Calamos Supports Greece
GreekReporter.comGreeceShocking German Article: "In Berlin They Even Consider Military Coup Scenarios for...

Shocking German Article: "In Berlin They Even Consider Military Coup Scenarios for Greece"


During the past hours, the Greek media has been circulating a shocking German article from http://www.german-foreign-policy.com that argues than in Berlin, authorities are considering coup scenarios  and other ways to use armed forces to impose their will on Greece. The article is entitled “ On The Relevance of Democracy”, and it presents several nightmare scenarios on how the Germans intend to turn Greece into a protectorate since the German austerity dictate can no longer be enforced with democratic means. The article also refers to German commentators who are drawing comparisons to the situation in the later stages of Germany’s Weimar Republic: “In the Greek situation, the worst case would be a reversion to a dictatorship,” warned an influential commentator.
According to the website’s editors, German foreign policy.com is compiled by a group of independent journalists and social scientists who observe, on an ongoing basis, Germany’s renewed attempts to regain a status of great power in the economic, military and political arena.
ATHENS/BERLIN
In the run-up to new elections in Greece, the German elite is discussing various scenarios involving the use of force to ensure control over Athens, including the establishment of a protectorate or the deployment of “protection forces” in that southern European country. The German austerity dictate, pushing Greece into destitution, is provoking growing popular resistance, which, apparently, can no longer be suppressed with democratic means. Berlin has failed in its efforts to force Athens into subordination by threatening to withdraw the Euro, as much as with its demand that Greece combines its parliamentary elections with a referendum on the question of remaining in the Euro zone. Berlin categorically rejects the option of retracting the austerity dictate and replacing it with stimulus programs, as is being demanded by leading economists worldwide, even though the exclusion of Greece from the Euro zone threatens to push the currency itself, into an abyss.
17th of June – Greece’s Last Chance
After all attempts to form a government in Greece failed last week, it appears that in the elections set for June 17, those forces that are strictly opposed to the German austerity dictate will win a majority. Even with their slight majority in parliament, the three parties willing to implement the austerity program have not succeeded in forming a government. Polls are predicting their defeat. The fact that a majority in the Greek population would like to keep the Euro, is seen in Berlin and Brussels as a last chance to achieve a change in public opinion. Already before the announcement of new elections, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble declared that the Euro zone could easily cope with Greece’s withdrawal. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has just confirmed that the EU Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) are already preparing for Greece’s withdrawal. And, Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Euro Group, is quoted as saying that “if we would take a poll with secret ballots on Greece remaining in the Euro zone, an overwhelming majority would vote against it.” The new elections are Greece’s “last chance.” If they do not furnish a majority for the austerity dictate, “it will be over.”
No Right to Respect
In addition, Berlin has obviously applied pressure on Athens to combine a referendum on remaining in the Euro zone with the elections. This tactic is aimed at weakening the opponents of austerity. According to reports, German Finance Minister Schäuble already made this proposal last Monday to his Greek counterpart at the meeting of the Euro finance ministers. This proposal is obviously supported by the Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Volker Kauder (“Now German will be spoken in Europe”). A Greek government spokesman confirmed that Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Greek President Karolos Papoulias last Friday to implement the German plan for a Greek referendum, whereas in November 2011, Berlin briskly rebuffed the Prime Minister at the time, Giorgos Papandreou, when he publicly announced his proposal to hold a referendum. This led to his demise. Berlin’s open interference is met with outrage in Athens. The Greek population has a “right to respect,” the chairperson of the conservative Nea Dimokratia, Antonis Samaras, was quoted as saying. And the chairman of the opposition party Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, declared that Berlin is acting as if Greece “is a protectorate”.
Euro Dusk
Berlin is gruffly rebuffing every deviation from the severe austerity policy, ruining Greece, german-foreign-policy.com reported  – in spite of the fact that this will accelerate the collapse of the entire Euro zone. A few days ago, the economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was not the first to describe such a scenario. Soon, “most likely, next month,” Greece will exit the Euro zone, according to Krugman. Immediately thereafter, a comprehensive capital flight can be expected to Germany – at least from Spain and Italy, out of fear of these two countries’ economic collapse as well. This would necessitate drastic measures – limitations of money transfers or new support measures for Spanish and Italian banks, and possibly both. In the long run, however, support, particularly for the Spanish economy with stimulus programs, cannot be avoided. This would mean a strategy change for combatting the crisis that Berlin from the very beginning has been trying to avoid at all costs. “Germany has the choice,” explains Krugman, accept the change of course or “the end of the Euro” is imminent. Concerning the time span of the “Euro dusk,” Krugman says, “we are speaking in terms of months, not years.
Protectorate
The sectors of the German elite, which refuse to consider this change of course proposed by Krugman and numerous other experts outside Germany, are now publicly debating scenarios involving the use of force. In a newspaper interview early this month, the director of the prominent Hamburg Institute of International Economics, Thomas Straubhaar, called for establishing a protectorate in Greece – “regardless of the outcome of the elections”. The country is a “failed state,” he says, which is unable to raise itself “to a new start” under “its own steam.” Athens needs “help in establishing viable state structures”. It, therefore, must be transformed into “a European protectorate.” “The EU must do it,” affirms Straubhaar. The EU “would have to help Greece modernize its institutions at every level, particularly with administrative staff, tax experts, and tax inspectors.” However, refounding Greece would demand “intuition” to “overcome national pride, conceit, and the resistance of interest groups.” This is referring to a sovereign democracy, a German ally in the EU and NATO.
Putsch
In the meantime, there is even discussion of a putsch in Athens. Greece threatens to sink into complete chaos, warned a long time companion of Germany’s former Foreign Minister, Joseph Fischer, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a European parliamentarian for the French Green Party. Cohn-Bendit explained that it is impossible to avoid extensive foreign interference. “If you leave the Greeks to muddle through alone, you are risking a military putsch.” German commentators are drawing comparisons to the situation in the later stages of Germany’s Weimar Republic. “In the Greek situation, the worst case would be a reversion to a dictatorship,” warned an influential commentator. “This scenario becomes more probable as instability grows.” In reference to the links between a possible dictatorship and Berlin’s austerity dictate, the commentator writes, “already today, it seems as though Merkel’s austerity policy can, at best, be imposed on the streets of Athens by force of arms.”
Protection Forces
Last week, a leading German daily discussed the issue of dispatching troops to Greece. Should the country go bankrupt, it would then, as a “‘failing state,’ (…) be less in a position” to shore up its borders against migrants, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Just recently, the EU Commission announced that it finds itself forced to prolong the mission of its EU border troops at the Greek/Turkish borders. If Athens “should no longer be able to pay its officials, or can pay only in Drachmas,” the situation risks becoming “chaotic”. The country could possibly “be rocked by rebellions”. “Help for Greece would then no longer be on credit, but be transformed into a sort of humanitarian emergency aid,” prophesied the journal in its front-page lead editorial. “Hopefully, an international protection force, such as the one stationed in the teetering countries further to the north, will not become an option.”
(Sources: Newsit.gr, Onalert.gr) 

See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!



Related Posts