Greece, EU and why we can't have nice things

[cirdanx]

 

 

If you look every governing institution in EU is such that its formed by democratic process or by another institution that is formed by democratic process. 

 

 

Yes, but the laws coming from the EU are not made by elected personal. If they conflict with the rulings of your country, you still have to bow to them because EU´s constitution overrules that of the nations. Not to mention the pressure they use. Examples, blocking south-stream effectly costing our country millions if not more and many jobs, or trying to pressure Hungary into a different energy market despite their contracts with Rosatom. Or overruling our exceptional good laws on animal protection, throwing us back years in that field.

 

 

Laws coming from EU are made by European Parliament, which is elected by citizens of member states of EU and Council of Ministers (which is formed from members of National Governments of member states of EU, National Governments are elected by National Parliaments which are elected by citizens of individual states which parliament they are). European Commission, which is elected by European Parliament, proposes laws to European Parliament and Council of Ministers. Council of Ministers have ability to stop any law they don't like (of course this don't mean that majority of EU's member states can't decide something that minority object, but that is realities of democratic decision making [there is also blocking minority system where at least four member states with 35% of EU's population can block legislation approved by majority vote {55% of member states and at least representing 65% of total population, or 72% of member states and covering at least 65% of total population if they aren't acting on proposal from European Commission}]). 

 

EDIT: And it probably should be pointed that anything that comes from EU is not really law before National Parliaments have adjusted them and approved them, although if member state don't change their laws according to what is agreed, then European Commission can start action to resolve situation if this don't lead agreement then European Commission will start infringement procedure which is at end resolved by European Union's Court of Justice (Of course member state can decide to leave union if they find it decision to be too much against their self interests). 

 

 

Well yes thats how the system works. I said not elected personal, you can´t directly vote for someone, it´s what we call ...oh well i don´t think there is a direct translation, but anyway. As you said, we vote for a party..fine..they then choose someone into the parliament. But that also means we can´t directly decide who represents us and i consider this a faulty system because, as you laid out, they then elect the Commission with finaly no saying from the people. As you also pointed out, approved laws can still come into play even if we alone would veto (we have 19 seats...and that was actualy the case with the animal protection law which was vastly superior in our country and had to be DOWNgrade because of EU law). In my opinion this a very intransparent and faulty system and one we shouldn´t be part of. This is very topical at the moment with TTIP, no transparency for the people, no referendum, nothing (thats not very democratic in my book). Point being i´m not in favor of a system that decides laws for 28 different countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting, so you are Austrian. But there is something you aren't telling me. Why are you so anti-EU and anti-West? 

 

Austria has been a loyal member of the EU...what is the reason you don't like the USA. And I'm not judging you, I am just trying to understand your perspective 

 

You can ask me anything if you want ?

 

 

Yeah but as usual you are not able to answer anything as it seems.

 

Right now you are just trying to spin it around and make a pointless debat about what? Patriotism? Which has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

 

I will give this quick answers because you seem to have the memory and attention span of a child and i allready went into more details on this in the past in other threads.

 

Why i don´t like the EU is simple, because it is bad for my country and took away our autonomy, and we were lied and tricked into the Euro. I never said i hated the US, i specificly made it clear that a) i like the country and a lot that comes from it and b) have many friends there and generally speaking have nothing against the people there BUT that i despise everything Washington does in the world and to their own people. The values they preach (freedom, independence, democracy, etc) are nothing but a farce when there actions go into the complete opposite.

 

But again, that has nothing to do with the thread here. Stay on the topic.

 

Speaking of topic, Farage´s point of view on Greece, no matter what i think of him, i agree:

https://youtu.be/94UcyJnRcGU

 

 

You seem to be in a rush to get my responses? I just want to understand a little about what motivates you, most people ignore this question and I don't know why? Whats wrong about admitting what nationality you are 

 

Thanks for responding by the way, I just have a few more questions about your view on the EU

 

What do you mean they took away your freedom? And how do you feel they lied ?

 

 

Oh whatever, don´t answer at all, i don´t think you can make a reasonable answer, at last none that i can´t debunk anyway. I don´t care.

