hvactec
VIP Member
Friday November 04 2011
Financial crises usually consist of two acts.
The first, during which nothing much seems to happen, drags on apparently forever.
Then suddenly in the blink of an eye the pace of events accelerates from slow-motion to fast forward.
The Greek crisis, which has dragged on without any sign of resolution since October 2009, now seems to have entered this second, more dangerous phase with events likely to rapidly come to a head over the next few days.
Whatever eventually happens, it is now clear that politically speaking Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is a dead man walking.
The farcical events of the past few days, Monday's shock referendum announcement, Tuesday's dismissal of the armed forces high command, Wednesday's humiliating dressing down from President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel followed by yesterday's cancellation of the referendum, have destroyed whatever remaining credibility Mr Papandreou possessed. Despite his refusal to resign yesterday, his time is up.
Mr Papandreou should go and go now.
However, having left the referendum genie out of the bottle, it is unlikely that the Greek population, which has repeatedly demonstrated its opposition to EU and IMF-dictated austerity, will meekly accept yesterday's climbdown.
President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel's insistence that any Greek referendum be a straight 'Yes-No' on its membership of the eurozone rather than on whether or not to approve the EU/IMF bailout package seems to have called Mr Papandreou's bluff for now.
But it seems unlikely that the referendum genie will conveniently disappear back into its bottle.
There must also be a suspicion that, in calling Mr Papandreou's bluff, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel may have over-played their hand.
In other words, far from "bailing out" Greece, last week's package condemns the country to at least a decade more of grinding depression. While opinion polls still show that a majority of Greeks continue to support their country's membership of the single currency, how solid will that support prove to be when the reality dawns on Greek public opinion that the price of continued euro membership is austerity for as far into the future as can be predicted?
The likelihood must now be that, with or without a referendum, Greece will be ejected from the euro well before the end of the year and that this will be accompanied by a messy, disorderly debt default.
read more Greek crisis now reaching climax - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie
Financial crises usually consist of two acts.
The first, during which nothing much seems to happen, drags on apparently forever.
Then suddenly in the blink of an eye the pace of events accelerates from slow-motion to fast forward.
The Greek crisis, which has dragged on without any sign of resolution since October 2009, now seems to have entered this second, more dangerous phase with events likely to rapidly come to a head over the next few days.
Whatever eventually happens, it is now clear that politically speaking Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is a dead man walking.
The farcical events of the past few days, Monday's shock referendum announcement, Tuesday's dismissal of the armed forces high command, Wednesday's humiliating dressing down from President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel followed by yesterday's cancellation of the referendum, have destroyed whatever remaining credibility Mr Papandreou possessed. Despite his refusal to resign yesterday, his time is up.
Mr Papandreou should go and go now.
However, having left the referendum genie out of the bottle, it is unlikely that the Greek population, which has repeatedly demonstrated its opposition to EU and IMF-dictated austerity, will meekly accept yesterday's climbdown.
President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel's insistence that any Greek referendum be a straight 'Yes-No' on its membership of the eurozone rather than on whether or not to approve the EU/IMF bailout package seems to have called Mr Papandreou's bluff for now.
But it seems unlikely that the referendum genie will conveniently disappear back into its bottle.
There must also be a suspicion that, in calling Mr Papandreou's bluff, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel may have over-played their hand.
In other words, far from "bailing out" Greece, last week's package condemns the country to at least a decade more of grinding depression. While opinion polls still show that a majority of Greeks continue to support their country's membership of the single currency, how solid will that support prove to be when the reality dawns on Greek public opinion that the price of continued euro membership is austerity for as far into the future as can be predicted?
The likelihood must now be that, with or without a referendum, Greece will be ejected from the euro well before the end of the year and that this will be accompanied by a messy, disorderly debt default.
read more Greek crisis now reaching climax - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie
Last edited:
