It emerged that Greece will be forced to amend its constitution as part of the bailout deal. The BBC reports that:

Within the next two months, Greece will also have to amend its constitution to give priority to debt repayments over the funding of government services.

Just amazing. Without a doubt, this is the greatest of a series of attacks on Greece’s democracy. The elected President was pushed aside after he dared to suggest that Greece should hold a referendum on the austerity/bailout packages, and he’s been replaced by a “non-political” veteran of the European Central Bank.  Yet this will make the hemming in of Greek democracy permanent. That after all is the point of constitutions: to act as fundamental check on the power of elected governments.

Austerity is to be made permanent, even once the bailiff regime of Prime Minister Papademos is resolved. Whoever the Greeks elect, they will be compelled to play by these rules. A future Greek government may find itself legally unable to default even if it wants to.

As I said in my last post on the matter, as an international debt collection agency, the EU really is unbeatable.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

Athens has begun to burn. Since 2008, Greece has sacrificed everything – up to and including its multi-party democracy – in order to ensure that French and German banks can continue to recieve tribute on their loans, and that the Euro can go on in its present form. On sunday night, a people with little left to give boiled over with anger at the sight of even more being taken from them.

It is perhaps unsurprising to see some Greek activists drawing a connection between the German government, which has effectively colonised the Greek treasury, and the German government of the 1940s. Yet perhaps a better comparison might be made with the role played by the United Kingdom during its heyday as a commercial and financial hegemon.

Like Germany today, Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century was a creditor nation. It ran a current account surplus, selling far more to the rest of the world than it bought. The flipside of this was that, like contemporary Germany, its banks were a source of loans and investment funds for the rest of the world.

And Britain, in its position as a creditor nation, faced the same potential vulnerabilities that Germany does today. As a major exporter it needed to keep markets open to its goods. Meanwhile, the outward flow of loans and investment funds meant that its banks built up assets abroad that somehow needed to be protected. How could they stop British-owned businesses abroad being nationalised, or foreign debts to British financiers being repudiated?

As it turned out the gunboat proved rather useful in these respects. When China closed its markets to our goods we shelled them. We shelled Greece to ensure they compensated Don Pacifico for the many shares and bonds he allegedly lost when a Greek mob burnt his home. We invaded Egypt when they appeared unable to pay their debts, and, in the early 20th century, shelled Caracas for similar reasons.

Germany of course, has not had to resort to such unsubtle measures in order to protect its trade and foreign assets. And that’s because, in the Euro and ECB, it has a more powerful gunboat than Britain could ever hope to possess. Here in Britain, the government is inflating away some of its debts. The Bank of England is printing money and fuelling inflation, which in turn reduces the real value of the national debt. The bondholders have little choice but to such it up.

This is, however, not a luxury enjoyed by the heavily indebted governments of Southern Europe. They can’t print more money, because their money is printed by the German-dominated European central bank. Even at the cost of higher unemployment, and a deeper European recession, the ECB has kept money tight and interest rates relatively high. This keeps inflation down and protects the value of the debts owed by Southern European govenrments to French and German banks. Meanwhile the potentially cataclysmic costs of exiting the Euro have proven sufficient to whip into shape any government that dares considers defaulting on its debts (under normal circumstances, it would be madness for a government in Greece’s position to consider any option other than default).

Yet of most importance is the political power wielded by the EU over its member states. Even the most potent structural adjuster at the IMF must have been creaming in his pants to see the ease with which the EU helped to depose the government of Papandreou, before its apparatchiks parachuted in the bailiff regime of Papademos – a veteran of the European Central Bank, whose sole mandate is to keep the cuts going, and the interest payments flowing.

And as though this were not enough, the EU’s Economic chief has back German andFrench proposals to set up a seperate account that will manage a portion of the Government’s revenues, in order to ensure debt payments. The EU will, in effect, be given the right to directly tax the Greek population. The basic, longstanding, democratic principal of “no taxation without representation” – the idea the people may be taxed by none but their elected representatives – is to be torn aside for the benefit of the bondholders, and the European banking system. As an international debt collection agency, the EU really is second to none.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

A week can be a long time in the debasement of politics. Just last Sunday, Prime Minister Papandreou appeared to salvage a smidgeon of honor for his government, when he announced that the Greek people would be given a referendum on the austerity-bailout package. For two years the Greek people have struggled with mounting pain yielding only negative gain – as repeated austerity programmes, and Greece’s continued membership of an over-valued Euro, conspired to stymie growth, and hence the country’s ability to pay back its debts. Now the people would get a chance to decide whether they wanted to continue down the same path.

