What can we do? It must be done according to the
Memorandum'"
"As
if we are stupid, as if we don't understand that half of those they
imposed in Memorandum are due to their own interests. Let's be clear.
They could not say then, dare to say that measures will be taken
against the needs of the society, country and majority because they
want to take revenge for those things they didn't manage to impose
back in 1990-1993, or, in the second phase of the so-called extreme
modernization."
These are
the words of Nikos Kotzias, Professor of Political Theories of
International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus, who
three years ago, was speaking about a "parallel" business
of interests that contributed on writing the Memorandum.
Three years
later, a government official speaks publicly about interests that
actually the Troika serves. Specifically, Michalis Papadopoulos,
Deputy Transport Minister said among other things:
“The
troika has certain obsessions that are groundless and are part of the
way of thinking created by its technical teams,” he told
Athens 984 radio station. “They are like a corner shop, where
everyone who passes leaves something and then the troika picks up on
it and says: “Ah, yes! You have to do this as well”.”
“There
are institutional bodies, Greek and foreign, who pass by the troika
and say: “Do this as well”,” said the deputy minister.
“The troika has adopted a way of thinking that involves them
serving particular interests.”
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