 

I said autonomy and not freedom. I allready explained on how having not your own currency effectly hinders your own ability to influence your economy. I also allready told you that we get 70% of new laws directly from the EU (made by not elected politicans). A lot of this laws are stupidly worse what we had before and cost us a fortune AND have a negative impact (for our farming sector as an example). So here we are, a consitution that overrules ours, laws from a different source we have to realize and a currency we can´t control. Per definition that makes us (and any other EU country..well maybe not Germany because they influence the EU to much) a vassal state, subordinate to the EU.

 

There is NOTHING good about this.

 

I didn´t say feeling. I said they lied. Thats a factual statement. All promises on how we benefit from the EU turned out to have the opposite effect and there is no way they couldn´t know that, at last about some aspects. What however was a clear lie, is that during the campaign for the EU accession it was promised all the time that we would have and keep our currency and would NOT get the Euro. Sometime after the referendum (one that was called faul by a lot of lawmakers) they turned around and forced us into the Euro currency without any referendum basicly saying "well we voted for the EU now we get the Euro as well".

 

That is lying and nothing else. And i applaud everyone who tries to get out of this failed project and gets back his independence just like Farage said.

 

 

Thank you for responding, now I understand, I don't share your view but other people have mentioned similar criticism about the EU so there is clearly some validity to it 

 

Sorry to ask you to repeat your questions but what would you like to know from me? 

 

 

Nevermind, repeating myself gets tiring, just forget it

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

So your argument is that unemployment doesn't matter? And that states shouldn't consider it when implementing austerity? And we should consider austerity a success despite continued high levels of debt because banks are doing better now?

Because that's the most insane thing posted on these forums including romance threads and oby.

 

I can't repeat our past discussion so I'll just summarize it 

 

• You believe that a high employment rate should be considered as a factor of failure of austerity 
• People like myself, the IMF and ECB don't consider that a serious factor towards measuring the progress and success of austerity
• You can see counties like Ireland and Spain making progress and meeting certain austerity objectives, there economies grow. This is recognized by the global economic community ( I posted links )
• These countries are seen as having  done something positive around the restructuring of there economies 
• You dismiss this as you say they still have high unemployment rates 
• We are at an impasse 

Seeing as the proposed austerity measures will directly increase unemployment in Greece due to laying off government employees, I think it's quite fair to consider the effect austerity has on unemployment an issue with austerity. Not to mention the various fees targeted at citizens the EU hopes to introduce, which is likely to reduce spending in markets due to having less available funds. And that isn't even touching how in the link you provided to praise the effects of austerity in Spain it outright says that the recovery hasn't had an effect on standard of living of citizens.

 

Which brings us to the question of why austerity is a good idea in an economy with declining real wages and over 20% unemployment, if by all accounts austerity will exacerbate those problems?

[Elerond]

 

 

 

If you look every governing institution in EU is such that its formed by democratic process or by another institution that is formed by democratic process. 

 

 

Yes, but the laws coming from the EU are not made by elected personal. If they conflict with the rulings of your country, you still have to bow to them because EU´s constitution overrules that of the nations. Not to mention the pressure they use. Examples, blocking south-stream effectly costing our country millions if not more and many jobs, or trying to pressure Hungary into a different energy market despite their contracts with Rosatom. Or overruling our exceptional good laws on animal protection, throwing us back years in that field.

 

 

Laws coming from EU are made by European Parliament, which is elected by citizens of member states of EU and Council of Ministers (which is formed from members of National Governments of member states of EU, National Governments are elected by National Parliaments which are elected by citizens of individual states which parliament they are). European Commission, which is elected by European Parliament, proposes laws to European Parliament and Council of Ministers. Council of Ministers have ability to stop any law they don't like (of course this don't mean that majority of EU's member states can't decide something that minority object, but that is realities of democratic decision making [there is also blocking minority system where at least four member states with 35% of EU's population can block legislation approved by majority vote {55% of member states and at least representing 65% of total population, or 72% of member states and covering at least 65% of total population if they aren't acting on proposal from European Commission}]). 