Papandreou said some fine words about “patriotism” and “democracy”. Yet it soon became apparent that he saw the referendum not simply as a means of giving people the say, but also as a means of evading political responsibility. A few days later he announced that he would scrap the referendum plan, if the opposition agreed to support the bailout and carry it out with him. Both this proposal, and the proposal for a referendum, served a similar function – namely to ensure that he and his party would not be held responsible for the decisions they made.

Nonetheless, he had brought the demos a little too close for comfort. Papandreou was humiliated at the G20 by the presidents of Europe’s creditor nations. The European bureaucracy swung into action, and bankers – knowing that the bailout-austerity deal was vital to protect their assets – announced that the referendum proposal wouldn’t fly.

This evening Papandreou’s premiership is no more. He has been forced out and his premiership will be replaced by a “government of national unity” which carry through the bailout. Greece’s multi-party democracy has in effect been supplanted by one party – The Austerity Party. The political elites have, in effect, formed a cartel. Greece’s major parties imagine that they can force through the huge austerity package without facing the wrath of the electorate – just as long as they all in on the game. The direct democracy of a referendum was shelved, and now representative democracy – the system by which politicians take decisions and are held to account on election day – has been short circuited.

While Greece represents the most extreme end of the European situation, the pushing aside of democracy, at this moment of crisis, is undoubtedly a Europe-wide phenonemon. All 16 of the Eurozone countries are busily preparing to sign a Fiscal Stability pact. Under its terms, crucial, and deeply political decisions about taxation and spending will be taken out of the control of elected national parliaments and hived off to an unelected European bureaucracy. Apparently this is necessary for “stability”. It is no exaggeration to say that what we are witnessing is the biggest diminution of democratic power in Europe since the 1930s.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

Well the results are in, and the motion calling for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was defeated by 413 votes to 111 – courtesy of all the major political parties. The political classes have, in other words, lifted two fingers to those whom they are supposed to represent. It has been clear for years now that if Britain’s EU membership was put to a referendum, the no-camp would win hands down. Meanwhile 70% of people want a referendum. And yet this majority opinion finds no expression amongst any of the major parties.

The powers that, every 5 years we lend to parliament are not theirs to give away at will . And yet give them away they have. In 2008, none other than Nick Clegg remarked that nobody under 51 had been asked their opinion on Britain’s relationship with Europe. In the meantime we have reached a situation in which 15-50% of our laws (depending on who you believe) are handed down from the only faintly democratic institutions of Brussels.

It is often said by demos- fearing Europhiles, that referenda are “not a part”of the British constitution, and that our relationship with Europe therefore need not require one. According to one commentator, a referendumon the EU “could potentially undermine the very foundations of how our political system works”. Things are in fact not so black and white. Before the Liberals curtailed the power of the Lords in 1910 they were compelled to hold another election – the second in the year – precisely on that issue. THe principle here was that when it comes making “organic change”, that when it comes to actually changing the rules of the game a simple parliamentary majority does not suffice (in the same way tht it would be constitutionally legitimate for a government to assume power and then vote through 50 year electoral terms).

Since Britain was last asked to join the EU the rules of the game have changed and changed again – as Economic integration morphed into partial political union. When various European publics delivered their negative verdict on the European constitution, it was repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty. We now have an EU president upon who we were not merely denied a vote, but denied even the opportunity to express an opinion – since his candidacy was not even announced to the public. It is a tremendous understatement to say that it is high time that the British given a say in how, and from where , they are governed.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

There are serious tensions building up within the Conservative Party ahead of tomorrow, as MPs prepare on whether Britain should have an in/out referendum on the EU. Cameron has whipped has MPs to vote against it, and the possibility of a minor rebellion has generated numerous column inches. However most commentators have failed to grasp what these intra-conservative tensions are fundamentally about.

