Time to voice disagreement again:lol:
Syriza are moving faster than anyone could honestly expect, given the diplomacy by deadline game that the Troika are playing and the demands on the government's time from the EU, ECB, European parliament etc.
Considering that Syriza promised to have the banks open again yesterday and that, at the time of the referendum, i.e. just after, he promised to negotiate a (better) deal within the next 48 hours, I think it fair that more speed was expected. So he arrives in Brussels and has nothing.
Of course, I think the Germans, the Commission and the Dutch and Finnish have decided that they don't want a deal, they want Greece out and consider the eventual costs to be worth it, hence whatever proposal the Greeks come up with it will be dismissed out-of-hand, as they have dismissed all previous reform packages.
Apart from the conundrum that Germany faces (I'm not sufficiently versed on Finns and Dutch of late) and that I've described at length here or elsewhere or both, one point is that there was only one reform package to speak of, the 2nd one of 2012 which included a pretty substantial haircut. This one ran out when Tsipras left the table around 2 weeks ago, offering no alternative suggestions at all.
Here are just a few of the comments that they will use, come Thursday:
- Unrealistic
- Too vague
- Doesn't address pensions
- Doesn't address structural reform issues
- Unrealistic timetable
- Inadequate public spending cut proposals
Indeed that'll probably come up. Basically because it will be the case. Add to that how in no way can any deal be better than the last one, the strictures, due to the longer running and financing period, will be more immense.
One need see, speaking of strictures, those of the IWF, ECB and Eurogroup as well here and I'm not speaking of the voter pressure back home.
Yet how a country that has shown itself to be incapable of managing the past debt is supposed to manage an even bigger one now is beyond me as well. Let alone how it's supposed to reform itself under these conditions to the point of addressing the steadily increasing humanitarian catastrophe. Raising the VAT that everyone has to pay for those that aren't buying anymore is as daft as cutting pensions even more.
I'm pretty sure that the decision to force Greece out of the Eurozone has already been taken
Where I don't share your assurance I suspect that, leaving aside all the invective to be seen in the EU parliament today, the proponents of Grexit are at their wits end. Not alone in frustration at this understandably unloved government but in barely whispered realization that whatever they'll be able to do towards help won't help since it can't. Not in Greece.
And I suspect that Tsipras, who certainly knows the strictures that govern ESM, IWF and ECB by rule, regulation and law, isn't even bothering to propose anything remotely acceptable, knowing that he's promised the people something from the realm of fantasy, both in his election campaign and in the referendum and afterwards.
It's pure speculation as such but it's the closest I can come to explain a behavior I'd otherwise have to deem as erratic, as most do.
and the entire EU summit (including all 28 members, not just the 19 Eurozone members) is being convened in order to present the decision as a unanimous one, which it emphatically will not be. However, what is going to be very interesting to watch between now and Sunday is the way in which Juncker, Dijsselbloem and Merkel will be working hard to bring Hollande, Renzi, LaGarde, Rajoy and other EU HoGs into line.
You may as well exclude LaGarde, she's as bound by law (as opposed to all that can freely spout without facing particular consequences) as the ECB and the ESM.
I suspect the key players will be Hollande and Renzi because a split between France and Italy on one side, and Germany and Holland and the Commission on the other would be catastrophic.
Yeah, Kohl in his time should have insisted his stance more strongly that Italy stay out (of the Euro) but he had a re-unification that he needed permission for and so Mitterand used it.
Satirists here in Spain are already joking about Merkel being determined to finish off the job that her country started in 1939 - destroying European peace forever. Poor joke, chilling that it's now in common currency.
Heard that or variations thereof and had to laugh as well.