Nothing much has changed in Greece
GREEK banks are open for business once again. But not really. For the last three weeks, Greek citizens have been allowed to take out 60 (R810) a day. Now, they can take out 420 a week, but capital controls remain in place.
At least Greeks can now access their bank deposit boxes and carry out normal over-the-counter transactions.
The European Central Bank has provided emergency assistance to Athens to allow bank doors to re-open and enable Greece to operate normally for the rest of the vital tourist season.
But nothing has been resolved. The contagion from Greece is spreading northwards. In Britain, the advocates of a No vote in the forthcoming referendum on UK membership of the EU are filling news pages with articles citing Greece.
They see it as proof that the euro is a disaster and the EU is incapable of sorting out a backyard problem. There is also the expected venomous criticism of Germany’s handling of the crisis.
France’s President François Hollande is positioning himself as the man who saved Greece from Europe as the Berlin barbarians were ready to storm the Parthenon. Very self-servingly, his government now talks about Europe being more than just about rules. No wonder: France has not balanced its budget since the mid-1970s.
What about Italy, whose prime minister also issued words of resoluteness defending Greece. No wonder – in Italy, too, the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, inherited by its young left-of-centre leader, Matteo Renzi, is not far short of Greek levels.
What about Brussels itself ? The EU is asking more of Greece than it demands of itself. Supermarkets are told to open on Sundays – which does not happen in Germany. And pensions are expected to reform in Greece in a way that has not been achieved in most other EU states.
Evidently, there is not much of an “equal rights” (and obligations) movement in place, even though the professions (pharmacies, notaries, etc) are overregulated (read: protected) in countries far beyond Greece.
Own destiny