Thursday, 4 June 2015

Greek government establish Truth Committee to examine legality of EU-imposed austerity

The Greek government have established a "Truth Committee" tasked with examining whether the crippling loans they were forced to take out as part of the EU-imposed austerity programme were legal.

The committee will examine the legality of the memorandum that was signed by the previous Greek government which effectively turned the country into a vassal of the EU, the ECB and the IMF. The committee is potentially looking at bringing criminal charges against those responsible for signing the memorandum and may call former IMF, ECB and EU officials as witnesses.

Half the committee is made up of non-Greeks and the experts sitting on the committee are both politicians and members of civil society who are experts in their field. It will report fully in a year but will present a preliminary report on June 18th, just before the current austerity agreement ends.

The Ecuadorian government established a similar committee and used the findings as justification for cancelling debt repayments. Whether this is the intention of the Greek government or if it is a psychological move isn't clear but it will be causing a few sleepless nights in Berlin which has already been hit with a demand for war reparations from the Greek government.