Greece has been teetering on the brink of leaving the Eurozone after being forced to accept tough austerity measures by the EU — principally forced by the European Central Bank and pressure from Germany.
Thomas #Piketty is unimpressed w/ EU's handling of euro crisis. "Nothing short of disastrous," he tells @derSpiegel. http://t.co/llGJMsezyQ
— Charles Hawley (@charles_hawley) March 10, 2015
The country joined the Eurozone amid much speculation that it had lied about its 'convergence criteria' — the various measure of government borrowing and debt that would indicate an economic cycle comparable with the other countries.
Picketty said:
"Greece alone won't be able to do anything. It has to come from France, Germany and Brussels. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) already admitted three years ago that the austerity policies had been taken too far. The fact that the affected countries were forced to reduce their deficit in much too short a time had a terrible impact on growth."
Tissue of Lies and Two-Faced Europe
Until 1994, Greece had very high deficits, for some years above 10% of GDP, but figures submitted by the Greek government to the European Union on application to join the Eurozone were significantly lower — a fact picked up later by many financial analysts and Eurostat, the EU finance watchdog.
Meanwhile, Greece's tax regime has been widely derided for not being robust enough in bringing in enough tax returns to pay for government initiatives — let alone the payback for the millions it owes in loan repayments to the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
In Paris today to present the Greek government's reform program in cooperation with the @OECD. #Greece #ChangeEurope http://t.co/iu42FutREZ
— Alexis Tsipras (@tsipras_eu) March 12, 2015
Greeks voted for Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece's far-left Syriza party, in January 2015, who promised to renegotiate the country's EU/IMF bailout that many feel drove the country into an economic depression.
Piketty said:
"I am neither a member of Syriza nor do I support the party. I am merely trying to analyse the situation in which we find ourselves. And it has become clear that countries cannot reduce their deficits unless the economy grows. It simply doesn't work."
"It's Historic Amnesia! But with Dire Consequences"
"We mustn't forget that neither Germany nor France, which were both deeply in debt in 1945, ever fully repaid those debts. Yet precisely these two countries are now telling the Southern Europeans that they have to repay their debts down to the euro. It's historic amnesia! But with dire consequences," Picketty said.