 

EDIT: And it probably should be pointed that anything that comes from EU is not really law before National Parliaments have adjusted them and approved them, although if member state don't change their laws according to what is agreed, then European Commission can start action to resolve situation if this don't lead agreement then European Commission will start infringement procedure which is at end resolved by European Union's Court of Justice (Of course member state can decide to leave union if they find it decision to be too much against their self interests). 

 

 

In other words, it's basically the bureaucracy that decides everything, and individual votes have no actual say in how it all runs.

 

 

One could say same about nearly every democratic system that there is.

[Raithe]

 

 

 

 

In other words, it's basically the bureaucracy that decides everything, and individual votes have no actual say in how it all runs.

 

 

One could say same about nearly every democratic system that there is.

 

 

True to a point. It's  just that the EU takes it to extremes with even less transparency than a lot of governments.

[JadedWolf]

 

 

If you look every governing institution in EU is such that its formed by democratic process or by another institution that is formed by democratic process. 

 

 

Yes, but the laws coming from the EU are not made by elected personal. If they conflict with the rulings of your country, you still have to bow to them because EU´s constitution overrules that of the nations. Not to mention the pressure they use. Examples, blocking south-stream effectly costing our country millions if not more and many jobs, or trying to pressure Hungary into a different energy market despite their contracts with Rosatom. Or overruling our exceptional good laws on animal protection, throwing us back years in that field.

 

 

Laws coming from EU are made by European Parliament, which is elected by citizens of member states of EU and Council of Ministers (which is formed from members of National Governments of member states of EU, National Governments are elected by National Parliaments which are elected by citizens of individual states which parliament they are). European Commission, which is elected by European Parliament, proposes laws to European Parliament and Council of Ministers. Council of Ministers have ability to stop any law they don't like (of course this don't mean that majority of EU's member states can't decide something that minority object, but that is realities of democratic decision making [there is also blocking minority system where at least four member states with 35% of EU's population can block legislation approved by majority vote {55% of member states and at least representing 65% of total population, or 72% of member states and covering at least 65% of total population if they aren't acting on proposal from European Commission}]). 

 

EDIT: And it probably should be pointed that anything that comes from EU is not really law before National Parliaments have adjusted them and approved them, although if member state don't change their laws according to what is agreed, then European Commission can start action to resolve situation if this don't lead agreement then European Commission will start infringement procedure which is at end resolved by European Union's Court of Justice (Of course member state can decide to leave union if they find it decision to be too much against their self interests). 

 

 

I'll feel a lot more connected to the European Parliament when we actually get to vote for European parties, rather then for local parties that then disappear into faceless blocks with completely different agendas than what I actually wanted to vote for.

[BruceVC]

http://www.actionnewsjax.com/ap/ap/top-news/greeks-heading-to-brussels-for-crucial-talks/nmxH8/

 

Maybe someone can explain this, the Greek parliament agreed on  Saturday to harsh austerity measures?????   

 

What was the point of the referendum which  was a NO to austerity ?

 

I see the current and understandable issue now is there are certain EU countries, like Finland and Slovakia, who are asking "can we really trust the current Greek government " .....I can see this concern so the future of Greece in the EU  and will it receive further bailouts from the EU  is still very undecided? 

[Monte Carlo]

^ A bunch of Greek student union marxists decided to play poker with grown-ups and lost.

 

It really is that simple.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Monte Carlo

[HoonDing]

Continentals gonna continental

[Darkpriest]

Well, if anyone thought that Greece will get free money, they were out of their minds, also the PM of Greece, while in talks, got the nice outlook what will happen economically to his country in short term if he will decide to refuse the conditions... there is a lot of price to be paid in terms of internal politics if suddenly you will get all kinds of governmental people getting cut off from money as the state is bankrupt... that cost outweighted the 'NO',

 

the conditions are slightly different (they will get a new plan to adhere too, instead of the old one, but that would get changed anyway cause last one was not good enough) and now they gave like 50bil EUR in assets to fund the debt (EU custodians of these assets will privatize them, i.e. sell to some EU companies). The Greek PM got his time to delay some things, but if he will not force the changes, the next batch is not coming, by that point EU will get prepared for Greek-exit. Now it was somewhat surprising for the EU officials that Greece was willing to go balls to the wall, but next time they will be ready and will say to them, "Bon voyage" and wave them off

Edited July 13, 2015 by Darkpriest

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/exclusive-yanis-varoufakis-opens-about-his-five-month-battle-save-greece

 

Yanis Varoufakis is not pleased.

