The Greek endgame

Mixed, confusing signals about the Eurozone powers and Greece. Last I heard was that the bureaucrats came up with a set of proposals on Tuesday night, the Greeks sent in their reports saying 'we accept' but that it mysteriously turned out to be missing €325 million.

This will resolve itself, I think, although not without a certain amount of tears among the hard pressed Greeks. They have gone on a 48 hour strike. Of course losing 2 days of production means lower revenues, bigger deficit, higher shortfall that needs to be financed....Once established the measures will hold until they need to be revised. No one is doing anything about the poor productivity in Greece (and the other countries).

One thing which could derail it is that the longer this goes on the closer we get to the Greek elections. As they get into campaigning mode the politicians are beginning to wonder how it will sound to the voters if they are seen to be opting for more austerity (Clue: not that good).

What concerns me more is the other requirement of the EU: that as well as being approved in the Greek parliament, the three main parties undertake to impose the austerity measures if elected. This is a case of the unelected telling the elected not just what to do but what to put in their manifestos. This is going down very badly in Greece, who could well vote in an extreme left wing government which would ignore the austerity programme completely. Europe must begin to understand that its cavalier attitude to democracy doesn't go down well with democrats.