Thursday, July 16, 2015

The EU as the Fourth Reich

Rosemary Righter has done for Politico an article which argues the bailout deal finally approved for Greece is German-dominated, through and through. She writes:
When the grim details of this epic confrontation have been forgotten — and in all probability after a Grexit proves to have been delayed, not prevented — what will stick in public memory will be that this was the moment when the EU became a nakedly “German Europe.”

The EU summit text is not merely unbending, but couched in terms more like a probation sentence on a serial offender than an intergovernmental text.

This is a deal that shouts out loud that Greece’s sovereignty is forfeit. Greece has done much to deserve it. With luck, the very severity of the punishment meted out to Athens will ensure that the euro operates according to much clearer rules. But they will be German rules. That no one may question.
Economically, Greece is a serial offender. What the Wehrmacht couldn't make permanent, the European Union may accomplish without firing a shot.

Sentiments like these won't be well-received in Moscow. There memories of The Great Patriotic War - what we call WW II's Eastern Front - remain vivid.