[BruceVC]

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/exclusive-yanis-varoufakis-opens-about-his-five-month-battle-save-greece

 

Yanis Varoufakis is not pleased.

 

Yeah that doesn't surprise me at all...but he must realize he contributed towards this mess so he needs to accept his share of responsibility  

[Zoraptor]

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/exclusive-yanis-varoufakis-opens-about-his-five-month-battle-save-greece

 

Yanis Varoufakis is not pleased.

 

He also seems to be an actual patriot concerned with what is actually best for Greece rather than a donkey perpetually chasing the carrot*. It seems exceedingly likely that his view is also absolutely correct so far as it comes to motivations and the like, and that Greece is gone anyway after another attempt to get a pound of flesh inevitably fails just leaving in an even worse position than now. I'd hope that the measures won't make it through various parliaments especially the Greek one, but the Pasok/ ND hacks who got Greece into this mess will no doubt vote for it even if much of Syriza don't.

 

Austerity is to the neoliberal is as the obsession with leeching or bleeding patients was to medieval doctors- if it doesn't work don't worry, more will. If the patient dies, well, it was inevitable, deus vult, victim should have been less sinful, not our fault we followed our prescriptions based on best practice, further weakening a weak person is totes sensible, trust us we know what we're doing! With appropriate apologies to Sledge Hammer, who was positively restrained, sensible and flexible in comparison.

 

*Though a fair bit of his valvenomics did involve people perpetually chasing carrots, go figure.

[Rostere]

He also seems to be an actual patriot concerned with what is actually best for Greece rather than a donkey perpetually chasing the carrot*. It seems exceedingly likely that his view is also absolutely correct so far as it comes to motivations and the like, and that Greece is gone anyway after another attempt to get a pound of flesh inevitably fails just leaving in an even worse position than now. I'd hope that the measures won't make it through various parliaments especially the Greek one, but the Pasok/ ND hacks who got Greece into this mess will no doubt vote for it even if much of Syriza don't.

 

But that is exactly what Varoufakis says that Germany has been doing all along - preventing a reasonable agreement. From an economical perspective, people have wanted Greece to get the **** out of the euro for a long time, it's just that nobody wants them to do so because of the political implications - especially not to be seen themselves advocating for Greece to **** off. Greece is a leaking sieve that must learn its lessons on it's own. If you have ever been to Greece you would have known that it's on a league of its own as far as tax evasion and corruption goes. It is never going to get better unless they improve the situation on their own, which they would have been forced to do a long time ago if they had been under the threat of inflation.

 

The Finnish parliament has already voted against another bailout, I doubt they will change their minds now, never mind the sort of reverse Robin Hood-scheme the Greeks are pulling on the Slovakians, the Slovenes, the Lithuanians, the Latvians and the Estonians which faces a high probability of not getting through their parliaments.

[HoonDing]

It's a pity, I would've loved to have one of those 1,000,000,000 drachma bills.

[Zoraptor]

But that is exactly what Varoufakis says that Germany has been doing all along - preventing a reasonable agreement. From an economical perspective, people have wanted Greece to get the **** out of the euro for a long time, it's just that nobody wants them to do so because of the political implications - especially not to be seen themselves advocating for Greece to **** off. Greece is a leaking sieve that must learn its lessons on it's own.

 

Well yeah, exactly. If Germany wants Greece out then they should do so instead of waffling and vacillating, same as Tsipras and the Greeks should leave instead of prolonging the agony. That would be best for all parties- except perhaps those with political obsessions that trump reality (France, main sponsor of the Euro project). Money would be lost, but I think everybody accepts that that money is gone anyway, no need to throw good after bad. A parting, preferably with a minimum of bad blood, is now (though five years ago would be better) necessary and someone has to bite the bullet. If it's Germany doing so then at this point, good on them even if I think they're a bunch of self righteous hypocritical economic puritans.

