Inge Graessle is an MEP of Merkel’s CDU and holds the chair of the committee of the budgetary control in the European Parliament. She participated in a TV talk show along with Stelios Kouloglou, a SYRIZA MEP. Once again, her claims were not only untrue, but also mendacious. It’s part of their plan for deconstruction concerning the Greek Government. But really, who deconstructs whom?
In the first minutes of the interview, she claimed that, “now that the chief negotiator changed, we have someone who does not contradict himself three times a week”. Let us reminder to Mrs Graessle that during the Eurogroup of 17 February, it was the side of the lenders who contradicted themselves. After Paul Mason’s reveal based on official EU documents, it is quite obvious who was playing and for which purpose. It is a quite familiar strategy on behalf of the lenders to reverse the reality in order to deconstruct the opponent. The only thing they still do not understand is that if this negotiation ends to a disaster, this will be shared amongst both sides.
“Greek Government is working for a Grexit”, she continued. But it is the Greek Government who has already made huge steps of compromise in order to achieve a mutual beneficial agreement. Who can say the same thing for the other side of the table when they keep asking for policies that have been actually canceled by the popular mandate of the recent general elections? This is what Tsipras said and this is what the German Vice Chancellor said . Maybe Mrs Graessle, a prominent EU MEP of the CDU, has to decide whether she is working in order to keep Greece in the Eurozone, or not.
“They do not deliver what is necessary to do in order to be kept in the Eurozone”. Does more cuts, monthly wages of 300 euro, impoverished pensioners and further liberalization of layoffs (among many of the lenders’ demands), apply to some fundamental roles or norms of the Eurozone? We guess not.
“Do you expect from the poorer tax payers of Slovakia and Lithuania, to pay for your promises? You decided 3900 more state officials for a Greek state which is bushed by officials.” Intentionally or not, Mrs Graessle does not refer to the great reform that brought back to life the Public Television (ERT). The last ERT’s budget was approximately 3.7 million euros, while the Samaras’ experiment of a non-democratic Government controlled Television had a budget of 13.8 million euros. Apart from that, the Public television, as Stelios Kouloglou (Syriza MEP) rightly underlines is financed by the viewers’ contribution, not by the state. Who talked about overspending?
But let’s have a thorough look at the percentage of the employment in general government and public sector (see ILO/OECD). It is obvious that even before the crisis, Greece was one of the few countries with such a low percentage of public officials in relation to the total amount of its labour force. Even Turkey, Poland and Mexico do demonstrate larger numbers. On the contrary, there are countries such as Norway, Sweden and France, which have three times the Greek number of public employees but no one asks from them to reduce it. Those who oppose Syriza’s reforms are the same who defend the corrupted system of the past. No offence.
And since to our understanding, politics serves the people, let us remind you that the previous government dismissed 8500 people from the Greek hospitals, which are right now in desperate need of stuff and expendables. But we tend to forget whatever comes to our benefit. Right? tinyurl.com
As for the tax-payers of other European countries:
a) Greece has been paying back its loans with interest for the past years and hasn’t received a cent since August 2014.
b) The Greek public debt has been growing since the beginning of the Memoranda from 127% to 180%. SYRIZA proposes is a European Congress on public debt since this is not solely a Greek problem (e.g. Italy, Spain, France, etc.), and it was mainly caused by the political decision of your establishment to save the banks.
c) Even the European parliament has concluded that the politics of austerity that you promote have failed and are anti-democratic, tinyurl.com
“You need to stick to the commitments the Greek Government did in 2010”. Graessle speaking. But this is 3 elections back! Hopefully, we still have general elections as a fundamental democratic process that gives to the people a power to have a say in their future.
Day by day, more Europeans understand that Austerity is not just an abstract economic doctrine, but in order to be imposed, it needs a special type of democracy. This type of democracy in which the people are unnecessary and in which the politics have to succumb to markets. And the CDU MEP is here to remind us that democracy needs daily struggle in order to continue its existence, as a process and as a culture.
“The Greek Government believes that no reforms are the right way to come out of the crisis. (…) How can you expect from communists to do a reform?” Inge Graessle and the European People’s Party, obviously has not accepted yet that the Berlin wall doesn’t exist, using a 25 years old hated language. In any case, we feel thankful for reminding to the Europeans, how the neoliberal political elite strongly opposes the values that the European left and the new Greek Government defend.
More democracy, laws against economic inequalities, respect to the public space such us the Health System and Education, anti-corruption bills and justice for all, are reforms that Mrs Graessle unfortunately opposes. But it’s not her political position that provokes disappointment, rather than her commitment to reproduce a narrative that falls completely out of reality.
Seventeen minutes of interview: So little credibility, yet so many lies. It is evident who undermines the negotiations. Next time, we hope that the MEPs who defend austerity, to be more informed and less provocative.
Originally published at: http://www.change4all.eu/change-in-greece/detail/inge-graessle-so-why-so-fake.html