sexta-feira, 10 de julho de 2015

Hypocrisy defined...

Back in 2012:
A few months before submarines became the talk of Athens, Yiannis Panagopoulos, who heads the Greek trade union confederation (GSEE), found himself sitting opposite Angela Merkel at a private meeting the German chancellor had called of European trade unionists in Berlin.

When it came to his turn to address the leader, he instinctively popped the question that many in Greece have wanted to ask. "After running through all the reasons why austerity wasn't working in my country I brought up the issue of defence expenditure. Was it right, I asked, that our government makes so many weapons purchases from Germany when it obviously couldn't afford such deals and was slashing wages and pensions?"

Athens has submitted a package of tough austerity measures in an attempt to reach a deal this weekend and avoid Grexit.

Merkel's reaction was instant. "She immediately said: 'But we never asked you to spend so much of your GDP on defence,'" Panagopoulos recalled. "And then she mentioned the issue of outstanding payments on submarines she said Germany had been owed for over a decade."

Greek profligacy may be blamed for triggering the debt crisis that now threatens to tear the eurozone apart, but if there is one area where Berlin is less excoriating of state largesse it is in Athens's extravagant taste for arms.

"Behind the frequent exhortations that Greece rein in spending after living "beyond its means" – admonishments made most loudly by Merkel and her finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble – there is another reality that paints Germany in a less than flattering light, according to MPs, military experts, economists and scholars.

"If there is one country that has benefited from the huge amounts Greece spends on defence it is Germany," said Dimitris Papadimoulis, an MP with the Coalition of the Radical Left party."

"Just under 15% of Germany's total arms exports are made to Greece, its biggest market in Europe," Papadimoulis said, reeling off figures from a scruffy armchair in his party's parliamentary office. "Greece has paid over €2bn (£1.6bn) for submarines that proved to be faulty and which it doesn't even need.

"It owes another €1bn as part of the deal. That's three times the amount Athens was asked to make in additional pension cuts to secure its latest EU aid package."

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), France is not far behind. Some 10% of its total arms sales go to Greece, which is a member of Nato. From 2002 to 2006, Greece was the world's fourth biggest importer of conventional weapons. It is now the 10th.

"As a proportion of GDP, Greece spends twice as much as any other EU member on defence," said Papadimoulis, who is also a former MEP.

Source: The Guardian, 4/19/2012

3 comentários:

  1. A Grécia gasta muito em defesa desde há muito tempo Se não tivesse comprado os U-214 à Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW) alemã para substituir os seus U-209, teria comprado Scorpènes à DCN francesa , ou variantes do Kilo ao Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering "Rubin" russo. Não vejo portanto qual a hipocrisia, a não ser que o governo alemão tenha pressionado o governo grego a decidir aumentar a sua frota submarina.

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    1. Eu vejo! Os submarinos tinham defeito e houve corrupção--ah e até foi condenada tanto na Alemanha como na Grécia. O mais ridículo disto tudo é que a Alemanha não tem problemas em aceitar a defesa militar dos EUA. Sabes os EUA, aquele país onde as pessoas vão à bancarrota por despesas de saúde? Aquele país com o qual a Angela Merkel gozou porque gastava demasiado em despesas militares?

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  2. Acho que há aqui outro aspecto, se me permitem. A HDW é uma empresa privada. Queixarem-se que o Estado grego compra produtos a companhias privadas alemãs, seria como o governo de portugal queixar-se a Angela Merkel que andam (o governo português) a comprar demasiados VWs,Mercedes e BMWs à Alemanha. Ora, isto não faz muito sentido(ou faz?)

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