But the markets weren’t ready. They swooned every time Greece blinked. To pacify them, near-monthly summits were instituted, each with a Merkozy dog-and-pony show that offered promises of ever greater bailouts and ever higher firewalls. And it gave everyone time to prepare for the inevitable.
The Greek political elite that have tricked their way into the Eurozone have done nothing since then to show that they can be trusted. Time and again, they promised reforms, but after they got their hands on the bailout billions, they didn’t follow through, or did so insufficiently. And Sunday, while protests were raging in front of parliament, Greek politicians inside, who were supposedly debating the very measures the people outside were so enraged about, were in the lounge ... watching a basketball game on TV.
Even German business leaders have lost patience with Greece, though it is an export market for them: 57% want it to exit the Eurozone and reintroduce the drachma, according to a poll by Manager Magazin. The push to get Greece to leave the Eurozone is almost complete, but now a new theme is coagulating into words.
"The state with its phantom retirees and rich tax dodgers, a state without functioning administration," has no business being in the European Union, said Franz Fehrenbach, CEO of Robert Bosch GmbH, the largest automotive component maker in the world. The Greek system is "ramshackle” and “an unbearable burden." The EU should encourage Greece to leave both the EU and the Eurozone, but if it doesn’t leave voluntarily, the EU must change its laws so that Greece can be forced out, he said. And there were other countries on his list, but he didn’t say which. Would Portugal be next?
At the core of his concerns: “We must not overburden Germany.” And he isn't the only one. Potential costs of the vertigo-inducing bailout commitments made to other countries already amount to a whopping 26% of Germany’s GDP! Read.... Germany Frets As Bailout Risks Balloon.
Meanwhile, resentment against the German dictate is growing in Greece. "The European Union is suffering under Germany,” said Georgios Karatzaferis, president of the right-wing LAOS party. He accused Merkel of trying to "impose her will on Southern Europeans" and called the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and Luxembourg "satellite states" of Germany. And then he pushed Greece a step closer to bankruptcy. Read.... Greece at the Point of no Return.