Today, sometime tonight in fact, the democratically elected majority government of Greece will be dissolved and replaced by a 'national unity coalition' .... the reason for this change is that the EU rescue package terms are so opposed by the Greek public, that the Greek government had called for a 'referendum' to get a public endorsement of the bail out terms.
Now the referendum is off the table, and the Greeks were told to either take the money and implement the plan in full, or leave the Euro-zone (or even the EU itself if Pres. Sarkozy of France had his way) .... they vote tonight to create a 'stable' government, and then to fulfil all the bail out plan terms laid down by Germany and France. Italy, is in much the same boat with their government have to agree to EU inspectors looking at the state books, even though it has had no bail out funds so far. Of course in Greece this 'national unity coalition' isn't likely to last more than a few weeks at best, so this could all be just another sticking plaster, and Greece just leaves the Euro-zone after the new year (as most people expect).
So, this raises the question of whether this is actually the first stage of the death of national independent democratic governments in Europe, with the small Euro-zone countries being forced to do what the big two Euro-zone economies want inside a federal straight jacket? There are many in Greece who believe that they are being sacrificed to bring in a 'Federal Europe', which their political leaders will benefit from, but they will suffer for.
Interestingly, late on Tuesday the Greek government replaced the heads of the army, navy and air force and the chief of joint chiefs of staff in what officials described as a long-planned move largely unrelated to political turmoil ..... this has raised fears that they were preempting a coup attempt. Memories of the rule of 'The Colonels' in a military junta between 1967 and 1974 still run deep in the Greek psyche.
As the imaginary Chinese adage can be said .... "we live in interesting times".
Update: The BBC has just run an article on the 9th November, which includes the lines:
"These are disturbing days for European democracy. The euro-zone crisis is driving out elected leaders. European officials are telling elected governments what to do".
They agree with the idea that there's now a risk that democracy is being replaced by a EU unelected technocracy, it just takes them three days longer than us to reach that conclusion.
Now the referendum is off the table, and the Greeks were told to either take the money and implement the plan in full, or leave the Euro-zone (or even the EU itself if Pres. Sarkozy of France had his way) .... they vote tonight to create a 'stable' government, and then to fulfil all the bail out plan terms laid down by Germany and France. Italy, is in much the same boat with their government have to agree to EU inspectors looking at the state books, even though it has had no bail out funds so far. Of course in Greece this 'national unity coalition' isn't likely to last more than a few weeks at best, so this could all be just another sticking plaster, and Greece just leaves the Euro-zone after the new year (as most people expect).
So, this raises the question of whether this is actually the first stage of the death of national independent democratic governments in Europe, with the small Euro-zone countries being forced to do what the big two Euro-zone economies want inside a federal straight jacket? There are many in Greece who believe that they are being sacrificed to bring in a 'Federal Europe', which their political leaders will benefit from, but they will suffer for.
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| Will this be how the EU enforces the bail out in Greece? |
As the imaginary Chinese adage can be said .... "we live in interesting times".
Update: The BBC has just run an article on the 9th November, which includes the lines:
"These are disturbing days for European democracy. The euro-zone crisis is driving out elected leaders. European officials are telling elected governments what to do".
They agree with the idea that there's now a risk that democracy is being replaced by a EU unelected technocracy, it just takes them three days longer than us to reach that conclusion.
