Brussels, 02/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - Former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (2010-2011) Panagiotis Roumeliotis is very bitter about the way the troika has dealt with the Greek crisis, explaining on Tuesday 1 April that, if the European Parliament had been involved in the process, then a number of serious errors would have been avoided. During a debate organised by Socialist MEPs Liêm Hoang Ngoc (France) and Alejandro Cercas (Spain) and the Next Left Economic Circle, Roumeliotis recommended the Community method for ensuring the future of the eurozone.
The former IMF official said that a democratic Europe of solidarity that wants to move forwards cannot repeat the mistakes of the troika.
EP report four years late. This front-line witness of the social impact of the austerity measures forced on Greece said that the European Parliament's report on the troika's role in countries in receipt of aid should have been adopted four years ago - in 2010 rather than March 2014 - and, if the European Parliament had been involved back then, it would have been possible to avoid the mistakes that led to the failure of the programmes applied by the troika, he said. Roumeliotis argued that, without the European Parliament's intervention and respect for parliamentary law, there could not be a frank debate to work out the right programme and reduce the damage caused by austerity.
Social catastrophe. Roumeliotis said that Greece was suffering a “social catastrophe” and never since the Wall Street Crash of 1929 had a country suffered such a loss in per capital GDP. The unprecedented recession was solely due to austerity budget policies and internal devaluation, which led to a collapse in domestic demand. He said the troika should have thought of a programme to stimulate investment. Roumeliotis, who is emeritus professor at Pantheon University in Athens, said that Europe admitting that it has made a calculation error does nothing to rectify it. That a whole people has been sacrificed to satisfy the private interests of a handful of European banks is quite simply unacceptable, he added.
Community method. Roumeliotis said that Europe took too long to understand the nature of the crisis in Greece because they felt that the stability pact would be sufficient, and then it did not do enough to protect the eurozone. In his view, the measures laid down in banking union would not have been enough. In order to deal with other economic crises, Community method solutions are needed, he said, rather than intergovernmental solutions, and the European Parliament must be given a bigger role in the Community method. (MD)