Greek vote would be on Euro Membership: Finnish Minister

[dkf]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/01/us-finland-greece-idUSTRE7A010N20111101

[Renew Deal]

1. It's not an actual vote on membership.

"The situation is so tight that basically it would be a vote over their euro membership," Alexander Stubb, the Finnish minister of European affairs and foreign trade, said in an interview with Finnish broadcaster MTV3."
<snip>

"Greece has committed to a new program which includes structural reforms. All of a sudden, if they vote against those reforms, then Greece is the one who violated the agreement," he said.

[dkf]

2. For all intents and purposes it is.

If you don't want to live by Euro Union rules you are going to be kicked out.

[Renew Deal]

3. Lets see them do that.

And lets see if the people of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other places will be willing to go along with these bailouts if the Greeks go against it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. They'd have the right to

Membership includes sticking to the rules, and they haven't - and a default would break the rules in a far larger way. If Greece wants to find a way out like Argentina did, it has to get out of the Euro anyway (or if it thinks Iceland is the country to emulate). If Greece were to default but remain inside the Euro, it'd be the biggest mess of all.

[JackRiddler]

5. Wow, that's one sharp Finnish Minister, there.

He figured out that the proposed Greek referendum on whether to stay in the euro was, in fact, a referendum on whether to stay in the euro.

Those Finns, they get up early in the morning.

[JackRiddler]

6. Note to everyone else on this thread: The euro is not the European Union.

[ikri]

7. No, but

A country can't leave the Euro without also leaving the EU first and then reapply for membership (should they wish to do so).

There's no guarantees that if they did leave the EU (and €) that they'd be allowed back in without going through the full application for membership which can take years, and I expect that many other EU countries, who are going to have to bail out their banks whether Greece defaults or not, may just decide to be spiteful bastards and refuse re-entry (for a few years at least).

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. No-one has said the wording of the question would talk about the euro yet

The referendum is on whether to accept the negotiated terms. He was stating his opinion that saying 'no' will have to mean leaving the euro.

[JackRiddler]

9. Effectively it cannot be otherwise.

If the Greek people vote to reject the new austerity and bankster-bailout* plan forced by the Troika, as I fervently hope they do, it will obviously entail default on Greek public debt and an exit from the euro. Everyone is well aware of that from the outset, it cannot be otherwise. It's superfluous for a minister from Finland to point to the obvious. It's also only a tiny hint of the deluge of the threats and bluster yet to be thrown at Greeks and the world, if the referendum goes ahead.


* not a bailout of Greece, of course, as the corporate media would have it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Hang on, if it's so blindingly obvious, how can it be a threat or bluster?

Are you saying that everyone should be pretending that it wouldn't mean Greece exiting the Euro, so as not to hurt their feelings?

[JackRiddler]

11. No. Good night.