The last mistake of Europe, not to become worse than the first one

Νιcolaos Αnagnostatos

Pontou 26, 16563 Κifisia

Τηλ.: 210 6255563/6944 618180

e-mail: info@elvian.gr

            Khfissia, 04th July 2012

O P E N     L E T T E R

Messrs:                                                         

1. Jose-Manuel Barroso – President of European Commission
2. Van Rompuy – President of European Counsel
3. Jean Claude Yuncker – President of Eurogroup
4. Mario Draghi – Governor of E.C.B.

c.c.:

 I.-  Governments of Eurozone Member States

 II.- President of European Parliament Mr Schultz

 III. Greek Members of European Parliament

 IV.- Press

S;ubject: The last mistake of Europe, not to become worse than the first one                                You should respect our history and our civilization

            Dear Leaders of the Eurozone and the country-members,

            We did not get a chance to rejoice with your thoughts to proceed with the unification of Europe, nor did we get a chance to congratulate you for this imminent decision, which at any rate should had been taken years ago, and we hear that you are preparing for the isolation of Greece, in order to show us the exit from the Eurozone. Although such a possibility was denied, such a contradiction arises often before the rumors are proven true.

            I hope that such a possibility is in fact false and far away from your actual intentions. It would have been a shame for all of you if even a single shred of truth exists, that Greece is to be pushed out of the Euro, for several reasons the most important of which are the following:

            The reason for Greece’s exit, according to the rumors, is that Greece has not implemented the Memorandum and its terms. Perhaps there is some truth in this, it should however be taken into consideration that the fatal for Greece Prime Minister G.Papandreou,  rushed into the bailout mechanism in the first place, without it being necessary, something that he could easily avoid it if he would have taken certain available measures at the time. He rushed, completely unjustifiably, to sign the multipage Memorandum and the loan agreement, without any negotiation and probably without having read them, not to mention, most importantly, that he did have a hint as to the complicated and burdensome terms that they contained. These unfortunate facts should have made you skeptical as to whether the expected result could have ever been achieved. The disappointed results therefore, were a consequential expectation. The easy solution of the horizontal cuts of the wages and pensions, without any structural reforms and reduction of the overgrown public sector, it was more than obvious that the results would be disappointing.

            Now however, we have a newly elected government of coalition, with a correct and determined plan to get out of the crisis, having nothing to do with the previous government, and you should give them time in order to improve the implementation of the program of the Memorandum, with the necessary improvements of the terms that were proven absolutely unsuccessful, increasing the unemployment, closing enterprises and making the Greek people miserable. 

            An additional reason that will impede you to consider our exit from the Euro, is the fact that the Greek economy is only 2% of the European and consequently under no circumstances could any wrongdoing of our previous government have affected the Eurozone so badly as to justify our exiting the currency. Everybody should also remember that Greece from its history, civilization and democracy, is an inseparable part of Europe. We should also remember that Greece was one of the six European countries that signed the treaty of Rome in 1960, which was the initial step for the unification of Europe. For the ever memorable Prime Minister at the time Konstantine Karamanlis, the unification of Europe was his dream and he strived rigorously in this respect. Is it therefore conceivable that after sixty years of continued participation and effort towards the unification to be suddenly out of Europe? The last mistake of Europe, not to become worse than the first one, which is the delay of the unification of Europe.

            At this stage that we are, not completely due to our responsibility, we need the understanding and the solidarity of our European partners, within the purpose and the meaning of the E.U. The least you can do is to include Greece in the last decision of the Eurogroup, in the way that the recapitalization of Spanish and Italian Banks will be done. The reason of deciding so, was the recapitalization of the Basnks not to affect and increase the national debt. If this can be accepted for the countries with much less national debt, so much more will be necessary for Greece with such huge national debt. Any relation with the Memorandums and their terms, is completely irrelevant.

            The best assistance that E.U could offer to Greece, is the proposal of a German professor, that for two-three years, to waive any austerity measures, in order the market to revive, accepting the ESPA program to proceed without any participation of Greece and any other support for development and suspend any payment for loans and interest. We, from our part, we will take all necessary steps to nullify the deficit. In this way, after the two-three years, there is a strong possibility to have solved the economic problem, without E.U. or anybody else to have lost anything.

            Kindly do consider friendly all above and everybody will be happy in the end.

            Looking forward to a positive feed back of my anxiety.

            Yours sincerely

            Nicos Anagnostatos