Let's Develop a Plan B for Europe!
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- Published on Monday, 21 September 2015 23:30
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1165 .... September 22, 2015
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Let's Develop a Plan B for Europe!
Oskar Lafontaine
Many in Europe had put great hopes in the election of Alexis Tsipras as Greek Prime Minister. When, after long and exhausting negotiations, the Syriza leader signed the European diktat, the disappointment was great. It would be unjust and presumptuous to want to give moral lessons to Alexis Tsipras and Syriza. After these experiences for the European left, it would be better to reflect on the conditions in which a democratic and social politics (and thus a left politics) is possible in Europe. We have learned one thing: while the European Central Bank, which claims to be independent and apolitical, can turn off the financial tap to a left government, a politics that is oriented toward... democratic and social principles is impossible.
The old investment banker Mario Draghi is neither independent nor apolitical. He was with Goldman Sachs when this Wall Street bank aided the Greek government to distort its spreadsheets. And this is how it was able to enter the Euro.
In the past few months, many discussions have been held to try to work out if the drachma should have been reintroduced. But that led to nothing, and to reduce the debate to this question is a bad option. Not only in Greece, but in the whole South of Europe, youth unemployment is indecently high, and deindustrialization affects many countries in the Eurozone. A Europe in which the youth have no future is at risk of collapse and could fall prey to the forces of a resurgent nationalist extreme right.