According to some accounts this is an insurgency by the Conservative right. Certainly there is a hardcore of traditional Tories who feel deeply alienated from Cameron and Co’s metropolitan clique. Yet despite the huffing and puffing in the Telegraph, Cameron is not the Conservative Party’s Tony Blair. The “modernisation” of the Tory Party has been very much a cosmetic job, and Cameron and Osborne have made no serious attempt to pull the party’s politics towards the centre. Equally flawed is the tendency in the Liberal press to frame this as simply a repetition of previous conservative squabbling over Europe. Back in the early 1990s the were a number of serious, ideological Europeanisers at the top of the Conservative party – think Michael Heseltine, or indeed Geoffrey Howe, whose resignation over the government’s failure to follow a sufficiently integrationist path lead to the fall of Thatcher.

This is not, in any sense, true today. The Conservative ministers holding the line against their Eurosceptic bankbenchers are themselves a heavily Eurosceptic bunch – not least David Cameron. The tensions we are seeing arise not from a clash between different ideological wings of the conservative party, but from a dissonance between the ideology of the Conservative party, and the politics Conservative government.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the Conservative party has been the primary representative of the interests of British business, and, in turn, has generally won its backing. Yet, having a political life of its own, the Tory party has never been a perfect vehicle for the interests of the business class. This is partly because, while the interests of business are liable to change over time, politics is not simply a matter of turning one tap off and another tap on. There have been periods in which fiery patriotic rhetoric – of the kind we may see from the conservative backbenches on Monday – deeply suited the interests of capital. The word “jingoism” arose at the turn of the 20th century, as the conservative government was firing up up hundreds of housands of ordinary Brits to fight and die for the gold and diamond mines of South Africa. More recently, Margaret Thatcher leant heavily upon the rhetoric of “making Britain Great” in order that the destruction of many people’s living standards could be reframed as sacrifices made for the sake of national salvation. Meanwhile, across the 19th century and into the 20th, the Tories made a point of fetishising Britain’s ancient constitutional machinery in order to stem the tied of democracy – again something that will feature in tomorrow’s debate.

Given the party’s philosophical baggage, it is not surprising that its activists, its Parliamentary party, and its leadership display an instinctive antipathy towards the European project. But here’s the rub. The party relies on the backing of big business, and, like any government in capitalist economy, relies on the acquiesence of corporations in order to get things done. And a desire to get out of Europe is utterly incompatible with the party’s crucial relationship with corporate Britain.

Despite the delusions of some on the liberal left – who see the EU as nothing more than a cuddly internationalist project – it is in no way surprising that the FT has consistently taken a ridiculously integrationist stance on Europe. Britain’s major corporations have little to gain and a great deal to lose from British withdrawal from the EU. Not only does the current situation grant them a huge open market. It also enables matters like the EU-India FTA – wherein the working class stand to take a huge hit for the benefit of the investor class – to be hived off beyond the reach of democratic institutions. Moreover it grants British business unfettered access to enormous reserves of cheap non-British labour (an uncomfortable truth for us lefty internationalists, but a truth nonetheless). In other words, British business would not countenance a decision to put Britain’s relationship with Europe in the hands of the mainly Eurosceptic public.

Cameron gets this. As the leader of business backed party, and as a Prime Minister who relies upon the co-operation of business, he knows that a referendum on the EU is not an option. Yet, it appears that these realities are less prominent in the minds of those lower down the conservative food chain. Thse people are less invested in conservative government, and for them the trade-off between politics and strategy is rather different. And so tomorrow we will se the manifestation of tensions inherent in the Tory party’s relationship with business. Yet the possibility of the British people actually being given a say over how they are governed remain as slim as ever.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

You can always tell when leadership positions at the European Union are about to change hands. The first clue, is that no form of voting occurs. The second clue is that we the public are made privvy to a few muffled and anonymous whispers, and a blurry picture emerges of an elite game of chess taking place. This, after all, was how we came to acquire our beloved president, Mr Van Rompuy, and our  vice president, Baroness Ashton.

