The European Union - the New Soviet Union?

[George S.]

either way cultea your country is completely ruined now it will be booted out back to the drachmas for them.

[Onur]

If Greece was not in Eurozone and had it’s own currency, it would be probably under IMF control

Cultea, Greece is already under the control of IMF, namely troika which consists of the IMF, ECB and EU commissioners. About half of your loans comes from IMF and the other half comes from ECB, So, Greece is indebted to the IMF and ECB (includes some western european banks under it`s control)

Well, the basic question is whose fault is it (and in what percentage)?

The reasons are so obvious.

As you said, your country`s debt raised incredibly fast after 1981, thats after you became the member of EU because most likely your politicians became mesmerized due to opportunity to get loans from western european countries with very low interest rates since the western european economy was living in a spring at that time. And this continued for about two decades. During that period, Greece literally devoured insane amount of money. I mean, we are talking about ~220 billion euros from EU funds for free and some ~350 billion euros more as a debt since 1981. I am sure not everyone in Greece took advantage of this gigantic amount of money but some surely enjoyed it.

Then after ~2005, the economical spring was finally over in europe and everything started to go worse. Interest rates of your new debt amounts raised more but your country was already addicted to the new debts on top of debts and your politicians couldn't do shit to prevent your inevitable bust.

IMHO, the ordinary Greek citizens fault is;
You should have question your politicians about where this gigantic money comes from.

Just think about this;
How on earth Greeks lived as no different than Germans with only selling olives and with so so tourism income??? You have no proper industry and no agriculture except olives. So, how come you can live in life standards of Germany, a world industrial giant with 65 million population, includes nonstop renewing hard working migrant force???

And how come you can compete with Turkey in terms of defense budget while Turkish GDP more than triples yours?? Your idiot politicians took loans from French and gave the loaned money back to them in turn of French warplanes, then you bought Russian missile cruises, planted them to Crete, US made tanks, Italian naval force equipments and so on. In some terms, you even managed to spend even more money than Turkey for your military (!!!)

Ofc this is also fault of Brussels, idiotic eurocrats and their unrealistic fantasies. They convinced you with their lies to do all of that. They used and abused you. Eurocrats and your puppet politicians kept Turkish bugaboo alive among Greek people while feeding you with EU funds and loans. They sold their military equipments to you and US sold theirs to Turkey, so their war industry grew bigger. In the end, they are happy but you gone bust. Now they will buy your country`s remaining assets due to privatization and they will be even more happy (!!!)

[cultea]

Cultea, Greece is already under the control of IMF, namely troika which consists of the IMF, ECB and EU commissioners. About half of your loans comes from IMF and the other half comes from ECB, So, Greece is indebted to the IMF and ECB (includes some western european banks under it`s control)

Uh… I know IMF is part of the troika. I was trying to explain to macedonce the similarities and differences in the cases e.g. of Greece and Hungary or Turkey.

1. As you said, your country`s debt raised incredibly fast after 1981, thats after you became the member of EU because most likely your politicians became mesmerized due to opportunity to get loans from western european countries with very low interest rates since the western european economy was living in a spring at that time. And this continued for about two decades.

2. Then after ~2005, the economical spring was finally over in europe and everything started to go worse. Interest rates of your new debt amounts raised more but your country was already addicted to the new debts on top of debts and your politicians couldn't do shit to prevent your inevitable bust.

3. IMHO, the ordinary Greek citizens fault is;
You should have question your politicians about where this gigantic money comes from.

4. Just think about this;
How on earth Greeks lived as no different than Germans with only selling olives and with so so tourism income??? You have no proper industry and no agriculture except olives. So, how come you can live in life standards of Germany, a world industrial giant with 65 million population, includes nonstop renewing hard working migrant force???

5. And how come you can compete with Turkey in terms of defense budget while Turkish GDP more than triples yours?? Your idiot politicians took loans from French and gave the loaned money back to them in turn of French warplanes, then you bought Russian missile cruises, planted them to Crete, US made tanks, Italian naval force equipments and so on. In some terms, you even managed to spend even more money than Turkey for your military (!!!)

