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It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. I don't think it's unfair to now reveal the contents of these discussions. It's high time to s

It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. I don't think it's unfair to now reveal the contents of these discussions. It's high time to see if it was corruption, or compromise, which happened.

CarelessExpert 7y ago
And that makes a lot of sense. The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise, as in the moment it allows politicians to have those private discussions that might allow compromise to occur, while not totally sacrificing transparency in the long-term. And this isn't without precedent. The US declassification system essentially works this way (though it functions over the course of decades, which is probably too long).
- rumanator 7y ago
  > The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise The eurogroup president is already tasked with the responsibility of address the press and report on the group's deliberation.
twistedpairs 7y ago
> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy That's not true. Greed which benefited Greeks at the time destroyed the Greek economy.
- RobertoG 7y ago
  Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece (for its own good, of course), were, theoretically, about improving the competitive of Greece and solve the problem of the public debt. Nothing of that have happened. The public debt problem has not being solved and the Greek economy is a disaster. So who is responsible for those mistakes? They failed in their predictions and their failed in their goal (if what they say in public about their goal is the truth, of course). It seems to me that if we leave all those politicians that decide to be "hard" on the Greeks without punishment we will have a clear case of moral hazard.
  - nutjob2 7y ago
    The problem was that the Greeks had got themselves deeply, calamitously into debt. That the "solution" was awful or ineffective really is not relevant, since it's entirely a consequence of the former. At any time the Greeks could have said no to the proposed solution, but they didn't because they feared an even worse fate. The responsibility for Greece's situation must stay with Greece, unless they forgo the freedom to make their own decisions (about lending money). Nothing else works or makes sense logically. Freedom and taking responsibility are two sides of the same coin.
    - JackFr 7y ago
      > The problem was that the Greeks had got themselves deeply, calamitously into debt. To be clear then, any 'bailout' of Greece is truly a bailout not of Greece, but their creditors.
      - nutjob2 7y ago
        Not at all, that's a side effect. If what you say were strictly true, then why would Greece bother? Let the creditors burn. Of course the reason Greece agreed is that the attendant inability to borrow after the default would be much worse for Greece than the lenders. That really goes to the heart of the situation Greece had got itself into: default would not save them.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece Your assertion is absurd. No measure was ever taken to "keep the Greek man down". Greek governments spent years running up a monstrous debt and cooking their books to try to falsify the actual state of the country's economy and the state's finances, going to the extent of hiring private consultancy firms to help them commit accounting fraud, and once that time bombs blew in their faces there was no other alternative than to pick up the pieces and sort out the mess. The ECB/IMF/EC gang's role was to simply provide emergency financing to buy Greek government's some time to actually sort their state's mess. It might be politically convenient to fabricate an evil foreign boogieman to distract people from the true causes but the facts speak for themselves, and there is no way around it.
rumanator 7y ago
> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. Reality and the facts contrast heavily with this rhetoric. The eurogroup/IMF/european commission only stepped into the picture way after Greece bankrupted itself and digged a deep economic and social hole. Complaining about the organizations that mitigated Greece's pending collapse is like complaining about the cast and crutches you had to use after breaking your leg just because your leg hurts.
- DoingIsLearning 7y ago
  The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging. Much like the 'quantitive easing' ideas, they all had a theoretical basis that were vastly proven wrong. These countries only recovered when stimulous measures were applied. Lagard herself admited that austerity was a mistake but never apologised for the suffering and deaths that it precipitated. I remind you that elderly unable to afford medication and hospitals struggling to keep stock was a reality in Greece during this period.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging. Your personal assertion is flat out wrong. Although hindsight shows that the outcome was not optimal, the overall outcome of all bailout processes were highly successful. Although all states that requested bailouts were bankrupt by 2011, it took only a few years to get them back to eco omic growth and reducing their sovereign debt. Look for example at Portugal, who was arguably in the same situation as Greece but for about half a dozen years now it got back to economic growth,residual unemployment, a deficit close to zero, and lowering its sovereign debt. This turn of events coincides exactly with the last year of it's bailout process. Who in their right mind speaks of failures when all states who underwent bailout processes and actually tried to follow the program ended up recovering from bankruptcies in record time?
    - 7y ago

CarelessExpert 7y ago

And that makes a lot of sense. The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise, as in the moment it allows politicians to have those private discussions that might allow compromise to occur, while not totally sacrificing transparency in the long-term. And this isn't without precedent. The US declassification system essentially works this way (though it functions over the course of decades, which is probably too long).

rumanator 7y ago
> The idea that closed door deliberations must be made public after some moratorium period strikes me as a good compromise The eurogroup president is already tasked with the responsibility of address the press and report on the group's deliberation.

twistedpairs 7y ago

> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy That's not true. Greed which benefited Greeks at the time destroyed the Greek economy.

