'The Left let itself become the enforcer of reactionary policies and mass unemployment because of the euro.'
Greece has broken the spell
By a twist of fate, the Left has let itself become the enforcer
of an economic structure that has led to levels of unemployment
once unthinkable for a post-war social democratic government
with its own currency and sovereign instruments.
It has somehow found ways to justify a youth jobless rate
still running at 42% in Italy,
49% in Spain
and 50% in Greece,
despite mass emigration.
We Conservatives have watched in disbelief
as one Socialist party after another
immolates itself on the altar of monetary union,
defending a project that favours the elites -
a "bankers' ramp", as the old Left used to call it.
The left meekly endorsed the EU Fiscal Compact,
knowing that it imposes a legal requirement on eurozone states
to slash their public debt by 1.5% of GDP in France,
2% in Spain and 3.5% in Italy and Portugal,
every year for the next two decades -
a formula for near permanent depression.
It outlaws Keynesian economics,
and indeed classical economics.
It is a doomsday construct.
This is what the left has agreed to,
and what they have reluctantly defended,
because until now they dared not question the sanctity of EMU.
And so the once mighty Dutch Labour Party
has been reduced to a pitiful relic.
Pasok has been obliterated in Greece.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party has lost its left-wing
to the rebel Podemos movement, freshly victorious in Barcelona.
France's Socialist leader, Francois Hollande,
has been languishing at 24% in the polls
as the French working class defects to the Front National.
“Everything good about the EU is in retreat;
everything bad is on the rampage,” says George Monbiot.
“How can the left support what is being done?”
asks Suzanne Moore.
The EU is being portrayed “with some truth,
as a cruel, fanatical and stupid institution”, says Nick Cohen.
Variants of this debate are stirring across Europe.
Luigi Zingales, an adviser to Italy's premier Matteo Renzi,
has become a flaming eurosceptic.
"This European project is dead forever.
If Europe is nothing but a bad version of the IMF,
what is left of the European integration project?"
he wrote as Greece capitulated.
Whether or not the EMU creditor powers intended
to bring down an elected Greek government,
and whether or not it was a "coup" as the Twitterati allege,
there is no doubt that Syriza was compelled
by financial coercion to abandon its election promises.
It must even repeal all "fiscal" laws passed since January.
Mr Tilford said the Left in Italy, Spain and France
have for years been clinging to the illusion that Germany
would eventually agree to relax austerity and accept a different kind of EMU.
"This has been totally discredited by the events of last weekend.
Everybody can see graphically and brutally where the limits lie.
If you can't abide by euro rules, you will be quarantined and evicted," he said.
Let us not forget that the European Central Bank
brought about the final collapse by freezing emergency liquidity
to the Greek banks, forcing Syriza to shut the lenders' doors,
impose capital controls and halt imports.
I doubt that this will work,
even on its own narrow terms.
Podemos remains defiant.
It has accused the EU institutions
and the Spanish government
of committing an "act of terrorism"
in violation of the Spanish Código Penal.
It is, in any case, a double-edged strategy.
Costas Lapavitsas, a Syriza MP,
said the salient message of the past five months
is that no radical government can pursue sovereign policies
as long as it is at the mercy of a central bank
able to switch off liquidity at any time.
"It is now perfectly clear that the only way out of this
is to break free of monetary union,” he said.
Whatever António Costa promises for the future of Portugal,
and threatening NOT to submit to the EMU policies,
of not having a submissive attitude
to the European Central bank,
will only cause more illusions and distress
for voters who has to choose between
radical leftist policies, or abide with the
EU rules that the socialists themselves have endorsed,
but to which António Costa now says the socialist won't abide.
but to which António Costa now says the socialist won't abide.
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