- In exchange for the package, which could amount to as much as €86 billion ($95 billion) over three years, Mr Tsipras has had to sign up to precisely the sort of demands his Syriza party railed against during its successful election campaign in January. The proposals in a compromise deal offered by Mr Tsipras the previous week, most of which were overwhelmingly rejected by Greek voters in a referendum a few days earlier, mark just the beginning of the new deal. Those pledges, on matters like VAT and pension reform, must be legislated by the Greek parliament no later than July 15th. A week later further legislation must follow, including a total overhaul of Greece’s judicial system.
But that is just the start...
One failing of Europe after WWI was a lack of empathy for the German people. The Greeks did not invade France.
This has to be a stopgap of some kind, right? Something to sign to give him and the party time to build up something else, enact that, and... back out of this deal? This is the most unexpected thing possible. In that it literally does not make sense to do unless you have something up your sleeve coming soon. There's no reason for him to agree to this.
It looks as if Germany and France are trying to fix the central issue of a monetary union without political union. They have tied financial changes to legislative ones and are essentially paying Greece to make their laws more favorable to economic success.
Whether or not that is beneficial to the people of Greece is the interesting question. When I read about Greece I hear a lot about cronyism and corruption running rampant as well as contributing to some of the strife going on now. Has anyone been able to find out what legislation will be changed as a result of this deal? I tried to read the legalese but it's all Greek to me.
"they used to bring tanks ... now they bring banks"
I now think that that was wrong to believe. They'll be using both. And they always have.
Here's the key thing to understand: politicians are a bunch of psychopaths jockeying for personal gain and playing games at the masses' expense. That's pretty much all there is to politics.
Tsipras has been railing against the evil Troika for months on end, had the Greek people vote "NO!" on more bailouts, but suddenly it's alright to make a deal with them? You've noticed politicians lying time and time again, changing their positions like they change their socks, etc.. Well there you go.
We simply can't know what the hell went on behind the scenes during the whole Greek circus, but that doesn't really matter. All we can do is try and improve our personal circumstances in life, like for example the few (ordinary) people who transferred their savings the fuck out of Greece before they closed the banks on the hapless masses.
Tsipras never wanted the referendum to succeed in the first place - Syriza mismanaged negotiations, the Germans have been ferociously harsh with the terms of the bailout - this crisis is everyone's fault (some more than others though)
Because you know, there was definitely no other option.
It seems to me that Greece played it's hand about as well as it could during negotiations. Giving a strong impression it was ready to leave the eurozone, democratically rejecting previous proposals, both through the election of Syriza and the referendum. Unfortunately it seems like it hasn't worked.
It is in my opinion a mistake to force historical parallels onto this situation.
- And second, how can a euro zone that was created to drive integration and foster trust between its members thrive when it appears to have had precisely the opposite effect?
That trust was not first betrayed by the euro zone.
Ehhh yeah it kind of was. When you enter into these sort of agreements you lose autonomy. Period.