On his personal blog Yannis Varoufakis has posted a brief comment on yesterdays Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers (below) and the full draft of the submission he made at the meeting.The refusal to extend the current program by one week until the referendum is held on the 5th of July opened the door to the suspension by the European Central Bank of the Emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) a move that has led to the imposition of capital controls and the immediate closure of the Greek banking system.
The Eurogroup Meeting of 27th June 2015 will not go down as a proud moment in Europe’s history. Ministers turned down the Greek government’s request that the Greek people should be granted a single week during which to deliver a Yes or No answer to the institutions’ proposals – proposals crucial for Greece’s future in the Eurozone. The very idea that a government would consult its people on a problematic proposal put to it by the institutions was treated with incomprehension and often with disdain bordering on contempt. I was even asked: “How do you expect common people to understand such complex issues?”. Indeed, democracy did not have a good day in yesterday’s Eurogroup meeting! But nor did European institutions. After our request was rejected, the Eurogroup President broke with the convention of unanimity (issuing a statement without my consent) and even took the dubious decision to convene a follow up meeting without the Greek minister, ostensibly to discuss the “next steps”.
Can democracy and a monetary union coexist? Or must one give way? This is the pivotal question that the Eurogroup has decided to answer by placing democracy in the too-hard basket. So far, one hopes.
