Brussels, 14/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - “I am pleased that the Greek parliament has accepted the offer, but I am not happy with the programme proposed by the EU, the European Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank”, said Hannes Swoboda (S&D, Austria) on Tuesday 14 February, regarding the draconian measures which Greece must implement under the second rescue plan for the country (see EUROPE 10552). This programme increases austerity levels and risks slowing down progress in reducing the country's deficit.
Swoboda visited Greece to assess the “extremely fragile” economic and social situation in the country. “My concern is that with the programme agreed, we are worsening the fragility of the economic and social system in Greece. It is not a good programme, and the measures contradict what we expect of Greece.” He had asked for the troika to be invited to attend a session of the economic committee of the EP to justify the measures. The troika members arrived like “a swarm of locusts”, imposed blackmail (if you don't accept these measures, no money) and spoke on behalf of the EU without having presented their programme to the EP, said Swoboda. This is a poor programme, he said.
Alternative programme. It is for this reason that three members of the S&D Group (Luxembourg's Robert Goebbels, Bulgaria's Ivailo Kalfin, and Elisa Ferreira of Portugal) informed the European economy ministers of their plans to travel to Greece to develop a different programme, which is not an austerity programme, but one focusing on growth and employment. “This does not mean that we are against reducing the public deficit, naturally it needs to be reduced, but it is through growth and employment that we will succeed in reducing deficits”, stressed Swoboda. “The programme to be presented by our troika will be a programme drafted in partnership with the Greek people and experts in Greece, with different solutions from those of the EU-IMF troika. And we will hold public debate on the basis of our proposals”, Swoboda added. He hopes that the Social-Democrat troika will be sent within a fortnight and that the programme will be presented within a month.
Taking questions from the press, Swoboda reminded his audience that in Greece salaries are very low and many young people are held hostage by employers. The minimum wage will be €500 in the future, but if you won't work for €300 or €400, you won't be taken on, that is the blackmail that has been created. The drop in the minimum wage will de facto serve to lower real salaries actually paid and which are above the minimum wage, the chair of the S&D Group stressed. The troika wants to liberalise the employment market rather than to liberalise the employer market, there are restrictive practices.
Swoboda, who met the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, on Monday, takes the view that the macroeconomic effects of the policies carried out must be assessed. We are working in terms of budgets, but the budgetary problems we have seen in Greece are not present in Spain or other countries, noted the chair of the S&D Group. “This is why I am saying that the ECB needs to extend its objectives, it should not just fight inflation, but it also needs to tackle macroeconomic imbalances”, he concluded.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens/EFA, France) said that the EU has engaged with Greece on a line which, at the end of the day, “will not work”. The Greek people get the feeling that something unfeasible is being imposed on them, said the leader of the Greens. “A reform of the Greek state is what is needed, and no country can carry out all that at the pace dictated by the EU”, he said. He criticised the technocratic approach of the Commission, whose calculations are abstract. He noted that the assets of the shipbuilders have still not been frozen, nor have those of Greeks in international banks (in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria). Daniel Cohn-Bendit called for ambitious actions to tackle tax evasion. What country would not resist a 30 to 40% drop in salaries, he said. “We are imposing de-growth in Greece which nobody can live through. It is the fault of the EU, for imposing an unsustainable pace of austerity and it is the fault of the Greeks for not proposing an alternative”, he concluded.
Rebecca Harms (Greens/EFA, France) recommended a “Marshall plan” for Greece. She said that since last summer, 60,000 Greek SMEs have gone bankrupt. She said that the Germans had been forgiven for their mistakes after the World Wars, and recommended the EU to be a bit less strict on Greece, because strict rules could lead to “disaster”. What is needed is a plan to cancel Greece's debt, set in place state reforms and an investment plan, in the view of the Greens.
Joseph Daul (EPP, France) welcomed the Parliament's vote and said that “everybody must take their responsibility”. He said that the troika should try to do its best work. He admitted that they could not just “cut wages”.
In the view of Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium), the agreement between the Greek authorities and the troika will not be enough to solve the problems, because more efforts are being called for of the private sector, more tax, but no attempts to tackle a political system based on patronage, on public banks, corruption, large public enterprises, complex tax system, corporatism. “If we do not tackle these problems, there will be no turnkey solution.” (LC/transl.fl)