Quantifying the shocking truth behind Franco-German moralising
We already know that Greece borrowed most of its debt from the ECB and American banks. We also know that US banking firm Goldman Sachs held a seminar in Greece during 2006 aimed at ‘teaching’ the then Athens Government how to lie to Brussels about the size of its borrowings.
There now follows a Q&A about other aspects of Greek debt.
Question: Who is the third biggest arms importer in the world, behind India and China?
Answer: Greece
Question: If Greece had spent the EU average on defence over the past 10 years (1.7% of GDP
rather than spending 4% of GDP on defence, how much money would it have saved?
Answer: 52% of GDP, or 150billion euros
So why are France and Germany not demanding that Greece cuts its defence spending?
Question: In the period 2006-2010 which country was Germany’s largest market for munitions?
Answer: Greece, which accounted for 15% of total German arms sales.
Question: In the same period, what country was France’s largest arms export market in Europe (third
largest overall)?
Answer: Greece
Question: In 2010 (last year data is available) social spending in Greece was cut by 1.8bn Euros.
How much did military spending change? Was it…
a) Decreased by Euro 900 million
b) No change
c) Increased by Euro 900million
Answer: C
Yesterday, Greece’s central bank governor said his country would have to leave the eurozone if politicians do not stick to the austerity programme after the elections due to take place on 6 May.
“What is at stake is the choice between an orderly, albeit painstaking, effort to reconstruct the economy within the euro area, with the support of our partners, or a disorderly economic and social regression, taking the country several decades back, and eventually driving it out of the euro area and the European Union,” George Provopoulos told the media.
On March 23rd this year, Greece signed up to a second, €130 billion loan paid mainly by other eurozone countries to reduce the country’s debt and recapitalise its banks, along with a major debt restructuring agreed with private lenders. Had it not bought all those arms from France and Germany, of course, Greece wouldn’t have a problem at all.
Conclusion: The other 25 eurozone States are all paying for the Franco-German arms industry.
The Slog 