52 / 175
Photos courtesy of Bindu Paul
and Sarah Woolley
Report on the Study Visit to Greece
| Page 37
Zoe Konstantopoulou
Zoe is a human rights lawyer and politician of
the political party Syriza being elected as an MP in 2012
and 2015. She was formally the speaker of the Hellenic
Parliament. From the outset it was apparent that Zoe
wanted us to have an accurate and clear view of what
was happening in Greece as she was well aware that
what is reported in our press is not an accurate picture
of what is and has been going on.
Corruption and Transparency
Before she was elected as the speaker for the parliament
her role was in “Corruption and Transparency”. Her
main aim was to audit the debt crisis to get the truth
about what had occurred. A committee was then
formed in April after she became the speaker and had
the power to deal with it by gaining proper access to
the debt books of Greece. The committee consisted of
representatives from several different countries and an
expert from the UN on Debt and Human Rights. It was
not an easy process people thought that as they had
voted Zoe in they would get leniency on corruption
but it wasn’t the case and Zoe had a very turbulent and
difficult 6 months trying to collect evidence for the
committee. They found it particularly difficult to get
feedback from the Greek banks, they were reluctant to
give figures and invoked the banking secrecy clause
rather than give up any information!
Preliminary Report: The Truth
Committee on Public Debt
After a 4 month period of negotiating, a preliminary
report was published in June 2015. There was an
aspiration to look into the rest of the auditing and show
exactly how the debt was created ( Doug has a copy)
Conclusion 1
Essentially they disproved the public myth that Greece
got their point of crisis by living beyond its means. The
investigation showed that actually public spending was
below average in Europe, defence spending however
was over the European average. Here they see the most
corruption – tanks without bullets, submarines without
torpedoes and defective armour - high profit for corrupt
officials but useless to the state
Conclusion 2
Since 2010 the IMF had knowledge that the Greek
debt was unsustainable. With this knowledge they
should not have been able to lend and so that is
why they concealed the fact that they knew. They
denied they had copies of the files that showed
this. The problem here was not about the freedom
of information but the lack of institutionalised
transparency.
For example the statute of limitation for criminal cases
20-25 years for a citizen however for a government
official it’s the 2nd regular term after they have left office
(which cant be less than 4 months but could be as little
as 1.5 years) meaning hundreds of files are submitted to
parliament every 2 years with no procedure to look at
them leading to institutional immunity for government
officials!
So why did this happen?
In short the private bond holders were rescued
(especially banks) and not Greece. The rescue package
of 2010 (first loan) was to offer a safe emergency exit to
private bond holders. The report highlights that the IMF
are liable for what happened to Greece and although
the preliminary report was sent out to all members of
the EU no one put it to any use!
In 2015 Greece took another loan of 85 billion Euros in
addition to the 325 billion Euros they received before.
They are now in 410 billion Euros in debt. In context,
that means that every baby born will owe 41,000 Euros
when they are born!!
Extreme austerity measures have cut pensions to 44.4%
below the poverty line. The Social Security Bill means
that self-employed professionals will be paying 80/90%
in taxes and fees and going forward pensions will drop
to a flat rate of 384 Euros for everyone which is reckless
and dangerous at best when the poverty line sits at 780
euros!!!
Zoe was removed from being speaker of Parliament
as she and 40 other SYRIZA MPs voted against the
measures and the group have been bullied and
harassed since! The other MPs backed down and chose
themselves over their constituents which led them to
stay in power. Zoe told us for a normal person serving
a position of power is like serving a prison sentence.
Those still there now are in charge of privatising what’s
left of Greece’s services for example Pireaus Port.
The minister of maritime policy was seen as the left
of the left of SYRIZA but he is now tendering for the
sale of the port. By having a left wing government do
the EU’s dirty work it’s showing the country there is no
alternative which has helped in the disillusion of the
people of Greece who saw SYRIZA as a beacon of hope
that completely u-turned and betrayed them. They do
not understand what has gone on behind the scenes to
cause it.
Zoe told us Greece is not the first country to be
blackmailed by the European Central Bank;
In Cyprus March 2013 they closed the banks and within
10 days had changed the Parliamentary vote. In Greece
they closed the banks and blackmailed the government.
In her opinion France and Germany are trying to pull
away from the Treaties for their own gain.
She said what was happening to Greece was not a
fatality but if there had been more people ready to
fight things would be different now – something other
countries need to be prepared for!