The baroness’ political career it seems is not long for this world. For months now, the muffled whispers have been getting louder, amidst growing suspicion that the serial democracy evader is in fact rather crap at her job. So far, so Brussels. But then progress struck. The Belgian foreign minister – a member of an elected government – actually went on record and told us that she was crap at her job.  And then the dam broke, and a whole swathe of foreign ministers came out and publicly told us that she was crap at her job. Not for a long time have we, the European public, felt so fussed over. Ok, so nobody was actually asking us what we thought, but at least some relatively important and accountable figures had taken a public position on the vice presidency.

Not much, but certainly a far cry from the process by which Ashton and Rompuy were apponted. Not only were there not elections – either involving the general public or our elected MEP’s. Nobody even  told us who was standing – the candidacies for job remained a closely guarded secret. And so we the public were denied the right to even debate or discuss who ought to get the job. The reason given was that a prime minister who stood and lost would go back to his country looking like he wasn’t that keen to be PM after all – as though the avoidance of professional embarrassment mattered more than the public’s right to know about so important a matter. Such is the contempt amongst the European political class for the demos.

The power that Ashton and her foreign exec exercises on the world stage derives from us as citizens, and as producers and consumers. On a very basic level, she enjoys leverage not because she is a great diplomat but because Europe is one huge common market. Yet for now we will have to be content with being nothing more than observers, degradingly poking our noses into the little chess came that surrounds the future of Ashton and European foreign policy.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

Assange has now lost his extradition case and looks set to be heading to Sweden. Thankfully most people have now gotten over the idea that the acts alleged to have taken place do not really constitute sexual assault – if true,  then they  certainly do.  Yet today’s judgement, over whether Assange should be extradited, nonetheless reveals some worrying realities about how easily suspects can be sent off to other EU countries – even when their judicial procedures give legitimate cause for concern.

Assange is being extradited under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). This system was introduced in 2004 to fast track extradition between member states. It is predicated on the assumption that all EU states provide access to fair justice, and as such the grounds for refusing an extradition are extremely limited. Last year Britain sent Gary Mann back to portugal to serve a two year sentence for affray. He had been tried and convicted within 48 hours of his intitial arrest. He and 11 other men had been represented by just two lawyers – of whom he had met one for just 5 minutes before standing trial. What’s more he had not understood most of the shot gun trial due to a lack of proper translation. The  extradition Judge, Justice Moses, had acknowledged that the verdict against him was highly questionable, but under the terms of the EAW he was powerless to act.

Today’s judgement – published in full here - is not quite as dramatic, but nonetheless should give us serious cause for concern about the EU’s extradition process. It acknowledges that the court case will almost certainly take place behind closed doors, as the evidence in almost all  swedish Rape cases is heard privately. Equally the judgement asserts that “in sweden a person detained for rape is normally detained and held incommunicado” but asserts that this is a “decision for the court”. For both of the reasons, any form of  outside scrutiny will be very limited.

The fact that Sweden is a rather cuddly welfare state, with a long democratic tradition, may make us a little less panicked about the unusual way in which it investigates rape suspects. But that, surely is not the point. Judicial checks – like the right to be tried in public so that the case against you is subject to public scrutiny, or to communicate with outside world when held captive – do not exist because governments are sometimes benevolent, but because often they are not.  And what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: the lax process by which Assange is being sent Sweden can, and has, been used to send suspects to other EU countries with considerably shorter democratic traditions.  Not long ago  Michael Turner and Jason McGoldrick where, according to their Hungarian lawyer they could have been held for nearly a year without even being charged (in fact they spent spent 4 months in jail, no charges brought).

This isn’t about some chauvanistic assertion that British justice is the best in the world. If government’s elsewhere felt queesy about sending their citizens to Britain after its 90-day dentention law came into effect, they would have my support. But the point is that within Britain, we the public have ultimate control over the procedures used to try us. Politicians who subject us to arbitrary dentention can, in the final analysis, be kicked out. The European Arrest Warrant makes us automatically subject to a myriad of potentially flawed legal systems over which we have no control. Our police and courts are compelled to enforce the decisions of foreign courts and prosecutors, regardless of whether they cohere with our own principles of justice – with principles, that is to say, that democratically accountable politicians have decided upon.

