The steady erosion of Greek democracy

The longer this Greek crisis goes on, the clearer the various agendas at play are becoming. As the Greek finance minister said earlier, the actions of the Eurozone’s northern faction — led by Germany — do suggest that it wants Greece out of the euro.

As I’ve blogged previously, the Germans believe that with Monti in charge of Italy and a new centre-right government in Spain, the effects of Greece leaving the euro could be contained. But this is a big risk. After all, Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bust because it was believed that it was safe to do so. Certainly, the other eurozone countries are no longer even pretending to respect Greek democracy.

The threat to delay the bailout until after the elections there is unsubtle even by the eurozone’s own recent standards. If Greek politicians want to go back to doing what is best for their country, they are going to have to leave the euro.