Greek Riots 13/02/2012

Another month, another Greek bailout package

Across the news media today are images of riots in Greece following its Governments decision to implement further cuts upon the Greek people.

The riots pictured in todays Metro newspaper

The EU are obviously very keen for Greece to force these austerity measures through, as  it will prevent Greek leaving the Euro for the time being – with the feeling being that if Greece fall out of the Eurozone, it would simply be the beginning of a domino effect that brings down other countries.

The riots simply reflect the Greek peoples anguish. Suicide rate has increased since the start of the country’s economic crisis (credit Guardian). According to Daniel Knowles of The Telegraph," Youth unemployment is close to 50 per cent. People, as well as money, are emigrating in large numbers. Schools have no paper, hospitals are running low on medicine and homelessness – once unseen on the streets of Athens – is now apparently rife.

Indeed, Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro. The idea that a country such as Germany could share a currency with a country like Greece, which has an entirely different infrastructure, is simply preposterous. Indeed, it is easy for Sarcozy to admit this fact himself (BBC News  online, 28^th October 2011) but this is now pointless. With simple a little foresight, this whole mess could have been prevented.

The real crisis now is on the streets in Greece, not in the hallways of Brussels. By taking a gamble by allowing Greece to join the Euro in the first place, we are now facing years of personal hardship of its citizens. Is the Euro worth losing lives over?

I have said for many years that the European Union is a political project which is doomed to fail. The situation with Greece has been rumbling on for a number of months, and I have spoken on BBC Radio Wales about their financial troubles.

"They built a house without any proper foundations. It is a political project, not a financial project"

Here is a news piece from the BBC back in 2001 shortly after it was announced that Greece would be abandoning the Drachma in favour of the single currency. Note the section, "
But the president of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, warned that Greece still had a lot of work to do to improve its economy and bring inflation under control."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1095783.stm

Three words: Doomed.to.fail.

Further reading:
Athens Protests: Lawmakers endorse austerity measures
Riots as Greece attempts to keep Euro
Brussels welcomes austerity vote

Speaking at the Employment committee

Yesterday I spoke at the Employment committee for the first time:

The text of my speech:

Your 18,000 "Europe at work" programme has sentiments that have been echoed a thousand times before it was probably build for from a blueprint from the Commission and Berlin

Last week in Strasbourg Commission President Barroso naively said if every small and medium enterprise created one position unemployment would be eliminated in Europe.

Does the presidency understand that over EU regulation is helping to destroy jobs?  In the UK the Federation of Small Businesses manifesto plea at the last election was, "no more EU regulation please".
Minister, you said that "jobs are not created by employment and social policies only"  but Minister the destruction of jobs and the creation of jobs are destroyed by such policies.

A series of EU-dictated cuts have degraded public services, reduced salaries and wreaked havoc on people's lives.
Whilst I share your opinion about creating training opportunities for our young people - it is all rhetoric isn't it with no solid proposals.

And again I agree with active ageing, how do you square the circle? Where are all these jobs going to come from? Maybe you want to create jobs by creating thousands and training schemes that bleed the taxpayer without providing any real substance.

Finally, I note that you extoll the virtues of the Euro as currency, from a country that like the UK does not have the Euro. Your people twice rejected the Euro, last time in 2000 in a Referendum. Your country, your population does not believe in the Euro - and quite rightly so. We had the scaremongering in the late 90s about the Euro and we were told we would lose jobs and that certain companies would move out. We've stayed outside of the Euro. Those companies such as Nissan did not move out, it is just scaremongering. Jobs are created outside of the Eurozone, not inside the Eurozone.

Talking about the Eurozone on BBC Radio 5 Live