Sir, – Fintan O' Toole ("Tormenting Greece is about sending a message that we are now in a new EU", July 14th), in his criticism of Europe's treatment of Greece, conveniently forgets that the Greeks appear to want to live irresponsibly beyond their means at the expense of other EU countries such as Ireland and Portugal. In addition he completely ignores the behaviour of the egotistical and amateurish Greek politicians, relishing their moment in the spotlight and playing a very dirty game. Making threats that they would flood Europe with immigrants, cosying up to Russia at a time of strained relations and demanding more from Germany long after the issue of war reparations was closed are not the actions of true friends. Europe was very patient, restrained and caring in its treatment of Greece. – Yours, etc,
SEAN O’SULLIVAN,
Crossabeg,
Wexford.
Sir, – Suzanne Lynch worries that "Anti-Europeanism is likely to be the only winner of the Greek crisis" ("The only winner will be Euroscepticism", Analysis, July 14th).
I would like to believe that your correspondent was actually referring to “anti-EU” sentiment, because using the phrase “anti-European” to describe people who deplore the operation and current components of the European project is a politically loaded phrase that suggests that such people are somehow xenophobic and irrational.
I certainly hope that that was not the intention, because the last thing we need is for people to be shouted down for suggesting solutions that do not fit the current orthodoxy. – Yours, etc,
TOMÁS M CREAMER,
Ballinamore,
Co Leitrim.
Sir, – Surely the EU “leadership” has now been irrevocably exposed for what it is – a motley crew of local area enforcers for the self-serving agenda of the transnational financial elites.
Lack of regulation has allowed the global financial system to become a vampire sucking the economic blood out of countries and citizens, through the open wound of debt. The mountain of debt that is suffocating Europe is the legacy of the banking collapse of 2008, when private gambling debt was forced onto ordinary people to pay as public debt.
But instead of national leaders coming together to collectively put a stake through the vampire’s heart, they congratulate themselves on feeding it victims to keep it alive.
There will be no end to debt and its attendant suffering for innocent citizens until the people themselves come together in mass movements to face down the ruthless might of corporate vested interests and insist on the return of stability, equality and democracy to the western world. – Yours, etc,
MAEVE HALPIN,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Eric Byrne TD (July 15th) says that when Syriza came to power in January 2015 the Greek economy was growing. I assume he says this because he has read somewhere that Greece has a current account surplus. Greece has a current account surplus when you exclude the amount of money paid each year to service its national debt. It's like someone who gets paid a net salary of €2,000 a month, with bills of €4,000, one of which is a mortgage of €2,500, then pretending they don't have a mortgage and telling themselves they have an extra €500 a month to spend.
Mr Byrne forgets that Alexis Tsipras has only been in office since January 2015 while Pasok was in office for decades. I don’t recall anyone in the Labour Party or Democratic Left making any comments then about the scale of cronyism that was rotting Greece from the inside out.
Were the German people ever directly asked if they wanted their taxes to be used to bail out their banks and for it to be done by sending money to Greece, making the Greek taxpayer pay it back and then funnelling it back into German banks without that money ever touching the Greek economy? Wouldn’t they agree that it would be morally fairer to just pay off the banks directly or, better still, let those banks face the consequences of their poor lending choices?
The fact is that Greece could never afford to pay the two bills for banking and reform. Mr Byrne could at least have the grace to acknowledge that Greece tried and in the process beggared itself.
No matter how efficient Greece becomes or even if it meets 100 per cent tax compliance, it can never produce enough surplus income, after providing even the most basic standards of a modern European country, to repay that level of debt.
Even the IMF has had its eyes opened to the hard facts of maths that Greece can never repay this money. – Yours, etc,
DESMOND FitzGERALD,
Canary Wharf,
London.
Sir, – Eric Byrne TD claims that I "called for the suspension of Irish democracy and the imposition of a triumvirate of three appointed people to run the country". For the record, this is a wild distortion of the truth. In 2010, when the troika came to town, the then government was in obvious disarray – a fact that has been underlined by the recent hearings of the banking inquiry. I argued that it was no fit state to conduct negotiations with the troika on a deal that would have profound consequences for all Irish citizens and suggested that the Dáil (which is, after all, elected) should appoint three people of competence, integrity and international standing to conduct negotiations on Ireland's behalf. I further suggested that the deal they negotiated should then be put to the people in either a general election or a referendum. To call this a "suspension of democracy" is absurd. I leave it to readers to judge the level of desperation that is at work when a Government TD has no better response to the concerns I raised about the future of the EU than to concoct this kind of ludicrous invention. – Yours, etc,
FINTAN O’TOOLE,
Tara Street,
Dublin 2.