There’s an old adage that goes: ‘If you owe a bank thousands, you have a problem; but if you owe a bank billions, the bank has the problem’. In this instance it’s the IMF and the other members of the ‘Troika’ that have a massive problem. They know it and that’s why they desperately want Greece to avoid holding a referendum next Sunday. They would prefer things to be stitched up in private, the way deals have always been done by our betters who seem to have nothing but disdain for democracy. The entire EU is built on this principle of agreements made by elites in private while circumventing the democratic will.
The idea of a free trade bloc is an excellent one. Cooperation between nations on environmental issues and a few other cross-border issues are sensible moves, but the EU has become the biggest example of mission creep that the world has ever seen. Everything, from the size and appearance of bananas, to the type of lighting we can use in our homes, is laid down in sprawling documents covering every possible aspect of the things we buy and use. Even social issues and justice matters are included in the move towards ever-closer union. It feels as if we no longer have the freedom to decide anything for ourselves. When the subject of loosening some of these
restrictions is raised, the EU has a sharp intake of breath and claims that powers ‘can’t possibly be handed back’. How in a free world can a supranational body tell a sovereign state that it can no longer make its own decisions? Is that not the antithesis of freedom?
The EU is addicted to bureaucracy, which is hardly surprising for an institution that was created in the image of pre-war France. Jean Monnet, a cognac merchant from Bordeaux, who somehow managed to work his way into the highest offices of the French Republic with his ideas for a European superstate, dreamed up the entire concept of the EU. His ideas weren’t so different from Hitler’s, who also wanted a ‘united’ Europe with a single currency and one administration. What Hitler failed to achieve with force, the descendants of Monnet have managed to achieve using financial instruments, the lure of free trade and endless reams of bureaucracy.
Next weekend Greece will have the opportunity to blow apart the excesses of the EU. In an ideal world the EU may return to the common market we were promised by reining in its anti-democratic tendencies and excessive bureaucracy. How fitting it would be for the country that founded democracy in Europe to be the one responsible for reviving it in Europe.