Posted by Ivan Rendall on Saturday, 21 May 2015 in Blogging
In the end, “Tante Angela” and her coterie of compromisers will decide whether Greece gets off the hook or not. It will be politically tricky in the EU but less so in Germany where there is less sympathy for the Greeks than they think.
Politically it will be much the same over the UK’s “re-negotiations” but the cost of “Brexit” is politically lower than being seen to give in to the Greeks – at the moment – and Britain would pick up most of the costs.
“Grexit” is a non-starter, either from the Euro or the EU. It would bring much greater, and ultimately more costly, chaos than its financial departure than its economy justifies. Geopolitically, it would be disastrous for Germany and the EU.
That is why Angela will fashion some hard-sounding solutions that have very soft centres, like just ignoring Greek debt, about £100bn, and Angela could have “Granny LaGarde” on board in a flash.
The only hard bit, if Angela has the stomach for even that, is to find some cast iron way of making sure Greece doesn’t just go out and do it again, leaving Germany with the cost of Greek public services.
Do they make cast iron in Greece?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall if Dave and Angela get to looking for solutions in a darkened room together!
Why did BA ever sell the national stake in Airbus?
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