 

Trouble is, when it happens there is not going to be a minimum of bad blood, it's going to be monumentally messy and there will be a vested interest in knifing Greece and ensuring it won't do well lest the other weak economies decide to follow a successful Grexit. And even outside of the Euro there's a ton of really nasty stuff that can be done to them pour décourager les autres. Because the Euro can survive an unsuccessful Greek exit, it certainly won't survive a successful one so the same vested interests that will contort economic logic and reason to try and keep them in will be put to keeping them down once they do go.

 

If you have ever been to Greece you would have known that it's on a league of its own as far as tax evasion and corruption goes. It is never going to get better unless they improve the situation on their own, which they would have been forced to do a long time ago if they had been under the threat of inflation.

I posted the figure previously, but Greece's black/ grey economy was actually only 5% worse than Germany's was at the same time. That isn't enough to make any significant difference and was better than many others.

[Darkpriest]

And that 5% difference is based on what? Greek statistics?

[Zoraptor]

Nah, OECD. Same people who had the Greeks being the hardest working in Europe. The difference went up with austerity, too, perhaps unsurprising when you have massive VAT hikes and a slumping GDP, but was still better than nine other EU economies.

[Chilloutman]

If its so, tell me, why Tsiprasis dont want to leave eurozone on his own and everyone blame Germany to not kick them out? Even he knows that eurozone have money to keep them floating while they would have extremely tough years on their own and Greeks would blame his party

[Gorth]

Greece is a leaking sieve that must learn its lessons on it's own.

This. It's a country with a fiscal culture that is rotten to the core (been there several times in the past). When all the carrots keeps getting eaten and they keep expecting more or else! The carrot needs to be accompanied by the stick.

[Elerond]

Estimated shadow economy sizes for OECD countries from 2003 to 2015

http://www.econ.jku.at/members/Schneider/files/publications/2015/ShadEcEurope31.pdf

[Darkpriest]

Estimated shadow economy sizes for OECD countries from 2003 to 2015

http://www.econ.jku.at/members/Schneider/files/publications/2015/ShadEcEurope31.pdf

And where do you think they got their data from?

[Elerond]

 

Estimated shadow economy sizes for OECD countries from 2003 to 2015

http://www.econ.jku.at/members/Schneider/files/publications/2015/ShadEcEurope31.pdf

And where do you think they got their data from?

 

 

The calculation of the size and development of the shadow economy is done with the MIMIC (Multiple Indica-tors and Multiple Courses) estimation procedure. Using the MIMIC estimation procedure one gets only relative values and one needs other methods like the currency demand approach or the income discrepancy method, to calibrate the MIMIC values into absolute ones. For a detailed explanation of these calculation methods see Friedrich Schneider, editor, Handbook on the Shadow Economy, Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar Publishing Com-pany, 2011, and Friedrich Schneider and Colin C. Williams, 2013, The Shadow Economy, The Institute of Economic Affairs, IEA, London, 2013.

 

The calculated values for 2014 are projections for some countries, for 2015 they are projections for all coun-tries, based on the forecasts of the official figures (GDP, unemployment, etc.) of these countries.

[BruceVC]

Nah, OECD. Same people who had the Greeks being the hardest working in Europe. The difference went up with austerity, too, perhaps unsurprising when you have massive VAT hikes and a slumping GDP, but was still better than nine other EU economies.

 

Do you have some valid links that suggest the Greeks are the hardest working in Europe ?

 

I find that extremely hard to believe....I would have to see the context as well

 

 

If the Greeks were that hard working they wouldn't be in the situation they in

[Chilloutman]

 

Nah, OECD. Same people who had the Greeks being the hardest working in Europe. The difference went up with austerity, too, perhaps unsurprising when you have massive VAT hikes and a slumping GDP, but was still better than nine other EU economies.

 

Do you have some valid links that suggest the Greeks are the hardest working in Europe ?

 

I find that extremely hard to believe....I would have to see the context as well

 

 

If the Greeks were that hard working they wouldn't be in the situation they in

 

 

They are hard working because every second one have some administration side job for goverment, go figure

[HoonDing]

Tax evasion is a full-time job.