6. Ofc this is also fault of Brussels, idiotic eurocrats and their unrealistic fantasies. They convinced you with their lies to do all of that. They used and abused you. Eurocrats and your puppet politicians kept Turkish bugaboo alive among Greek people while feeding you with EU funds and loans. They sold their military equipments to you and US sold theirs to Turkey, so their war industry grew bigger. In the end, they are happy but you gone bust. Now they will buy your country`s remaining assets due to privatization and they will be even more happy (!!!)

1. Well, no. The raising of debt is related to a really new era of populism and socialist experimentation. It has nothing to do with European Economic Community of the time that was in an early stage at the 80s.

2. No, that was only at 2008/9 at the start of the crisis. The spreads got out of control after Papandreou came to power and revealed the real data of Greek economy.

3. Correct. The citizens were still asking for more money. There wasn’t a real problem for about 18 years when the debt was about 95-110% of GDP, but the first real crisis would certainly mean bad news.

4. Greece doesn’t have the living standards of Germany or France but (at the moment) 68% of them. I don’t have the fluctuations of this ratio for the last 20 years, but it can’t be impressive. Greece’s income is not only from … olives or tourism.

5. No. The military budget of Greece is about 60% of the Turkish one (2010 data)

6. I don’t see how EU is responsible for your behaviour. Greece is the only country of EU that has a visible military threat reminded with threats, aircraft violations etc on a weekly basis. Excluding Cyprus of course, which is in a more tragic and quite known state. It was never discussed on this forum, but you and I know very well what’s happening in Cyprus during the last 10 days. Who knows? Maybe… we’ll meet each other.

[George S.]

cultea can you honestly say that greece BORROWED that money or STOLE that money.I think STOLE is more appropriate here.If you borrow money you intend to pay it back.If you intended to steal by default that is stealing.

[Onur]

1. Well, no. The raising of debt is related to a really new era of populism and socialist experimentation. It has nothing to do with European Economic Community of the time that was in an early stage at the 80s.

Yes it was populism but who gave you the loans in first place? If western European EEC/EU members wouldn't give you that insane amount of money to you, then how come your politicians would realize that populism? They simply gave you loans just to make you buy their products, Mercedes cars, French warplanes, Italian naval equipments etc. And thats how you managed to raise that debt, by nonstop buying the products of your creditors.

2. No, that was only at 2008/9 at the start of the crisis. The spreads got out of control after Papandreou came to power and revealed the real data of Greek economy.

Thats only the time when they announced to you. In fact, your crisis begun when you became EU member, when your debt skyrocketed to the roof in early years.

You are not alone on that either. This is what happened in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and in other countries too. Check these countries debt values of pre and post EU era, you will see it. After they became EU member, eurocrats sees them as an open market, asks their politicians about how much money they want and prints the euros in Brussels ECB when needed and say "OK, now buy our products (Mercedes, BMW, French planes, Italian mines etc.), feed your people with it. As long as you feed it regularly, people wont even notice wtf is goin on". Thats the trick, easy as that.

3. Correct. The citizens were still asking for more money. There wasn’t a real problem for about 18 years when the debt was about 95-110% of GDP, but the first real crisis would certainly mean bad news.

I can understand that cuz you were accustomed to that. Money is like drugs, when you are used to it, you gain tolerance and you want more.

18 years is a long time. Actually it was surprising that you managed to go that long but it was inevitable that you were gonna go bust sooner or later cuz your economical force supported by only 10 million population couldn't hold on to that any longer.

5. No. The military budget of Greece is about 60% of the Turkish one (2010 data)

Don't be silly pls. Check the percentage of it in total GDP. Ofc it would be 60% of ours cuz Turkey has 1 trillion dollars GDP, Greece have ~300 billion dollars. Greece always spends more than Turkey according to the percentage of it`s budget, GDP value.

