THE crisis of the European Union sharpened yesterday when the German Finance Minister warned the Greek bourgeoisie that it would not get access to its 40bn euros ‘aid package’ until it forced much bigger economic sacrifices onto the Greek workers.
Days before this German ‘threat’ the Greek ‘socialist’ Premier Papandreou had asked the EU-IMF for the 40bn euros. This cut no ice with Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister. He observed that no decision on the aid had been made and a response could well be negative.
The German parliament has as yet not ratified the package and as well there are expected to be legal challenges to it. The French economy minister also made disparaging comments about the aid package, saying that it represented a ‘cocktail of indulgence’.
The interest rates being demanded by investors lending money to Greece are now close to record highs – as there are fears that Greece will not repay the loans.
Last Monday, Greek bond yields – the interest rates that Greece must pay to borrow money on the international markets – were just below the 9.15% record of the previous week.
The interest rate is 6.14 percentage points higher than that charged to Germany! And there is a deadline: Greece needs 8.5bn euros before May 19 to enable it to meet its next bond repayments.
The IMF has been asked to provide 10bn euros of support this year, with eurozone nations providing a further 30bn euros. No assistance has been agreed after the end of the year.
The Netherlands has already said it will wait to hear the full details of the plan before putting the necessary legislation before its parliament.
Senior officials in Germany’s governing coalition have indicated that they are willing to help Greece as long as ‘strict conditions’ are met, despite describing financial help as a ‘last resort’.
However, there is no doubt that the even harsher cuts being demanded will drive forward an indefinite general strike and revolution, and even pose intervention by NATO to save the government. Already Greek workers are condemning the EU and IMF Junta!
The Greek government is pledged to cut the budget deficit from the current 13.6 per cent to three per cent by the end of 2012.
It faces revolution at home if it proceeds, and expulsion from the EU along with the rest of the ‘PIGS’ states if it falters and the ‘contagion’ spreads.
Greece’s debt crisis has already hit the euro hard, plunging the eurozone into the most serious crisis of its 11-year history, and placing Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland in the firing line.
In fact the EU – and the attempt by the bourgeoisie to do politically what Hitler failed to do militarily, unite Europe under German leadership – is imploding as its contradictions begin to rip it apart.
Trotsky dealt with this question in his book the ‘Third International After Lenin’, where he states about the period just before the First World War: ‘Needless to say, Lenin rejected the possibility that a capitalist United States of Europe could be realised . . . I wrote at the time: “a more or less complete economic unification of Europe accomplished from above through an agreement between capitalist governments is a utopia. Along this road matters cannot proceed beyond partial compromises and half measures. But this alone . . . is becoming a revolutionary task of the European proletariat in its struggle against imperialist protectionism and its instrument – militarism.’
Undoubtedly, the revolution that has begun in Greece is the beginning of the European Socialist Revolution that will put an end to the EU and establish the Socialist United States of Europe.