Diary – 19 November 2011

Athens

The manner in which George Papandreou was ousted has shocked Greeks. ‘It’s a foreign invasion, a takeover, only without tanks’, says Calchas, an angry young man whom I find marching around Syntagma Square in front of the Greek parliament, with 100 or so others, all clutching rolled-up red flags. Other marchers mutter about ‘neo-colonialism’. They have a point. The ultimatum issued to Papandreou by Brussels bigwigs was extraordinary. After he made the fatal error of suggesting that the EU austerity package ought to be put to a referendum, Papandreou was told that he should step aside and allow the emergence of a ‘unity’ government whose purpose would be to implement EU measures. Nothing terrifies the EU elite more than the thought of hoi polloi having a say on its policies, so the €8 billion aid tranche that Greece needs was made contingent on the formation of this government of nodding dogs.