6. I don’t see how EU is responsible for your behaviour. Greece is the only country of EU that has a visible military threat reminded with threats, aircraft violations etc on a weekly basis. Excluding Cyprus of course, which is in a more tragic and quite known state. It was never discussed on this forum, but you and I know very well what’s happening in Cyprus during the last 10 days. Who knows? Maybe… we’ll meet each other.

Our what? Turkey does nothing to Greece unless you do something first. I said this here 100 times; Do you know where those so-called "aircraft violations" occurs??? 1-2 km (Yes, one or two) of our coasts of Bodrum, mainland Turkey but 600 km away from Greece mainland. You guys consider it as "air violation" cuz you think like Aegean sea as some kind of Greek lake because of some small islets awarded to you in 1922 by Brits. It is not a Greek lake and some tiny rocks above the sea doesn't give you permission to chase away our aircrafts on the coasts of Bodrum, Izmir, even visible by naked eye from Turkey but 600km away from Greece.


Yes, i didn't write anything here about recent events in Cyprus but i will if something new comes up. We can discuss that there but gonna ask you one question;
Is it fair for Greek Cypriots to monopolize all the energy sources by excluding the Turks? without even asking them anything about the arrangements they made?

You think like Turkey didn't know the existence of these energy fields in there? Why you think Turkey never did what Greek Cypriots do now by acting alone??? because this is a problematic place and Cyprus is still doing talks for changing it`s status to federation. So, is it normal for a country to sign agreements with 3rd parties while he is already doing talks for changing it`s status??? What Turkey does is just a reaction to the Greek Cypriot action. Like i told you, Turkey does nothing unless Greeks does something first.

Just one thing; Turks never lets you to get all the energy in there alone, regardless of whom you agreed with, US, Israel or French firms. Don't trust neither of them nor your petty EU membership. We got mediterranean hot-blood too, just like you Greeks and we are very well aware that when things get on the edge, to the limits, neither USA nor EU can say anything. They would remain silent just as happened in 1974.

P.S: What you mean by "we`ll meet"?? on a gunpoint? No, i prefer in some other way.

[cultea]

Onur,
Nothing in the world is unrelated, but you seem to deliberately confuse public and private debt, individual overconsumption and political populism and drop a simplified conspiracy theory at the end. Well, it’s not like that. Easy loans and credit cards were common since the mid-90s, the public debt is mostly a product of early 80s and is NOT related to EEC, it was rather a bunch of short-lived socialist/populist experiments that had a catastrophic effect and were recalled within 2 years by the very people who introduced them.

Borders are borders (well, not in our case). Turkey’s tactic is not to claim a certain island or appeal to international justice. They start by doubting on Greece’s dominance on certain areas. Thus, we have the so called grey zones, while Turkey doesn’t have an official position about anything, we occasionally hear weird things, e.g. even about islets on the… west-south of Crete.
Of course Turkey, and any country, can choose its’ policy, but how can you have these weekly activities and don’t want to be seen as a booger. I don’t know any other country that deals with similar threats and actions.

After 1974, Turkey occupies the North part of Cyprus and dominates de facto (but not de jure) on the sea of the North side (between Cyprus and Turkish coast). I don’t think this illegal domination was really threatened ever since (e.g. by USA, UK, Greece or any international alliance). How on earth can Turkey now have a word in the sea area at the south of Cyprus?!? Your country has a lot of nerve.

PS. I hope you’re not a pacifist. You can… study History on field.

[George S.]

if greece has got the money why is it asking the eu to pay for the fencing supposedly to keep immigrants out.Or is it they are scared from the turks attacking them,they feel safer in a fence.
Also greece defaulting on the public debt will mean that it will be booted out of the eu back to their drachmas.

