The main challenges for Greece are the same main challenges for the Euro and for EU

Sir, I refer to Jim Brunsden’s and Kerin Hope’s “Athens faces challenging road ahead as it reaches milestone exit from bailout programmes” August 20.

The authors summarize what Greece must do in order to grow out of its current tragic predicaments with: “In exchange for a big debt relief deal in June” Greece must “Hit the targets” like sustaining “a primary surplus of 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product annually until 2022.” “Stimulate the economy”, “Fix the banks” “Create an investor-friendly environment” and “build investor confidence by completing flagship privatisations”

What? “In exchange for a big debt relief” That’s laughable! Is it not more the case of cleaning up bank creditors balance sheets, or being able to keep Greek credits on the books, relief? How much would all EU creditors of Greece have been able to collect from Greece? Would EU have invaded a fellow EU nation?

No, if Greece is to have a chance of meeting any of its commitments then at least two things must happen: 

First: The EU must find a sustainable way for solving the challenges posed by the Euro. When the Euro was being launched in an Op-Ed I wrote: “Exchange rates, while not perfect, are escape valves. By eliminating this valve, European countries must make their economic adjustments in real terms. This makes these adjustments much more explosive” And Sir, that bomb, now soon 20 years later, has not been deactivated, and EU has wasted precious time on much more comfortable issues. EU needs to find sustainable solution to it, just pushing the debt-cans forward will not do.

Second: If EU wants to survive and become a Union, then it needs to act as an adult and learn to assume the costs of its own mistakes. Let me be clear, again for the umpteenth time. Had not EU authorities assigned a risk weight of 0% to the governments of Greece, and a 100% weight to the Greek tax paying citizens, then the difficulties of Greece, in comparison to those it now suffers, would be minuscule.

Sir, those opposed to Brexit, the Remainers, should be working at that. Otherwise the Brexiters might soon tell them: “You see, thanks to us, we got out of EU, in the nick of time.

@PerKurowski