Not so long ago, Johan Hari argued - in terms typical of most patronising Europhilic rhetoric - that the European Arrest Warrant is a “superb success”, and opposition to it was indicative of “dogmatic Europhobia”. Well, as today’s judgement, the case against Gary Mann, and all to many other absuses of the Europenan Arrest Warrant, indicate, there are many reasons why democrats of all stripes – “Europhobic” or not – ought to question these extradition arrangements.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

EU gotta be kidding!

Yesterday’s vote in the European Parliament’s to extend maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay across the EU should be welcomed by anyone who believes the work-life balance in the UK needs to be seriously revised. If approved, which is far from certain given Conservative opposition in Britain, it will also encourage more women who want to start families to feel secure in starting a career. Contrary the dribbling Daily Mail headlines, and the jerking knees of my Europhobic Third Estate colleague, the EU can actually do some good things. But unless paternity leave is equalised with maternity leave, the reform may do almost as much harm as it does good in the long run.

Despite strict equality laws, a report earlier this month from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that women in the UK earn on average 16% less than men. That this gap widens to 27% for women over 40, who are more likely to have started a family, is significant. Maternity leave – a fundamental necessity of modern society freeing women from having to choose between family and career – has had the unintended consequence of reinforcing the glass ceiling effect they experience in the workplace. All other things being equal, employers find themselves predisposed to promoting men to senior positions because they are unwilling to promote women who may take much lengthier and more costly maternity leave if they choose to start a family. This is one of the reasons women make up only 5% of the executive director positions of the top 600 British companies.

At present, women are entitled to 39 weeks maternity leave, with 6 weeks at 90% of their pay and the rest at a flat rate of £123.06. Men, on the other hand, are allowed only two weeks paternity leave at £123.06. The EU’s proposal will make those two weeks fully paid, but it will dramatically increase the gap between the two benefits by giving women ten times the amount of time off on full pay.

There are obvious reasons why maternity leave should be more generous than paternity leave. For one thing, men don’t have to go through the pain of childbirth. Nor can they produce milk. However, in a society where employers exploit pregnancy and maternity leave as a reason to underpay and underpromote women, increasing the gender gap in parental leave may throw up new obstacles to narrowing the gender gap in the workplace. Moreover, it reinforces the notion that the woman’s role is that of carer and the father’s that of the breadwinner. The only way to tackle both problems is to equalise paternity leave with maternity leave.

Ironic that that best way to promote female equality is to give men more rights.

It is rare to hear  government ministers predicting revolt. Yet in recent days, the Minister for Labour in Greece’s social-democratic government has done just that. Mr Lomberdos has warned that the package of austerity measures that his government are poised to implement  will lead to “blood”. Already Greece has seen strikes and occupations.

Like Britain, Greece is faced, on the one hand, with deteriorating public finances, and on the other hand with a situation which seems to necessitate serious deficit spending. In situations such as the one we face now, the ability of governments to to run budget deficits – to tax less and to spend more – represents perhaps the most substantial tool by which the economic pain felt by ordinary people can be mitigated. For all of their faults, the Labour government have, through spending far more and reducing certain taxes, been able to prop up demand, and ensure that unemployment – while huge and immensely damaging – has risen relatively slowly compared with previous recessions.

Greece too is running a huge fiscal deficit. Yet the situation it faces is rather more severe. This is in part because it is seen as a less reliable borrower, making it costlier and more difficult for the government to keep up its borrowing. Yet it is also because the Greece is part of the single currency. Whereas the UK Government plans to reduce the deficit relatively slowly – so that in 5 years time it will still exceed 5% of National Output – Greece plans to rapidly reduce its deficit to from 12.4% to under 3% of GDP. Why? Because the rules mandate that it must. Membership of the Eurozone officially obliges governments to keep budget deficits beneath 3% of GDP.

Such a course of action will be disastrous for the economy and for social welfare. When one considers the level of cuts, privatisations, and public sector job losses necessary to conjure up one tenth of GDP from the public purse, it is possible to imagine why even government ministers are fearing blood on the streets. To offer just one illustration, the governments plans to hire just one civil servant for every 5 that retire.

