Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

German Vice-Chancellor Says Tsipras Is Threat To “European Order” – And He Is Right

John Weeks 1st July 2015 8 Comments

John Weeks

John Weeks

Faced with a decision that would conflict with its promises to the Greek people no matter what choice it makes, the Syriza government has taken the obvious step required in a democratic society – it will ask its citizens for guidance by holding a referendum.

It appears that many commentators on both the left and the right find this exercise in democratic decision making incomprehensible. For Paul Mason of the Guardian it is a “last desperate gamble” that threatens to destroy the “far left” Syriza government should the electorate not vote to reject the bailout terms of the infamous Troika; aka “the institutions”, made up of Wolfgang Schäuble (aka Eurogroup of finance ministers), Mario Draghi (European Central Bank), and Christine Lagarde (International Monetary Fund).

For Chancellor Angela Merkel’s number two from the Social Democratic party, Sigmar Gabriel, Alexis Tsipras represents nothing less than an existential threat to “the European order”. A view allegedly shared by the politicians making up “Europe’s big guns”.

The message coming from the near-hysteria popping up across the political spectrum is that we have a lot of “experts” out there for whom the exercise of democratic decision making is so unexpected as to be exotic and in many cases threatening.

Calling the decision to seek the advice of the electorate a “desperate gamble” provides insight to an author’s view of the democratic process, that its real purpose is to keep and consolidate a government’s power, not to serve the interests of the citizenry.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

The Syriza government has done something simple that is totally “out of the box” in semi-authoritarian and neoliberal Europe. It tells its citizens that it has decided in favor of a rejection of the Troika bailout terms; though this is likely to contradict its campaign pledge to remain in the euro zone.

It asks its citizens to endorse that decision, in which case it will continue in government; or, if the referendum vote goes in favor of the bailout terms, the government will resign and call a new election. If this is a “desperate gamble”, I wish we had more punters in governments across the globe.

The So-called European Order

A few commentators have avoided the Grexit hysteria and pointed out that the Syriza government and the Greek citizenry find themselves confronting difficult choices with uncertain outcomes, but susceptible to rational assessment. For example, Joseph Stiglitz considers the binary choice of accepting or rejecting the Troika terms and decides that he prefers the latter (an unexpected choice for someone who in 2011 wrote that the Greek debt was sustainable).

More insightful have been articles in the Financial Times by Wolfgang Münchau. As early as February he concluded that establishing a parallel currency in anticipation of a euro zone exit represented the rational policy choice for the Syriza government.

But for the governing politicians of the European Union 5 July will not bring an exercise in democratic governance. Rather, it represents nothing less than a threat to the established order in the European Union and, even more, in the euro zone. The alarmist statements by the German Vice Chancellor and the crocodile tears of Jean-Claude Juncker alleging that Alexis Tsipras “betrayed him” (analogous perhaps to an infidelity) seem on the surface little more than clumsy attempts to influence the outcome of the referendum.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

But these EU-elite laments should be taken seriously, because the Greek referendum and the government that initiated it without question are existential threats to the neoliberal order of the euro zone and the European Union. For at least thirty years the common threat through all of the EU “reforms” and moves toward “an ever closer union” has been the erosion of democratic accountability.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel

The assertion in Greece of the principle that a government governs by the consent of the electorate has come as a profound shock to politicians and bureaucrats entangled in the web of EU mis-governance. This principle, famously stated by John Locke, represents the antithesis of the governance of the European Union. An anonymous member of the Eurogroup is quoted as saying that the austerity package for Greece designed by the Troika is “complex”, and “so technical to explain that a normal citizen, not people like us, would find it hard to form a view“.

This quotation encapsulates the anti-democratic nature of the Troika and EU pro-austerity politicians in general, that economic and social policy are purely technical matters. The creation of the “independent” European Central Bank in 1998 represented a major step to disarm democracy in the countries of the European Union, though its anti-democratic effect would not begin to manifest itself until the introduction of the euro a year later. The ECB is for all practical purposes unaccountable to any democratic process. On the ECB website we find a statement of its accountability, which consists of reporting to the EU Parliament, monthly publications and “regular press conferences”. By comparison the US Federal Reserve looks good with its cosmetic inclusion of “representatives of the public”, as does the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee.

But the raw attack on democratic accountability appears in the various EU “pacts” that constrain fiscal policy.  The best known of these are the Maastricht Criteria that specify limits to national fiscal balances and public debt (“convergence criteria” in EU speak). These rules have gone from being technically incompetent (they contradict IMF guidelines for “sound fiscal management”) to draconian and authoritarian by the addition of subsequent restrictions on national policies. The infamous “Fiscal Pact” (Treaty on Stabilisation, Coordination and Governance) requires governments to amend their constitutions to prohibit budget deficits greater than 0.5% of gross national product.

The non-accountability of the ECB ensures that the national governments of the countries of the euro zone – and therefore the citizens of those countries – have no control over monetary policy. The Fiscal Pact goes far to do the same for public spending and taxation. National budgets must be submitted to the neoliberals in Brussels for approval (see Article 3 of the Treaty).

The Eurogroup Runs its Course

On Saturday 27 June at about 5 pm in Brussels the other members of the Eurogroup of finance ministers told Yanis Varoufakis that they would issue a final “offer” to his government without him, and he would not be part of the discussions to write that document. Varoufakis promptly left the meeting (rather than being ejected by EU security officers one presumes).

The ejection of Varoufakis sends a clear message. The euro zone is a club that requires strict adherence to neoliberal economic and social ideology. An exercise in democratic decision making should not and cannot result in policies outside the constraints of the rules that institutionalize that ideology.

It may be that the refusal of euro zone leaders to allow any substantive flexibility in Greece’s bailout conditions will see off the only challenge to the neoliberal European order, and thereby consolidate market friendliness in Europe for generations to come.

It is also possible that we observe in the actions of euro zone leaders the tragic flaw of hubris, defined in ancient Greek drama as “excessive pride towards or defiance of the gods, leading to Nemesis”.  In this case the vengeance of Nemesis may take the form of the deterioration of the “ever closer union” into an ever more fractious disunity.

John Weeks

John Weeks is co-ordinator of the London-based Progressive Economy Forum and professor emeritus of the School of Oriental and African Studies. He is author of The Debt Delusion: Living within Our Means and Other Fallacies (2019) and Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Services the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy.

Home ・ Politics ・ German Vice-Chancellor Says Tsipras Is Threat To “European Order” – And He Is Right

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa
hydrogen,gas,LNG,REPowerEU EU hydrogen targets—a neo-colonial resource grabPascoe Sabido and Chloé Mikolajczak

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube