[The following story was commissioned by CNN.com. Click here for the complete article.]
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- German and Greek politicians are at odds over who should control Greece’s budget
- Greek political economist Yanis Varoufakis says both are guilty of failing to grasp the real problem
- Varoufakis says both countries mislead voters in agreeing an unsustainable rescue package for Greece
Athens, Greece (CNN) — German leaders are furious with Greece. Yet again they have to go back to their electorates asking for more billions to throw down the black hole that is the Hellenic Republic. They have now become so angry that they are even openly proposing that Greece’s fiscal affairs be deferred to some European Commissioner, preferably one of a Teutonic disposition.
Greek leaders, meanwhile, have seized upon this German “transgression” with glee. For it offers them a wonderful excuse to put on domestic display their patriotic fervor at a time when they are running low on legitimacy in the eyes of a battered, demoralized electorate.
Beating their chests about the German threat to Greece’s national sovereignty, they are hoping that the Greeks will somehow forget that it was they, their leaders, who ceded sovereignty to the so-called troika of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
