Dear Angela,
It has been a long time since I have been contemplating of writing to you, but now is the fullness of time!
Let me first introduce myself to you: I am a pensioner and have my pension cut down by a third, thanks to the “saving” packages of yourself and the other “ingenious” saviors in Eurogroup, who believe that your instructions are something like the Ten Commandments of Moses, not to be disputed at all! Of course, I am quite proud to contribute toward saving the Euro, for the time being, i.e., as I don’t see it surviving for too long. Alas!
As you may guess, I would be even more proud if my sacrifices, together with the sacrifices of fellow Greeks, could save my country from bankruptcy, but unfortunately I’ve lost hope in that. The poisonous “medicine” of austerity measures you are administering to the Greek people is killing us! Its adverse side-effects speed up the death of the patient, i.e. the anemic Greek economy.
Regardless of the end result, however, I must thank you for your good intentions and for “loving” Greek people so much as to want to “save” us from gluttony and obesity. You are ever so kind! Of course, solidarity and self sacrifice comes natural to you, a German Chancellor, since your nation has always been in the business of “saving” less aggressive peoples, as painful history confirms it.
I know that right now you are wondering whether the Greek Parliament passes the so called Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy, which is scheduled for a vote in three days. Please, do not worry! There won’t be found enough traitors in PASOK’s parliamentary team to vote against the ill-fetched “Fiscal Strategy”, a package that is neither fiscal nor a strategy, by the way. Or, rather, it is a strategy of giving our economy the final knock out.
Never mind… The important thing is that you believe that you are saving us by the sacrifices of your own tax payers, and for this I must thank you, regardless of how disastrous the end result will be, i.e. zilch, zero!
You see, your cordial friend George Papandreou and his Cabinet, although through intimidation they are able to pass the toughest and most unjust cuts against the honest workers and pensioners, who always pay their taxes, they are totally impotent in collecting certain taxes even from law-abiding people, who have not yet received the statements for the 2009 “ETAK”- property taxation! Could you believe it?
Needless to say that your friend Giorgo and his finance ministers (the former and the current one) are unwilling or unable to collect taxes from systematically tax evading people, or to cut public spending, or to implement real structural reforms…
This being the situation, regardless of how many times you will be willing to bail-out Greece (how elusive!), ordering more barbaric packages of spending cuts, you are only perpetuating and deepening recession in our country, the public deficit won’t be controlled, and our debt will continue to grow, bringing closer Greece’s inevitable default…
Wake up, Mrs. Merkel! By forcing our government to impose severe austerity on us during a recession, you undermine the very future of Europe and Germany itself, while thinking that you are striving to protect them from Greek contamination!
Strange enough, you and the others seem anxious about sorting out the illusive numbers, in order to get your money back, but at the same time you are pushing more loans on us – money that is impossible to pay back, short of a miracle of alchemy! And all this, while disregarding the pain and despair you are causing to human beings. For even us, undisciplined Greeks, are human beings, you know!
But nothing solid could come out from inhumane decisions taken under panic. After all, the Greek tragedy is primarily the making of our rotten political establishment and the corrupt economic oligarchy, Greek as well as international. Why should the Greek people be sacrificed for their sake?
Tags: Angela Merkel, George Papandreou, Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy
