“Mach Schau, Geli – mach Schau!”
Who in Europe will stand up to Berlin’s delusions of grandeur?
It is alleged that Angela Merkel is running out of patience with Greece. That’s not me using my usually reliable pan-Galactic network of sources – it’s more to do with being able to read. This is what she said at the latest Merkozy press conference in Paris:
“I honestly can’t understand how additional days will help. Time is of the essence. A lot is at stake for the entire eurozone.”
This lady really is a piece of work. Days have been lost thanks to her and new best friend Mario Draghi dicking the bondholder talks around with new demands for this, that and every other thing: this is why additional days are needed. Whatever: the Fuhrerine needs to get ready for more things trying her patience, because word is breaking onto the streets about Portugal.
I don’t have contacts in Lisbon of the sort required to delve into the detail: but clearly the small provincial newswire Reuters does, because mid-afternoon today (GMT) it started running pieces about Portugal…..using the dread R word. R stands for Restructuring, and that means private sector involvement (PSI). But Merkel has specifically ordered zat zere shall only be ze restukturink for ze Griechenland, mein Gott, orders must be obeyed at all timess.
Achtung! Reuters sources are insisting that Portugal might have to ‘revise [upwwards, natch] its 78 billion euro bailout from the EU and IMF’.
Well my-my. Could this be something to do with 11-year Portuguese bonds due to mature in June 2014 currently yielding 20%? Could it involve, perhaps, the reality that in 2012 alone, 16.4 billion euros worth of Portuguese bonds reach maturity? Or that during the 2012-14 period, Portugal has two bond issues maturing at a combined cost to the State of 18.9 billion euros?
I’m sorry to lay the irony on with a trowel here, but the lunacy of the Merkozy/Troika position becomes more invasively obvious with every week. Another bit of Prussian morality OCD was demonstrated at the Paris mediafest when the German Chancellor said she and Sarkozy had agreed that Greece should deposit revenue to meet future interest payments in a special escrow account – to guarantee that creditors were paid consistently. This is like nailing a pauper’s hands to a cross in the hope that he will try harder.
Like many others, I am waiting (thus far in vain) for a mainstream medium to join up the dots on this one, and run a special saying “Enough: denialist moralising is one thing, but hypocritical cruelty is another”.
This isn’t fluffy-nicey-Christian stuff from The Slog . This is fiscal common sense, and a push against arrant Teutonic stupidity. After Greece and Portugal will come Spain, and then Hungary, France, Ireland and eventually the whole EU. I have yet to stumble upon an explanation by Wolfgang Strangelove and the former Stasi conformist in the Chancellery as to what they propose to do when that inevitability unfolds.
The Slog 