EU imposing inhumane conditions on debt-ridden Greece: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ian Williams, with the Foreign Policy in Focus from New York, to ask for his insight on Greece’s plan to offer new proposals to reach a deal with its international creditors over its debt crisis.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think Greece would be able to make it before the deadline?

Williams: It’s very difficult to tell. Both sides are playing brinkmanship. As you know the Greek prime minister was recently in Moscow and talking to Putin. He might pull some rubles out of his hat in time for the event…Although nobody wants to break the ideological consensus of the European Central Bank it would appear, there’s a lot of disquiet in Europe about the conditions that are being imposed upon Greece. Yes, they’ve paid pensions to people far to earlier especially the public servants, but it was the conservative government that did that. And this government is doing things to rein it back, but these really no call whatsoever for a discussion on the default to involve deregulation of labor or expanding VAT on essential goods for poor people or even reducing pensions on poor people. And yet this type of neo-liberal agenda is part of what Junker and others have been trying to force on the Greeks. And that of course is serving to mobilize Greek public opinion behind the government to resist the demands that have been made. Since they saw obviously and manifest the unfair and uncalled for.

Press TV: What would a Greek exit mean for the people of Greece? And how does it affect Europe’s economy?

Williams: Well, they’re two separate questions. The Greeks could actually benefit from it, because they can devalue their currency and make it much more attractive to tourists, for manufacturers and for others instead of maintaining a high Euro exchange rate. On the other hand, I think what really worries people and it’s certainly worrying people in Washington is that with the world economy in the fragile state it is and with the sort of deregulated world of global finance that a Greek exit might just plunge the confidence in the Euro. It might start the bubble bursting. Bubbles can be very big, but it only takes a tiny pinprick to burst them. And although the Greek economy is small in relation to the Euro and the Greek debt is small in relation to European debt, it might be just enough to prick the bubble. And we know people the shareholders in those banks, there are people who own Greek bonds. It has an escalator effect. People would be less likely to lend money to their government, if it defaults. And we’ve seen in the past as well as a domino effect as well if Greece then why not Spain, Portugal and Italy. Although they have weathered slightly better. But there’s a consensus amongst many people on who are not hard-line conservative neo-liberals that the conditions have been imposed on the Greeks are actually inhumane and counterproductive. The Greek economy has now shrunk by 25 percent through following through on measures which they were showed would help them grow and they didn’t grow. And this is the medieval doctors who used to bleed patients to make them better and they wondered whether they carried on dying in increasing numbers and that’s precisely what’s happening here. We’re bleeding Greece to death, and then wondering why it’s not reviving.

ABN/MKA

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