ECONOMIC CRISIS | AUSTERITY IS KILLING THE PATIENT

We must face the reality of €urozone chaos

Being ruled to impoverishment by Britain or Europe is not the new Republic that so many talk of

» BY MAIRTÍN Mac EOIN

IF IT WASN’T all so serious – and if the consequences weren’t so dire for ordinary Irish citizens – the shenanigans in Brussels with finance ministers and heads of state trying to square the circle of Greek indebtedness would be amusing.
It is obvious that the debts imposed on Greece by European banks looking for extravagant investment returns during the boom cannot be repaid. The huge austerity programme that Greece has been forced into is destroying the economic potential of the country before our eyes, with its debts now set to reach twice the gross domestic product of the country.
No one can repay debts of that magnitude. But instead of recognising that the austerity package is killing the patient, the European Union and the IMF call for more. No wonder the markets – those arbiters of capitalist good taste and proper order – are less than impressed.
Here at home, with austerity biting deep into employment, with widespread fear about the economic future for those who have lost or face losing their jobs, the Fine Gael/Labour Party Government is actually preening itself that we are ‘the good boys of Europe’!
Those bold Greeks apparently take to the streets and rally and resist in their tens of thousands, but not us. We are taking our medicine and swallowing it, albeit with bad grace.
But just as the austerity is killing off the Greek economy, austerity in Ireland will take a decade or more to recover from. And, once again, it is the ordinary Joe and Mary Soap who will carry the burden while the rich remain untaxed. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesperson (yes, they haven’t gone away you know), Michael McGrath, these delicate creatures will flee the country.
Michael seems unperturbed by the fact that thousands of young Irish working people are already leaving the country in their droves but boasts instead that Fianna Fáil’s austerity plan, now being faithfully implemented by Fine Gael and Labour, is working. But it isn’t working.
Revelations that the Greek debt crisis is worse than even previously thought just emphasise how ludicrous the efforts to save the euro are. Ludicrous because it just cannot be saved.
For us this is urgent because the powers that be are continuing to pour our billions into zombie banks that are serving no useful purpose in the economy just so that European investors will not be hard hit, that their banks can be defended and, so they hope, the euro resuscitated.
We need to devalue our currency against our major trading partners (Britain and the US) but the political dogma of the state is that immersing ourselves in Europe is the only way we can be free of Britain. It’s a strange freedom that leaves us marginalised and impotent, indebted and poor.
The dogma is that Europe is a pooling of sovereignty but the angst of the talks between Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicholas Sarkozy shows that sovereignty is not pooled but surrendered wholesale to the new masters of Europe.
Our rulers should remember Connolly’s old slogan (particularly the Labour Party, which blasphemously pretends to be his heir): “We serve neither king nor Kaiser.” Being ruled to impoverishment by either Britain or Europe is not the new Republic that Michael D Higgins waffles on about.
What we need is a radical break with subservience to European financial interests to get out of the burning building before it comes crashing down.