RobertoG 7y ago
Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece (for its own good, of course), were, theoretically, about improving the competitive of Greece and solve the problem of the public debt. Nothing of that have happened. The public debt problem has not being solved and the Greek economy is a disaster. So who is responsible for those mistakes? They failed in their predictions and their failed in their goal (if what they say in public about their goal is the truth, of course). It seems to me that if we leave all those politicians that decide to be "hard" on the Greeks without punishment we will have a clear case of moral hazard.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  The problem was that the Greeks had got themselves deeply, calamitously into debt. That the "solution" was awful or ineffective really is not relevant, since it's entirely a consequence of the former. At any time the Greeks could have said no to the proposed solution, but they didn't because they feared an even worse fate. The responsibility for Greece's situation must stay with Greece, unless they forgo the freedom to make their own decisions (about lending money). Nothing else works or makes sense logically. Freedom and taking responsibility are two sides of the same coin.
  - JackFr 7y ago
    > The problem was that the Greeks had got themselves deeply, calamitously into debt. To be clear then, any 'bailout' of Greece is truly a bailout not of Greece, but their creditors.
    - nutjob2 7y ago
      Not at all, that's a side effect. If what you say were strictly true, then why would Greece bother? Let the creditors burn. Of course the reason Greece agreed is that the attendant inability to borrow after the default would be much worse for Greece than the lenders. That really goes to the heart of the situation Greece had got itself into: default would not save them.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > Many commenters here are missing the point. All the measures that were taken against Greece Your assertion is absurd. No measure was ever taken to "keep the Greek man down". Greek governments spent years running up a monstrous debt and cooking their books to try to falsify the actual state of the country's economy and the state's finances, going to the extent of hiring private consultancy firms to help them commit accounting fraud, and once that time bombs blew in their faces there was no other alternative than to pick up the pieces and sort out the mess. The ECB/IMF/EC gang's role was to simply provide emergency financing to buy Greek government's some time to actually sort their state's mess. It might be politically convenient to fabricate an evil foreign boogieman to distract people from the true causes but the facts speak for themselves, and there is no way around it.

rumanator 7y ago

> It's been 5 years, and the Eurogroup destroyed the Greek economy. Reality and the facts contrast heavily with this rhetoric. The eurogroup/IMF/european commission only stepped into the picture way after Greece bankrupted itself and digged a deep economic and social hole. Complaining about the organizations that mitigated Greece's pending collapse is like complaining about the cast and crutches you had to use after breaking your leg just because your leg hurts.

DoingIsLearning 7y ago
The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging. Much like the 'quantitive easing' ideas, they all had a theoretical basis that were vastly proven wrong. These countries only recovered when stimulous measures were applied. Lagard herself admited that austerity was a mistake but never apologised for the suffering and deaths that it precipitated. I remind you that elderly unable to afford medication and hospitals struggling to keep stock was a reality in Greece during this period.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > The 'austerity' prescription that the Eurogroup and the ECB enforced on sovereign nations has been ample proven to be counter productive and flat out damaging. Your personal assertion is flat out wrong. Although hindsight shows that the outcome was not optimal, the overall outcome of all bailout processes were highly successful. Although all states that requested bailouts were bankrupt by 2011, it took only a few years to get them back to eco omic growth and reducing their sovereign debt. Look for example at Portugal, who was arguably in the same situation as Greece but for about half a dozen years now it got back to economic growth,residual unemployment, a deficit close to zero, and lowering its sovereign debt. This turn of events coincides exactly with the last year of it's bailout process. Who in their right mind speaks of failures when all states who underwent bailout processes and actually tried to follow the program ended up recovering from bankruptcies in record time?
  - 7y ago