[Onur]

Borders are borders (well, not in our case). Thus, we have the so called grey zones, while Turkey doesn’t have an official position about anything

You are right, not in our case cuz British awarded these islands and islets to Greece just to maintain neverending conflicts between us, so they could safely do whatever they want from Cyprus. They did same thing in middle-east too, created stupid artificial borders in there and it`s one of the primary reason of why the crises never ends there. You know these islands occupied by Italians but Brits ordered them to leave all of them to you. Already thats why they occupied all of them again in WW-2.

Currently, we have an absurd situation like this;
We have Greece, thinking like they own whole Aegean sea just because of these small islets, visible from Turkish coast by naked eye. On the other hand, Turkey has about ~7000 km of coast lines but whenever one of our plane leaves our coast line, a Greek warplane comes up, saying "leave Greek territory, this small rocky, uninhabited islet is ours" (!!!), 600km away from Greek coast but 5km (five) away from our coast. So, it`s like Turkey supposed to be a landlocked country even tough we have 7000km of coast line to the sea.

Turkey have an official position and it`s this;

Tensions over the 12 mile question ran highest between the two countries in the early 1990s, when the Law of the Sea was going to come into force. On 9 June 1995, the Turkish parliament officially declared that unilateral action by Greece would constitute a casus belli, i.e. reason to go to war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_dispute

How on earth can Turkey now have a word in the sea area at the south of Cyprus?!? Your country has a lot of nerve.

The problem is;
Greek Cypriot government continues to operate under the law of 1960`s constitution and agreement done between Turkey, England, Greek and Turkish Cypriots but after Greek invasion and coup d`etat in 1974, Greek Cypriots hijacked the full authority and Turkish Cypriots completely out of the scene since then while Greek Cyprus state assumes that they have full authority in whole island, which is completely false.

Now, Greek Cypriots signed agreements with oil companies without even consulting anything with Turkish Cypriots and claims all the energy sources all by themselves. Greek Cypriots got two option;
You either recognize northern Turkish Cypriot state and Turkey leaves Greek Cyprus alone and they can do whatever they want in south side or you have to share everything with the Turkish Cypriots if you claim that you are the legitimate authority in whole Cyprus. Greek Cypriots rejects both. You simply cannot do that and Turkey will never allow this.

I don’t think this illegal domination was really threatened ever since (e.g. by USA, UK, Greece or any international alliance).

Because they cant do shit to us, but ofc you Greeks always thinks the opposite and say; "we got EU on our back, Turkey cant do anything, we can get 10 trillion dollars worth energy all alone and hellenize Cyprus, hooray (!!!)", but you always end up in disappointment in the end.

I am telling you this not because of arrogance or something like that. This is really what i believe and the proof is the events in 1922, 1974 and the Kardak/Imia crisis;
Western world always supports you against Turkey but `till the things goes to the limit and when we get on to the edge, they always leaves you alone. You better not trust them for anything cuz they wont do anything besides firing you up against us but in the last minute, you end up all alone.


P.S: I am not a pacifist. I just prefer to be active on the diplomacy side rather than being active in the war field. You should forget this kind of nonsense because as you know, your whole country`s manpower and economy is less than Istanbul, let alone whole Turkey. What would matter even if all Greek men would be active against us? Don't fire up yourselves out of nothing, be reasonable and get real.

[Onur]

2 days ago, all the 17 Eurozone member countries took a decision to increase their own contribution to the bailout fund of the EU. All of them approved it except the poor but courageous little Slovakia. Their ruling government denied to increase Slovakia`s contribution to the bailout fund.

Guess what happened in the next 24 hours?;
The ruling coalition government of little Slovakia has been destroyed and Slovakia`s president announced that they will approve the EU legislation. Ofc it`s obvious that the EU dictators council called EU commission put Slovakia under pressure and basically overthrew the so-called "problematic" government in there.

Slovakian government cracks under pressure to bailout EU
A rift within Slovakia's government prevented one of the Eurozone’s poorest countries from approving an increase in the EU’s bailout fund on Tuesday.

