'Referendum a weapon for Greece in Eurozone debt talks'
The Greek people now have the right to decide whether or not they want to accept more austerity measures in return for loans that have thus far failed to help the Greek economy, experts on the crisis told RT.
Athens has refused to bend to the demands by the Eurozone finance
ministers to further cut pension payments or public sector wages,
as well as the benefits paid to low-income pensioners. Yanis
Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, said the refusal of the
finance ministers to endorse a request for an extension of the
agreement will “damage the credibility of the Eurogroup as a
democratic union of partner member states, and I am very much
afraid that damage will be permanent.”
Aris Chatzistefanou, director of the ‘Debtocracy,’a documentary
on the Greek debt crisis, spoke with RT regarding the breakdown
in talks and the upcoming referendum.
RT: According to Eurogroup President Jeroen
Dijsselbloem the door on the talks is closed. Do you think that’s
true?
AC: Well, for the first time after 40 years, the
Greek population has the right to decide how it will handle the
debt and how it will handle the conditions with the lenders. It
is obvious that the people who support these lenders – and it’s
not only members of the European Commission, the European Central
Bank or the IMF – they have a furious reaction. The same thing
applies here for the corporate media and the politicians. They
tried to create a situation and atmosphere of panic. They don’t
want [the referendum] to happen and say this is the end of the
collaboration with the European Union, something of course the
Greek government never accepts. They just said, for the first
time we give the right to the people to decide – the same as they
did in Iceland.
Greek referendum 'closed door' on talks with international creditors – #Eurogrouphttp://t.co/G864hj5xWH#GreekCrisispic.twitter.com/cQp9PAYSK4
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) June 27, 2015
RT: What do think the people are going to say in
a week’s time?
AC: I believe they will say no to this new
memorandum and this new austerity policy that the European Union
and the IMF is trying to impose. People have understood very well
that these so-called salvation periods just created more
problems. Just to remind you, we had a debt of 115 to 120 percent
of GDP, now it’s 180 percent. At the same time, almost 60 percent
of the young people are unemployed; the infrastructure of the
economy is compromised. People know about that and I think they
are no longer afraid even of the chance of leaving the Eurozone.
RT: When your government came to power, it was
never really thought that it would do without the EU, or was it
in the cards that it could do something. What was the feeling
behind the scenes?
AC: In my opinion, what the Greek government
just a few weeks or months before the elections was practically
impossible to get through to the Europeans; if you don’t have
anything in your hands at the negotiation table, like a default
or exiting the Eurozone, I don’t see why the lenders would agree
to any better conditions for Greece. The referendum is a weapon
the government can use and I think it is using it in the right
way.
Capital controls within a monetary union are a contradiction in terms. The Greek government opposes the very concept.
— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) June 28, 2015
Greek government needs support of its people
RT also spoke with Felix Moreno, Trader and Portfolio manager at RF Trading, for his opinions on the upcoming referendum, as well as his view on the likelihood of a Grexit.
RT:What would be the purpose of holding a
referendum if the Eurozone finance ministers said the talks are
over?
FM: Well, if Greece is going to change
direction, and if they are going to break with the EU, or if they
have to default on their debt, or any major decision of that
type, the Greek government is going to need to know that the
public is behind them. So they can hold a referendum on the
latest proposal, which has been taken back by the EU, or they can
hold a referendum on Greece’s new direction, or they can do the
first and use it for the second purpose.
READ MORE: Varoufakis: Greece owes agreement to whole eurozone, not only to itself
RT:What if the Greek public comes back and
says they agree to the demands [by the Troika], is it too
late?
FM: I think it’s very unlikely that will happen,
but if it did the government of Mr. Tsipras would have to resign
and then we’d have elections and then we’d have a few months of
no possible deal because there’d be no government to negotiate
with. So it’s very difficult to see a deal being struck at this
point.
RT:Whatever happened to Angela Merkel’s
saying, “If there’s a will, there’s a way”? Has the will run out
completely?
FM: I think the will ran out a few months ago, in
January. They knew they were going to face this crisis, or a
similar one, in the near future and they knew it wasn’t going to
be the last one because after Greece there are other countries in
the spotlight. They wanted to set a precedent, they wanted to
play bad cop to give an example to any other potential debt
defaults.
READ MORE: 'Save Greece from EU prison!' Desperate debt graffiti daubed all over Athens
RT:Do you think there will be a
Grexit?
FM: I think that is the most probable scenario.
It’s not inevitable, but I think we’re going to see it in the
next year.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.