Nadat in 2015 bondskanselier Merkel en haar ministers, samen met onze Jeroen Dijsselbloem (PvdA) als president van de Eurogroep, Griekenland voor de tweede keer sinds de tweede wereldoorlog hadden onderworpen is Merkel nu op overwinningstoer in Griekenland. Maar haar macht is aan het tanen en in Griekenland kreeg zij nu zelfs van de regering die een knieval deed voor de onmenselijke eisen van het IMF en de EU het deksel op haar neus. De Griekse regering vroeg om herstelbetalingen na de ellende en plundering van Griekenland door de Duitse troepen in WO II. En volkomen terecht. De Europese Unie staat in zijn hemd. Berichten over de eis aan Duitsland van Griekenland om herstelbetalingen worden in de Nederlandse media blijkbaar gecensureerd.
Yanis Varoufakis heeft de economische oorlog tegen Griekenland beschreven in zijn boek Adults in the room, een economisch, historisch en menselijk document dat iedereen moet lezen. Het gaat over financiën en economische feiten, dus een zeer saaie en moeilijke materie normaal gesproken, maar dit boek leest als een thriller. Er is ook een Nederlandse vertaling van.
Varoufakis over het bezoek van Merkel: "Over the past two days, Mrs Merkel was in Athens on a victory lap to celebrate her successful subjugation of the Syriza government and the subsequent extension of the Greeks’ debt bondage. Nevertheless, even this subservient Greek government managed to upset her victory lap by mentioning the… war and the reparations the Greeks will continue to demand for the gigantic loss of life and infrastructure under the Nazi occupation.
Mrs Merkel was visiting Athens over the past two days. In her mind, she would have liked to think of her visit as a victory lap. In the mind of most Greeks, Mrs Merkel came to Greece to inspect the desert she helped create (through her bailouts-austerity combination) and to call it… recovery. Ironically, her Greek triumph unleashed deflationary forces that hit Germany (negative interest rates) and wrecked her career. Yes, it is the case that most conservative German voters turned decidedly against her when she did the right thing by letting one million Syrian refugees into Germany in 2015. But, the tide had turned against her even more decidedly when negative interest rates began to eat into the fabled Swabian housewife’s nest egg. In other words, by the time Mrs Merkel let the Syrians in, her base had lost faith in her due to deflationary forces whose origin was the harsh austerity that was first imposed upon the Greeks. From this perspective, Mrs Merkel’s Athens visit is replete with irony: A chancellor on a victory tour celebrating her loss of power and her impending confinement to the group of politicians that wasted monumental capital; capital used not to unite Europe but to fragment it and to leave it open to the vagaries of xenophobic anti-Europeanism.”
Intussen is er een Democracy in Europe Movement, DiEM25, opgericht. Ook een Progressive International, en een Europese Lente.
Time: "'Europe Is Disintegrating.' Greece's Rockstar Economist Yanis Varoufakis Shares His Vision for Reforming the E.U.”
Varoufakis: "Germany is experiencing a paradoxical crisis. Germany is, on paper, flooded by… money. The federal government is in surplus. A tsunami of foreign money is flooding German banks. Families are saving. And even corporations hoard huge amounts of savings. So, why is the political centre not holding? Why are the major parties bleeding? Why is discontent, xenophobia and precariousness on a triumphant march?
The answer is: Germany’s habitat, Europe, is in a deepening systemic crisis. The inhuman austerity policies first tried and tested in Greece were, soon after, extended to the rest of Europe, Germany as well. The result is low levels of investment in people and green technologies across Europe. A wall of money is boosting inequality, share prices, house prices here in Berlin. But none of it is being put to good use in support of people or the environment.
This is why we live in a disintegrating Europe, a depressed Greece, an Italy taken over by racist populists, and a divided German society: Half of the population Germany is finding harder and harder to make ends meet. We should not be surprised. As Hegel might have said: No European people can be prosperous and free when other European countries are condemned to the permanent depression that eternal austerity creates.”
Wat Oekraïne betreft hebben Nederlandse politici en ministers zich schaamteloos geblameerd door in Kiev in 2013 en 2014 demonstraties van rechtsextremisten toe te juichen. Nu wordt heel moeilijk gedaan over facebookberichten zogezegd vanuit Rusland die de Amerikaanse verkiezingen zouden hebben beïnvloed, maar dit was nog veel erger. Dit is rechtstreekse inmenging in de zaken van andere landen. De vrijheid gaat maar één kant uit, blijkbaar.
Kritiek Medvedev op bezoek ministers demonstratie Kiev
Elsevier: Verhofstadt en Van Baalen bewijzen in Kiev het gelijk van Moskou
