Greece is the template for a European dictatorship in a 21st century form. Its a kind of post-modern fascism... and we are seeing it develop.While the finance ministers and IMF are arguing about the exact form of the debt regime, they are agreed that the southern European country must be subordinated to the direct diktat of the EU so that the last cent can be squeezed out of the Greek working class. They are no longer satisfied with dictating the austerity measures to be implemented to the Greek government, but like the colonial powers of old are installing their own officials at all levels of the state and administration and even in the private banks.
Greece serves as a model for the whole continent. The redistribution of wealth from those at the bottom to those at the top cannot be reconciled with democratic rights or parliamentary forms of rule.
The latest draft of the credit agreement between the Troika—comprising the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank—and the Greek government envisages the virtual abrogation of all the legal powers of parliament. It lays down in detail the timetable for legislation. Parliament is instructed to implement 259 “reforms”, which contain further devastating social cuts, the erosion of workers’ rights and the liberalization of markets.
If Greece refuses to implement these instructions to the letter, the troika is threatening to withhold further tranches of the financial aid already agreed. Greece would then be bankrupt within weeks and could no longer pay wages, pensions and social benefits.
The supposedly autonomous municipal administrations, like the individual ministries and state corporations, have already been robbed of any room for manoeuvre. They are obliged to reach definite austerity targets, and failure to do so results in cuts being automatically imposed. Austerity commissioners have been installed in every ministry, charged with ensuring that the cuts go through. The country's banks are also subject to commissioners, named directly by the troika in consultation with the government, responsible for the allocation of credits.
On Monday, a government spokesperson announced that Greece would deposit all the proceeds from the privatisation of profitable state enterprises into a special account that would be used exclusively for the repayment of debts and interest and is directly controlled by the troika. The German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has proposed that the financial aid could also be parked in such an account. In this way, the Greek state would lose the final remnants of its financial independence.
The dictatorship of the EU over all levels of the state administration is a direct reaction to the continuing mass protests, strikes and factory occupations with which the workers throughout Greece are resisting the brutal social attacks.
In order to impose new cuts and to further plunder Greek society, the financial elite is resorting to increasingly authoritarian means. While they subject the state administration to their diktats, the fascist gangs of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) are being mobilised and encouraged by the police to act against political opponents and workers.
Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy and then France are the next targets.