An excellent interview by James Galbraith was posted on Yannis Varoufakis blog. Gloomy of course, in a way, in that it appears the very EU let alone the EZ may well not survive. Germany has to decide what she wants to do. But it seems to me she has already decided and will roundly confirm her decision in the up coming elections.
In short, Germany wants all the benefits of the Euro but has no intention of conceding any of her sovereign rights, or agreeing to say Eurobonds or even a banking union I would say by the way she is procrastinating over this. In other words she wants all of the benefits but none of the costs.
And unfortunately, this is the best recipe for European disaster. A disaster that is already upon us. And perhaps in the worst possible way in Greece, where our government is acting more and more like nothing but Merkel’s props by the day, despite so many opportunities to at least cry foul! From the IMF’s admission that they got the formula wrong, to the IMF again insisting that there has to be a large haircut of official debt, otherwise no dice, to Enrico Letti’s open disparaging of the whole Greek so called bail out package.
Stournaras and Samaras refuse to budge. No! We will carry on with this destructive policy to keep The Frau happy, in the groveling hope she might be nicer to us after her election. Though why on earth she should be, especially after having won an election on the pledge that Greece will get no respite, remains a mystery to the general public if not to the wise and confident Mr Stournaras.
But perhaps Mr Stournaras is doing the whole of Europe a favour after all. Perhaps his very obsequious servility in bowing to the Mistress is what will speed up events and lead to the break up sooner rather than later. Because if it’s not going to be fixed, as appears highly unlikely, then it’s best to get it over and done with and move on to rebuilding the economy and our lives in a way no longer remotely resembling the inhuman neoliberalism we are currently being force fed with.