All Constitutions Are Equal But Some Constitutions Are Equaler Than Others, to paraphrase a quote from George Orwell’s exquisite “Animal Farm”. In today’s version of this excellent political analysis (because that is what it is) the Pigs are… No, not Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, but Germany. In “Animal Farm” the Pigs are the ones who lord it over everybody else and consider themselves equaler than others. Just as Germany considers herself Equaler than others in the EU.
Germany makes a big fuss over her Constitution, and rightly so. The whole of Europe spent this summer biting its nails waiting for the German Constitutional Court to rule over the legitimacy of the ESM. Had they ruled against, it would have been scotched.
Now, Greece’s Constitution has been consigned to the dustbin of history. The Greek Constitutional Court has decreed that a great many of the stipulations in the special package being voted on today are Unconstitutional. Does that make any difference? Not a jot. The Greek Constitution can just go hang. The Greek government is bound hand and foot to do what the troika insists it should. It has even gone as far as saying that the small formerly left wing DIMAR party should also vote for these measures. And that’s an order!
Anthony Verias has tweeted the following: “I’m surprised to find out #Greece even HAS a constitution; thought it was just the name of a square in #Athens #7ngr“
He is right. Yet Constitution Square, Syntagma in Greek, was given that name because the people thronged in the Square in front of what was then the Royal Palace and is now the Greek Parliament, or Vouli, demanding a Constitution to replace the absolute Monarchy of a Bavarian King. Which they succeeded in doing.
Perhaps it is time we pulled our ripped up Constitution from the dustbin of History and also took out some pages from our History which we should act on.