Yet this situation also illustrates the impact of the EU and the Euro upon democracy. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs will depend upon how quickly and how much the Greek government cuts public spending. It would seem obvious to anybody with the most basic democratic instinct that such decisions should be taken by elected politicians, by people accountable to those who stand to suffer. Yet in the Eurozone these decisions are mandated by a set of semi-permanent rules, and enforced by unelected EU commissioners. The conversations that Greek politicians should be having with Greek people about how to move forward, they are instead having with bureaucrats in Brussels. That membership of the Euro is supported people who claim to be democrats, and indeed people of the left – for whom economic democracy represents the most important form of public power – continues to amaze me.

Egemen Bagis

Guest post by Christos Loutradis

Yesterday, Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief EU negotiator, gave a speech in Greece on strengthening ties between the former rivals, Turkey’s EU candidacy and how to resolve the thorny issue of Cyprus. Press-Gr’s Christos Loutradis reports for The Third Estate

It was a speech of lifting taboos. Egemen Bagis, chief EU negotiator and Turkish Minister of State, spoke for the first time to a Greek audience in a lecture that was organised by the International Centre for Black Sea Studies. The audience comprised the political, academic and diplomatic elite of Greece and the rest of the world. From the Government side, the Member of Parliament Michalis Katrinis, from the previous Government of New Democracy, the ex deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Giannis Valinakis, and Giorgos Dendias, a personal friend of Egemen Bagis and the former minister of Justice. The most surprising presence, however, was that of Giannis Karantis, ex chief of the Greek Intelligence Service and MP for the ultra-nationalist party LAOS.

Bagis began his speech with a moving opening, stating that he feels proud “to be in the birthplace of Democracy”. In addition, he argued that “today’s event, your presence shows the great potential for the betterment of the relations between the two nations.”

“Turkey and Greece share a common fate and a common future,” the chief negotiator of Turkey added.

The Greek audience responded with satisfaction when Bagis proclaimed that “a new era has started in the relations of the two countries, with the Government of Papandreou willing to build a peaceful future with Turkey.”

The Minister added that during this period, Erdogan’s Government has demolished the taboos of the Turkish Society, by addressing the Kurdish problem and dealing with all the open disputes with Armenia. “It is time to talk to Greece, too.”

The most interesting part of Bagis’s speech, however, was the revelation that Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed to the formulation of a co-operation council between the two nations that will discuss at the highest level all the disputes that may arise in the future. In addition, Bagis said that Erdogan plans to visit Athens in the near future.

EU-Turkish Relations

The chief negotiator suggested that accepting Turkey into the European Union would be a win-win situation. The EU will benefit from the role of Turkey as “a bridge between different civilizations, religions and cultures”. In addition he added that Turkey’s bid to join the EU serves as “a source of inspiration for the deprived of the world such as the Muslim community.”

Giannis Ioakeimidis, professor of International Relations at the University of Athens, asked Bagis if Turkey will accept a special status relationship with European Union. Bagis replied that “Turkey is a candidate for full membership of the EU and any alternative is not accepted.”

Moreover, Egemen Bagis argued that “the European Union should prove it wants to be an alliance of civilisations… We will part of the solution and not part of the problem of the EU.”

Cyprus

With regards to Cyprus, the Minister expressed the official view that Turkey will support any solution that is agreed by the leaders of the island’s two sides. Furthermore, he praised the efforts of the two Presidents, Talat and Christofias, and stressed that Greece and Turkey should support the two presidents sooner rather than later. “Their term is limited and we do not know who will govern next. We must help these guys.”

Another interesting point arose from a question raised by a citizen with regard to the presence of the Turkish Army in Cyprus. Bagis said that the Turkish Army protects the safety of the Turk-Cypriots and it will not withdraw unless all the other armies withdrew too.

Quite clearly, there’s still a long way to go.

From a journalistic and more personal perspective, Egemen Bagis’s most interesting moment was when he praised the Greek citizens who contribute to the Turkish newspapers and the Turkish Citizens who contribute to the Greek newspapers.

In conclusion, Bagis left Greece with a strong impression of a political personality committed to peace.