There was an energising, enlightening and sophisticated debate in Parliament on March 9. It was right on the button as far addressing some key issues of wealth and power in the world and how the mass of the people should and could deal with them.
The debate was held in Room 18. It was a Parliamentary Briefing convened by Jon Cruddas MP on behalf of the Greek Solidarity Campaign with the support of the Transport Salaried Staff Association to promote British support for a European conference on debt. The Greek alternate finance minister spoke, aided and abetted by Ann Pettifor and Paul Mason. Euclid Tsakalotos, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and responsible for the international economic relations of Syriza, explained in detail and in a frank and riveting way, the nature of the talks with the EU and the political basis of Syriza's position on continued membership of the Euro. His view on the Euro was challenged by another deeply analytical and historically referenced perspective, offered by Anne Pettifor. It soon became clear that besides the MPs and Peers present and the representatives of four different Greek media outlets there were some of Britain's leading economists among us too. The call for a European conference on debt seemed to have virtually unanimous support among those who spoke (although one Tory MP left without comment.) And all who did speak understood the enormity of the stakes in the Greek's government's struggle with the leading institutions of the Eurozone.
The minister shared the outlook of his senior, Yanis Varoufakis. (See Blog 'Yanis Varoufakis Erratic Marxist ...' 3 March.) He imagined the evolution, through struggle, based on the emerging radicalisation and mass mobilisations, in Spain, in Ireland and the early chances of new governments in those countries, the pressure on Italy and on Hollande in France, all this and the Europe wide realisation that there had to be a new economic dispensation in the Eurozone, creating 'the good Euro.' He argued eloquently that the disintegration of the Euro, perhaps starting from a Greek exit, would lead to the collapse of Europe among the world's new power blocks, and the victory of the radical right in several European countries. Endless austerity could only be managed by authoritarian regimes.
Ann Pettifor, while remaining a strong supporter of the Greek government, argued that history was replete with the destruction and dissolution of currency unions, without attendant social catastrophes, as much as any other reason, because they were normally set up under unjust and imbalanced terms between different nations, and their internal contradictions, like with those within the Eurozone, became unbearable. As this future was unavoidable, preparation for exit was essential. The 'good' Euro was a contradiction in terms. The currency had been set up in order to guarantee the superiority of 'lender' nations apropos 'debtor' nations, with the prospect of eternal austerity. A 'good' Euro would need to mean the that all Eurozone nations shared all Eurozone debt. That was precisely the opposite intention of the strongest European nations and their associated Euro institutions. The Eurozone for the weaker countries was the guarantee of endless austerity.
These different perspectives were laid out in an intense and deeply respectful, open and fruitful way. It was understood that the Greek people's interests were front and centre of Europe's battle with austerity. As those attending filed away from the room into the vast, crumbling halls of Westminster it felt like they were entering an alien and empty world. The mother of Parliaments seemed a sad, vacuous place. Real life and real politics was happening somewhere else.
Euclid Tsakalotos had emphasised the crucial victory of time that the new Greek government had won (spelling out the appalling, deliberate trap that had been set up between the past government and the European Bank to engineer Syriza's early fall.) The movement in Spain and in Ireland suggest that Syriza could be joined by other anti-austerity governments in months rather than years. That more and more realistic possibility evokes yet another option in the current discussion - of the beginnings of a 'good' Europe; a federation of anti-austerity nations, with a collective response on the debt issue, on social and humanitarian rights of their population, on taxation and restraint of the rich, on the role of the people in their own societies. The beginning of the 'good' Europe would confront the Eurozone and all its completely autocratic institutions, with a new reality. The argument in room 18 will ultimately be resolved in the struggle for a 'good' Europe that has now started across the nations.
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