Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
John Donne (1572-1631), Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris.
John Donne could have been writing about 21st Century Europe when he penned these words. Of course he was not!
However, his words are nevertheless most apposite to the present situation in the Eurozone.
Some British Gazette readers have emailed your Editor asking him what precisely should be the EuroRealist’s view on the situation in Greece.
To that your Editor responded with a question of his own: Are you a British EuroRealist or a EuroRealist from a Eurozone member state?
If you are a British EuroRealist then the view we should adopt on this is that we should hope that the Eurozone will try and keep Greece within it’s awful embrace of economic death.
Why?
Because Greece contains seeds that have the potential to destroy the European Union.
The view of the British Gazette on the UK’s membership of the EU is this:
1. We would like the UK to withdraw from the EU.
2. If the UK is unable to withdraw (through lack of political will) then the British Gazette looks forward to the destruction of the EU to bring about the effective ending of the UK’s membership. You cannot be a member of a club that has been dissolved.
It has been stated by other commentators that Greece is in economic terms a minnow and although poses an uncomfortable problem for such as Germany it is a thorn in the flesh that is bearable.
This is true – as far as it goes. Let us however push the analogy of the thorn in the flesh a little further. Imagine a little thorn lodged into the skin of a mighty beast. The thorn is tiny. The beast large and strong. However, the thorn came into contact with some faeces excreted by another beast and the tiny scratch which drew a little blood has caused the wound to become infected. The infection goes untreated and spreads throughout the body of the beast causing septicaemia and death.
Greece is that tiny little thorn. The faeces is the endemic and massive corruption contained in the Greek state. Greece is THE MOST corrupt state in Europe. The EU has more than its fair share of corruption at the Brussels level but it is TINY compared to that which has become institutionalised in the Greek state. It was this corruption that saw to it that Greece was made a member of the Euro by creative accounting.
Your Editor WILL NOT detail examples of the corruption, for periodicals that do – and their Editors – have a habit of disappearing. Literally!
Suffice it to say that this piling on of debt burden upon debt burden is in effect the Eurozone banks building a greater and greater funeral pyre for the Euro – one so great that once lit could immolate them all.