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Theater Of The Absurd: Greece Has Already Missed Its June Budget Target
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Germany's constitutional court weighs the legality of the bailouts - Guardian
By Daniel Hannan
Germany’s federal constitutional court will today consider the legitimacy of the eurozone bailouts. The case has been brought by a coalition of concerned citizens, including a number of eminent economists, a leading law professor and a CSU MP.
Let me give the judges a hint. All they have to do is look at Article 125 of the Treaty:
The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State.
Pretty open and shut, no? Indeed, no one in Brussels seriously tries to claim that the bailouts are within the rules. It is precisely because the bailouts are illicit that the the Treaty is being changed: rather than amending its behaviour to comply with the law, the EU proposes to amend the law to comply with its behaviour.
As one MEP cheerfully put it recently, “the facts are ahead of the legislation“. Then again, my guess is that public opinion is ahead of both. Finland is the only major net contributor in the euro zone to have held a general election since the bailouts were agreed. Every party there lost ground to the centrist but Eurosceptic True Finns. It is possible, I suppose, that the Austrian, Dutch and German electorates will be more deferential to their elites. But, given the lamentable record of those elites, I wouldn’t bet on it.
BBC discusses the German court ruling...
July 05, 2011 BBC World News
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Lessons of Argentina crisis ignored in handling of Greece
Snip:
For a vision of how the Greek debt meltdown is going to end, look no further than the International Monetary Fund's post mortem into a similar crisis that came to a head almost exactly a decade ago - Lessons From The Crisis In Argentina.