The Kicking of the Can
Hello, Mr. Tusk … New Orders
Yesterday it emerged that the normally hardline European Council president Donald Tusk (the former prime minister of Poland), suddenly felt “debt relief” for Greece was needed after all. While he is undoubtedly correct, it seems to us that he likely received a stern phone call from Washington.
Donald Tusk, the life-like android currently presiding over the EU council, here photographed in hardline mode
Photo credit: Radek Pietruszka / PAP
It is also unlikely to be a coincidence that the IMF released its debt sustainability analysis last week, in what appeared to be a case of especially ill-chosen timing, at least from the perspective of the euro-group. Note here that the IMF only wants the EU to provide debt relief to Greece – the IMF itself intends to get back every cent of its Greek loans.
Politicians in neo-con infested Washington no doubt don’t want to let slip Greece away into the arms of its Russian Orthodox co-religionists, which would almost certainly happen after a Grexit. Such strategic considerations are certainly exercising the NATO bureaucracy and very likely the EU’s movers and shakers as well. A Grexit would also be a victory of the Marxist wing of Syriza (a Pyrrhic victory though it may be), which would over time throw Greece’s continued NATO membership into doubt.
According to press reports from this morning:
“The White House has been putting its immense diplomatic weight behind a debt restructuring for Greece. Treasury secretary Jack Lew made an intervention earlier this week, and seems cautiously optimistic that Greece’s current proposals should be enough to satisfy creditors, and gain some crucial debt concessions in return.
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