Why the Greeks are unhappy

I recieved this from one of the Greek MEP's explaining why Greece is unhappy at the austerity package.


You might think it is partial, but it goes some way to illustrate the depth of feeling Greece about what many see as a German inspired take over of their country,

German indebtedness to Greece from the 2nd World War

I would like to inform you on the Greek financial demands from Germany, as an aftermath to what happened during the 2nd World War.

In April 1941, Germany attacked and occupied Greece. During the German occupation, the conquerors executed the residents of 89 Greek cities and villages. In addition to that, they burnt more than 1800 villages and settlements.

During the war Greece lost 13% of her population. That was not only in the war fields but also due to the famine and the atrocities as well as the plundering of their troops.

On the parallel Germany forced the vicarious Greek government to give a loan of 3,5 billion dollars and they signed the relative contract. After the end of war, the Conference of Paris adjudicated the amount of 7,1 billion dollars to Greece as war reparations. Germany did not pay neither the reparations nor the loan that was owes to Greece.

Italy paid back to Greece a part of the total amount of the loan that was forcefully agreed during the occupation. Italy and Bulgaria paid back war reparations to Greece.

While Germany paid war reparations to Poland (1956) and Yugoslavia (1971), Greece had to demand the paying off of the forced loan on 1945, 1946, 1947, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1987 and 1995. Nevertheless, Germany denies paying off what owes to my country as an obligation that arise from the "occupation loan" and the war reparations. At 1964, the German Chancellor Erhard promised paying the off the loan after the unification of Germany, which was realized in 1990.

The following is an indication of the actual value of the German reparations towards Greece: Taking as indicative the average rate of the USA bonds between 1944 till 2010, that is about 6%, the actual value of the "occupation loan" is up to 163,8 billion dollars and that of war recuperations is estimated in 332 billion dollars. On the 2nd of July 2011, the French economist and advisor of the French government Jacques Delpla declared that the German indebtedness to Greece because of all that happened during the 2nd World War is up to 575 billion dollars (Les Echos, Saturday, July 2, 2011). The German historian Dr. Albrecht Ritschl advised Germany to follow a more moderate policy during the euro crisis of 2008-2011, because she might have to face justified demands for war recuperations of the 2nd World War (Der Siegel, June 21, 2011, guardian. co.uk).

It has to be mentioned that Germany has profited to the tune of 9 billion euro from the euro zone crisis over the past few years, while the German bonds yields close to zero since the European sovereign debt crisis began some two years ago. Berlin's two-year bond yields currently stand at just 0.3 percent and its 10-year bonds at 1.7 percent. Six-month papers - usually giving the lowest return to investors - stand at just 0.08 percent, down from 0.3 percent just one month ago.

According to Carsten Brzeski a senior economist with the ING bank in Belgium, "Interestingly, this is already more than the recently announced [German] tax relief of around €8 billion for 2013 and 2014. It almost looks as if the Greeks financed the little German tax reform," he added (Valentina Pop, "Germany estimated to have 9 bn euro profit out of crisis", www.euobserver.com).

The old statement of Mussolini is indicative: "Germans have even stolen from Greeks their shoelaces"
I would like to thank you for your attention and to ask for your help and your understanding so to demand what is rightful for my country.

Memories are short, andthe hurt is near the surface.

And the first to agree to German law are the Austrians

I was reading Ambrose Evan's Pritchards rather doomy and inflamitorily titled post from a couple of days ago just now,

Europe's fiscal Fascism brings British withdrawal ever closer

when a tweet from Slugger honcho Mick Fealty popped up.

@mickfealty Berlin calls for eurozone budget laws http://tinyurl.com/2wfy9ol #FT

And it looks like a transparant power grab from Berlin,

The German government is to press other eurozone countries to adopt their own versions of Berlin’s balanced budget law as part of a set of sweeping reforms to stabilise the euro.

There is some idea that each country would be free to set upo there own version of the German law, yes, but this is all getting err... a bit concerning.

