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The hopelessly corrupt structure of the Eurozone & the Eurogroup

by Ramin Mazaheri

Part 3 - An undemocratic Eurozone produces only hopeless non-democracies

It is axiomatic that that when politics does not rule – where there is no law or regulation – the rich are the rulers. It is also axiomatic that in a climate of total deregulation the richest nation will benefit the most.

Unsurprisingly, the US pioneered the concept of mass deregulation in the early 1980s, which they foisted on Europe as much as possible in order to ensure the status quo-dominance of US corporations. Washington may have even created a Frankenstein’s monster, because the Eurogroup has achieved the American dream of total deregulation even more than in America.

We owe Varoufakis a debt of gratitude for extensively detailing the utter lack of democracy within the Eurogroup. What’s absolutely appalling is that most media do not hammer these facts repeatedly, but even seem totally unaware of them.

In this sense – critique of the status quo – Varoufakis’ book is essential reading for Europeans who want to know what principles their society really is based upon. For all the nonsense about “European work-life balance” and “third way politics”…that may have applied pre-Eurozone, but it sure doesn’t apply anymore.

After all, what do you get when your leadership group has no democracy, no oversight and no records? You get anti-democratic oligarchy: the richer members controlling the poorer ones:

“…Dr. Schauble and the Eurogroup had succeeded in overthrowing our government by asphyxiating us enough for Prime Minster Tsipras to surrender…our newly elected government could choose any policy mix it liked as long as it was virtually identical to the calamitous one imposed by the Troika on previous Greek governments.

The Eurozone is, and has always been from its inception as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, merely a cartel of high finance which wants only to preserve its economic dominance and monopolies. The Eurogroup is the most anti-democratic, the most brutal and the most hypocritical aspect of the pan-European project, and Varoufakis makes that clear in multiple appalling passages.

When I asked a friend who played a central role in Greece’s induction talks how they had managed to convince Germany to let Greece into the Eurozone, his answer was fantastically unassuming: ‘We just copied everything the Italians had done, and a few tricks used by Germany itself. And when they threatened to veto our entry, we threatened them back that we would tell the world what Italy and Germany had been up to.

Give me a part of the action, or I rat you out.” Is that not the very definition of criminal collusion on the part of Greece’s 1% with the 1%-ers in other nations?

Of course, the Maastricht Criteria’s real purpose was to allow into the Eurozone countries that did not meet these criteria and then force them to do whatever it demanded to meet them.

Only France, Ireland and Denmark held referendums on Maastricht ratification, anyway.

When it comes to countries like Germany and France, the rules are meant to be broken. But for countries like Greece the rules are the rules are the rules! Even if they are unworkable and unenforceable. The Greek state can default against the weakest of Greek and non-Greek citizens, against pension funds and the like, but its debts to the ECB are sacrosanct. They have to be paid come what may. But how?

The loans are not meant to be repaid, of course, but to exist indefinitely so that the 1% can live in ease thanks to the curse of compound interest.

But who was the first country to break the EU fiscal deficit rules? France and Germany, in 2003, and they united their power to make sure they did not face sanctions (and certainly not the Troika). But in 2011, when countries like Ireland, Greece and others were loaded beyond economic recognition with (French and German) banker bailout debt, it was a totally different story.

Francois Hollande, notably, broke the fiscal deficit rules when France wanted to increase military spending after the Bataclan attacks. Military spending, of course, is always ok for the 1%, so the increase was approved.

France just announced that they will be under the fiscal deficit rule of 3% this year – one year early. Even if the “fiscal deficit rule” fig leaf has withered from overuse, no matter – austerity will continue anyway in 2018 with 16 billion euros of cuts. Housing and Job Ministries will be slashed, and the major cuts to social security will be paid for by slashing the already poverty-line incomes of the elderly.

These were just a handful of examples of Eurogroup’s hypocrisy/tyranny/treachery listed by Varoufakis, but rest assured that I could add many others.

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