Greece is up for sale to big European corporations

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/17/greece-is-up-for-sale-to-big-european-corporations

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Greece’s proposed €86bn loan, which will simply allow the country to repay the institutions lending the money, only makes its debt more unpayable (Greek markets surge as Athens sets terms of €86bn bailout package, 12 August). But the purpose of the bailout has little to do with repaying debt and everything to do with creating a corporate paradise in the Mediterranean.

Under the terms of the bailout, Greece is up for sale. From the national lottery to the port of Pireaus and swaths of Corfu, corporations are scrambling to get a piece of the action.

The package declares war on many: workers, small businesses and farmers. Gone will be laws protecting small business ownership, collective bargaining, the minimum wage and help for farmers. The reforms are so specific that the EU is writing regulation on bread measurement and milk expiry dates.

No doubt Greece’s economy needs reform. That’s what Syriza was elected to undertake. But what is being imposed is the establishment and micromanagement of radical “free-market” economics, far more extreme than exist in many of Greece’s creditor countries. This is not a solution to Greece’s debt crisis, but a solution to the profits of European capital.Nick DeardenGlobal Justice Now

• Regarding Nils Pratley’s article EU backs IMF view – then ignores it (14 August), there is one thing that puzzles me: the IMF and EU regard a future Greek public deficit of 200% as unsustainable; only if this debt is reduced to 120% is it regarded as sustainable; yet they express no concern about a German banking-sector deficit of 324% of GDP or a British banking-sector deficit of more than 400% of GDP. As an economist, I cannot remember in my study of the subject ever reading that private-sector or banking deficits, no matter how large, were never a problem. Why do the leaders of the EU and IMF think differently?Derrick JoadLeeds