Greece: it's NOT an EU coup

The latest episode in the Greek epic is regarded by many as a coup against Greece. A coup by the Germans or by the EU, depending on who the writer hates more.

The Germans (or perhaps the EU) don’t respect democracy, it is said, because the Greeks voted No to austerity.

But Greece is just one democracy in the eurozone. The message from the shambolic referendum seemed to be: We want to stay in the eurozone, but No Austerity, Thanks, We’re Greek.

A purposeful government would have put the referendum choice as: euro+austerity or no austerity and no euro. But the ragtag that is Syriza didn’t win the election by offering Greeks an honest choice, and they weren’t about to start now.

What were the other eurozone democracies to do? Throw more of their own taxpayers’ money at the Greeks unconditionally because the Greek people had voted in favour of more fairy gold? Apologies to our own electorates, but Greece has had a referendum so we have to respect that. Until, of course, the rest of us have referenda, and then presumably ours will trump theirs – at least until they have another one.

Some cultural figures seem to argue that modern Greece should be cut more slack because ancient Greece was the cradle of democracy. Well, Athens, anyway. And if the argument is that modern Greece is therefore more deserving than (say) Slovakia, isn’t that a decision for the demos in the lender countries, for the voters in those democracies, to make? It’s pretty odd to argue that élites should give their taxpayers’ money away in honour of the founding of democracy.

And it will be giving it away, not lending it. The taxpayers won’t get their money back. Everyone knows that. So if the eurozone ministers are indeed going to bung more dosh at Greece, the very least they can do is to try to protect their own taxpayers as far as possible.

Note, by the way, that they are not faceless EU bureaucrats. These decisions are being taken by elected ministers, who have their own electorates to answer to.

This is not a coup. The Greek government always had a choice. They could take the rational route of leaving the euro and taking control of their own destiny (a big risk, that), or choose, as they have done, to head deeper into the blind alley of the eurozone.

Yes, the Greek government has chosen wrong. But they made the choice. So it is not a coup.