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Faisal Islam: My account of Greece is from two perspectives. First, there's the perspective of the Greek [media]—which is formed in part by announcements from the Troika [the three organizations that have regulated finances in Europe in recent years: the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission]. Then they have the reality of day-to-day life there, which I experienced while reporting on the country, speaking to people, to politicians. I was there for some amusing moments, for instance when Evangelos Venizelos mounted a coup against [then-Prime Minister] George Papandreou.Venizelos arrives at his ministry—[members of the press are] all waiting outside – and nobody asks any questions. I was thinking, Oh my God, if this was Britain, we’d be monstering him! We’d be like, “Have you just mounted a coup, Mr Venizelos?” I was totally taken aback. I thought, politely, that I would leave the Greek journalists to shout the first questions in Greek, because I don’t want to be one of those annoying foreign journalists who jump in there and say, “It’s our story now.” It’s clearly a Greek story.
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The second perspective I have of the situation in Greece is that of the German public. Just to distil it down very simply, they have to be aware of the consequences of their decisions and how their political choices affect Greek living standards. They need to be cognizant that, by choosing Angela Merkel and by backing her [policies forcing Greece to adopt austerity measures], there are going to be certain effects on the rest of Europe.I really would like to know, for instance, how the German political system is dealing with the rise of [fascist group] the Golden Dawn. I would like to take a German politician to Greece and tell him, “This is partly a result of your policies.” Last year, when we saw those atrocious numbers on unemployment, no one ever asked [President of the European Central Bank] Mario Draghi about it.That's one of the first things we ask Central Bank governors here in Britain. When, in Nicosia, they had to introduce capital controls, no one asked Draghi a single question about it.

Unfortunately, instead of that, people tend to default to historical stereotypes. People shout “Nazi!” etc. It’s kind of a waste of time, actually. When the plane filled with bailout cash arrived in Athens [when Greece was running out of physical currency], its existence was denied; when another popped up in Cyprus, it was confirmed. But nobody asks the question of why that happened. In 2009, in Greece, the cash in circulation was 8.2 percent of the GDP. By 2012, it was up to 24.8 percent. If people knew the logistics behind a huge rise of notes in circulation, they'd panic.
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The European authorities' biggest concern in Cyprus was protecting Greece from any contagion. They were obsessed with that, and they were quite willing to let Cyprus suffer. It’s not surprising that Cypriots, who had a strong currency before they joined the euro—which was only five years ago—feel that there was a turn in the rhetoric there [inside the country] and begin to contemplate leaving the euro.In Cyprus, the planes didn’t touch down until the parliament had agreed to certain things. I think that’s a good way of showing what reality looks like. You realize how close we are to certain dark things if, for instance, cash machines are running dry. Here in Britain, we were three to four hours from that happening back in 2008.
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We catch politicians in conferences saying, “Hooray, we stopped the indexing of wages, so now wages don’t follow prices.” Then, in a private chat, you ask, “Would you say that you’re celebrating cutting your people’s wages in public?” And they say, “No, no—I would never say that in public.” They never tell it straight to the people.They need to really watch out. Because of that, they may really lose the young. What I’ve found is that young Europeans really value their purple passports—they allow them to travel anywhere. Let me put my own views aside here and say that, if their endgame here is political union [between EU states]—and it kind of has to be—then they can’t possibly lose the young or fail to deliver on their job and life opportunities.The European authorities supported New Democracy in Greece and Mariano Rajoy in Spain, both of whom have been accused of corruption in some shape or form. How about that?
So here’s a perspective—me summarizing three years of travelling across the Eurozone and listening to people, the victims and the perpetrators. Despite the suffering—the riots, the protests—when push comes to shove, from Greece to Portugal, they all voted for center-right parties. Looking at this, I can only conclude that people in those countries are so frightened of their own political classes and their incompetence that they’d rather go with what Frankfurt and Berlin are dictating.
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This is why I avoid salivating over the troubles in the Eurozone, as a lot of people are doing. We managed to cover a lot of cracks by printing a lot of money, but I don’t know how this will play out.
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