And yes in a pre-Anchluss moment we have Austrian support,

A German government official told the Financial Times that one of Mr Schäuble’s proposals would be for other eurozone countries to adopt similar fiscal constraints to Germany’s Schuldenbremse – as the law is known.

“Something like that would be a good idea for other countries to have – although it might take on different shapes and forms for each member of the eurozone,” the official said.

The severity of the euro crisis could give impetus to Berlin’s proposed reforms, which would have been unthinkable even six months ago.

The idea has won the the backing of the Austrian government. “Considering the high indebtedness in Europe, I am in favour of a Schuldenbremse,” Josef Pröll, Austria’s finance minister, told German newspaper Die Welt.

“This would lead to a clear cap on new debt, strict budgetary discipline and balanced budgets in Europe,” he said.

Will one size fit all? And will this just be for the Eurozone, or will it be brought in under Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty which of course means it comes under QMV?

At it again

Dr Peter Gauweiler, the CSU MP for Munich South is one of those people who the powers that be just wish would go away. He is in effect the Eurosceptic (centre right) movement of Germany in one person. It is because of him that the Germans never ratified the Constitution - a fact often forgotten by the elite. It was his efforts that caused the Germans to have a somewhat different approach to Maastricht, and now it appears he is going to try and do the same for the Lisbon Treaty.

Sadly I hadn't spotted this earlier but back in May he filed a complaint about the Treaty with the Federal Constitutional Court.

Prof. Dr. iur. K.A. Schachtschneider, long-standing professor for public law at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, has this afternoon on request of Dr. Gauweiler MP – immediately following the vote in the Bundesrat, the upper/state house of the German parliament – filed for constitutional court support opposing the legislation approving the Lisbon Treaty and the accompanying German legislation. The complaint is accompanied by an expertise report from Prof. Dr. Dietrich Murswiek, prof. für public constitutional law, administration law and international law at the Institute für Public Law of the university of Freiburg. The complaint reprimands the prejudicing of fundamental constitutional principles.

1. The Treaty of Lisbon repeats widely the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe dated 2004. Processing by the Federal Constitutional Court of Dr. Gauweiler’s constitutional complaint against the the Constitutional Treaty of 2005 – which had the effect of preventing the Federal President from signing the approval legislation of that time and from completing ratification of the Treaty – was not completed since conclusion of the new Treaty had been brought into focus. The new complaint filed, attacks the Treaty of Lisbon widely with the same criticism which was brought against the Constitutional Treaty.

2. Dr. Gauweiler is bringing this action against parliament and filing the constitutional complaint because the Lisbon Treaty violates the basic constitutional rights of every citizen to substantial representation by the German parliament and because Germany’s sovereign rights are being transfered to the European Union to an inestimable extent. This no longer satisfies the democratically inalienable principle of restricted individual empowerment of a confederation of states.

3. In addition to this action against parliament and to the constitutional complaint, an application for a court injunction is being made to prevent completion of preparation and promulgation of the approval legislation and of its accompanying legislation and also to prevent ratification of the Treaty prior to the Federal Constitutional Court examining and deciding whether or not to grant admission of the constitutional complaint.