The vote on the bailout was blocked by the neo-liberals of the Freedom and Solidarity Party, as well as the social democrats of the Socialist Smer Party.

The leader of the Freedom and Solidarity Party, Richard Sulik, fiercely opposed the increase in the bailout funds, saying it was not fair to pay for Greek debt from Slovakia’s pocket.

“The average pension in Slovakia is less than 400 euros,” Sulik declared last week. “The average pension in Greece is 1,400 euros – three, four times higher.”

“It's impossible to explain to a Slovak pensioner that he or she has to contribute – in the form of higher VAT, for example – toward Greek pensions,” he said. “Or toward Italian MPs’ salaries, the highest in Europe.”

Both Slovakian Prime Minister Iveta Radicova and her main political opponent now say they will work to get the bill approved swiftly. Still, it is not clear when another vote will be held.

Slovakia is the last of the 17 members of the Eurozone to approve the proposed expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility, which has been designed to protect weaker economies in the Eurozone from the sovereign debt crisis.

Had Slovakia approved the move, it would have contributed around 1 per cent of the 440-billion-euro bailout package.

Financial advisor Patrick Young says Slovakia has done a good job of balancing its own budget in recent years, and the Slovakian people simply do not want to pay for Greece’s debt.

“Ultimately this is a question of not just principle, but actually the rational economic well-being of the ordinary working people of Slovakia,” Young told RT. “They have endured incredible cuts during the course of the last three years in order to keep the Slovakian economy going.”

Slovakians, as the lowest wage-earners in the Eurozone, are incredibly fiscally pragmatic, added Young. So they can hardly feel any solidarity with the Greek government, which lied about their figures just to get into the Eurozone, he concluded.

13 October, 2011

http://rt.com/news/bailout-fund-eurozone-slovakia-635/

This is just an another proof for the totalitarian ways in EU, actually the EUSSR.

Nigel Farage: United States of Europe insane politics - YouTube


Btw, Slovakia should be happy to have politicians who thinks about the prosperity of their own people instead of EU cabals. So, we see that not all Slovaks thinks like the Slovak(s) here in this forum

[Risto the Great]

Thanks Onur.
I had been meaning to comment on this.

Slovakia had the right idea, but alas, the sovereignty of any nation within the EU is questionable to say the least. Slovakia came around to the EU perspective very quickly.

Macedonia desperately wants to be in the EU to receive similar privileges .... many Macedonians cheer for this kind of thing.

[Onur]

I saw another video from the related ones to the first one. According to the report, these so-called "privileges" actually doesn't exist in Slovakia.

Uploaded by RussiaToday on Jul 29, 2011;
Cost of prestige: Euro club 'fees' go to Greece - YouTube

The only aim of EU for accepting small countries to the EU is acquiring new bases for themselves and use their population as a source of workforce, migrants to their own countries, namely Germany, France.

Btw, i don't know if you heard but the EU commission released the progression reports of EU candidates and for the potential ones. In the pages of the report, there is not even single mention of the adjective "Macedonia", it`s totally absent but "FYROM" all around the papers. Turkey`s report is quite same as the earlier years, bashing us about Cyprus and stupid stuff like that. They also announced the opening of accession negotiations with Montenegro, and granted EU candidate status to Serbia.

[Soldier of Macedon]

“The average pension in Slovakia is less than 400 euros,” Sulik declared last week. “The average pension in Greece is 1,400 euros – three, four times higher.”

That is ubelievable and completely unfair.

[cultea]

That wasn't very close. The average pension in Greece is 617 Euros.

[George S.]

either way it seems more than others & way too much than the country can afford.It seems to be every man & his dog is on the gravy train getting fat pensions & not working when they should be working & paying proper taxes.

[Onur]

Commercial for Slovak beer "Zlaty Bazant" (golden pheasant). Pokes fun at greece for spending;
Zlaty Bazant Slovak Beer Commercial pokes fun at Greece! (English Subtitles) - YouTube