Greek Debt Crisis: The EU Political Trilemma and How Greeks have a bankrupt concept of National Sovereignty

The recent German proposal for an EU commissioner to supplant the Greek government raised a storm of protest in Athens, but in essence it brought home what is already the present status quo: Greece is a vassal state on economic life support from the European Union. Willfully entering what is essentially a greater Deutsche mark zone with a Central Bank in Frankfurt, Greeks mistakenly saw the abrogation of their national currency in 2002 as emancipation.  Few Greeks realized their over-dependency on the EU would ultimately lead to loss of nationial sovereignty at great cost to their well-being.

Dani Rodrik (Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University and author of The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy) has pointed out, economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable – something that the Greek political elite are woefully ignorant!

Greece retaining the nation-state with a borrowed currency and under an EZ bailout program must jettison democracy (as the EU has now done with the Troika and Commissioner proposal). Greece putting itself under direct control of Brussels is the end goal of EU forced integration, driven by the single currency zone.

Unlike Greece, other EU members like the UK, Sweden and Denmark recognized this confronted with Eurozone participation; cognizant that foregoing monetary policy and using a borrowed currency was significant abrogation of national sovereignty. In the UK, Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer) advised Tony Blair to avoid Euro membership with severe reservations on room of maneuver, should Britain face a debt crisis. Swedish and Danish constitutions required a plebiscite to abolish national currency. Their people wisely rejected the idea in the face of their politicians. Both countries outperform the EZ. All three enjoy better credit rating.

By contrast, Loucas Papademos, Governor of the Bank of Greece, ignored the risks of entering the Euro when not fully meeting Eurozone criteria, much less Mundell optimum conditions. Greek finance minister Yannos Papantoniou saw the Euro as a means of credit enhancement to reduce cost of borrowing and increase capacity to borrow ever more money. Despite these dreadfully bad policy decisions, they are now both presenting themselves as political reformers.

Unlike other European countries, Greeks never believed in their national currency. They preferred EU transfer money on projects fostering consumption rather than promoting exports like their neighbor Turkey and successful emerging market economies with control of their currency at competitive parities. The free trade zone in Eurozone soon made them a dumping ground for German exports, Greece running up huge commercial deficits. Years of living on EU transfer money and cheap credit created complete structural dependency on the EU.

Greeks, in their present quandary, have a very muddled idea of national sovereignty. They rail about selling public property to private investors as humiliating.  Yet many of these same individuals foster the concept of a loan from Russia in return for granting a naval base as emancipation, when this is an even more dependent relationship! Out of fear of public hostility, no major Greek political party dare openly express public positions that foster foreign direct investment, entrepreneurship and a market-driven economy in goods and services that would enable Greece to stand on its own two feet, as Far East emerging market counties did after their debt crises in the late 1990’s.

The Greek political elite cannot understand the importance of production, exports and foreign exchange earnings. Returning to the drachma would increase national sovereignty and give them more tools to do this, but they show very strong signs of “Stockholm Syndrome” sympathy with their jailors (or new jailors like the Russians, naively hoping for better terms than the EU).