4. The major criticism of the Lisbon Treaty is as follows:
a) This matter concerns the fact that the Treaty constitutes de facto a federal state although the European Union has no „union population“ with original sovereignty. An integration step of the type the Treaty makes demands referenda in the european nations as prerequisite. These however do not exist.
b) The responsibilities, tasks and authority of the EU are (already) excessively extensive, especially since they are extensively administrated by the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the union. EU policy is becoming less and less preprocessed and less and less the responsibility of the national parliaments although the German Federal Constitutional Court expressly demanded this for the sake of legitimation in its Maastricht verdict of 1993.
c) Through the Lisbon Treaty, the member states widely forfeit economic sovereignty. The EU is increasingly taking over justice and police policy i.e. responsibility for the internal security of the member states. Furthermore, responsibility for external security and corresponding military missions is being enlarged.
d) The Court of Justice of the European Union is becoming more and more the highest court, although it is not democratically legitimized for this power of jurisdiction. It acts as a driving force for integration.
e) The fiscal policy-related general clause of Art. 311 Para. 3 TFEU enables the union to raise European taxes or to introduce further categories for ist own resources, without requiring the agreement of the national parliaments for this.
f) In the simplified change procedure of Art. 48 Para. 6 of the TEU, the European Council is empowered to partially or fully change the core of the constitution, i.e. all regulations of the third section of the Treaty embracing the functioning of the European Union, of the internal market, the economic and currency union, the scope of freedom, security and law and many other areas of policy, without the need to obtain the agreement of the German parliament (Bundestag) and of the Upper German House (Bundesrat) or even of the various peoples. There is also only the need of a hearing for the European Parliament and the Commission.
g) The flexibility clause of article 352 of the TFEU also empowers the union to give itself new items of authority when this appears to be required to implement the boundlessly broad aims of the union.
h) The Treaty reinforces the democratic deficit of EU politics especially since the „European Parliament“ is not elected in accordance with the principle of equality of all votes.

And a happy New Year

What is it with the French and Car-Be-Queus? New Year was celebrated in the traditional fashion in Alsace. Crowds of youths gathered round open fires in the streets of Strasbourg and Colmar and warmed themselves on ignited private property.

Dozens of cars were set alight in France’s eastern Alsace region during the New Year celebrations overnight yesterday.In the city of Strasbourg alone, 50 vehicles were set alight, French radio in Strasbourg reported.However, the situation was contained and there were no reports of clashes between gangs of youths and police.In Upper Alsace and in Colmar, known for its social problems, 46 vehicles were set alight and eight people were arrested.

Would it be predudicial to wonder exactly what those social problems were, after al the article goes into no details. However it does tell us about a remarkable new technological developement in fire fighting.

We all know about drones, those unmanned aircraft that can be hooked up with cameras and weaponry in order to provide security to our forces.

The police deployed so-called drones to curb the attacks. The small unmanned planes can put out flames from 500m.

The riots are nothing new in France indeed, "Sociologists refer to such events on New Year’s Eve as a “French speciality”.

Though not so special that the Germans can't join in.

Are the Germans the most nostalgic people in Europe?

On the day that the Independent tells us just how marvellous the EU is, and even better how spiffing the Euro is now that Malta and Cyprus have joined the currency, (that is the political elite, you will notice that the people themselves have not been asked about it) we hear thatthe one in three Germans still keep the old Deutchesmark at home.

Six years after the introduction of the euro, a poll published Tuesday by the weekly news magazine Stern has found one in three Germans still hold deutschemarks for sentimental reasons in their homes.
On the day Cyprus and Malta brought the number of eurozone countries to 15, with a combined population of some 320 million people, a small number of the 1,003 Germans sampled in mid-December admitted to keeping over 500 DM (255 euros or 370 US dollars).
Germany's central Bundesbank has yet to place any time-limit on when it will stop exchanging marks for euros, having published in November 2007 figures showing over 14 billion DM were still in circulation, half in coins.
For the 34 percent who admitted to keeping the old national currency, however, nostalgia seemed to carry more weight than the current exchange rate.

Is that 14 billion marks is more than just nostalgia. Nostalgia would be a set of coins and notes not an entire banking system's worth.

Did he really say that?

Professor Karl Albrecht Schachtschnieder, the man who took the case to the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, which has mean that the Germans have still failed to ratify the Constitution, despite what the Commission and the press will tell you gave a talk today in Berlin explaining what and why he took the case.

Whilst explaining that in Germany there is a massive disconnect between the governors and the governed, he went on to describe the motor by which this continues and why, despite growing disquiet there is little chance in the ear future that it will change,
“The thing is, that in Germany we cannot just support a political idea which is backed by the political class, we have to be enthusiastic about it. It must be remembered that here in Germany this tendency to demand enthusiasm has a bad history”.