The callous cruelty of the EU is destroying Greece, a once-proud country

[xchrom]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9084305/The-callous-cruelty-of-the-EU-is-destroying-Greece-a-once-proud-country.html

For all of my adult life, support for the European Union has been seen as the mark of a civilised, reasonable and above all compassionate politician. It has guaranteed him or her access to leader columns, TV studios, lavish expense accounts and overseas trips.

The reason for this special treatment is that the British establishment has tended to view the EU as perhaps a little incompetent and corrupt, but certainly benign and generally a force for good in a troubled world. This attitude is becoming harder and harder to sustain, as this partnership of nations is suddenly starting to look very nasty indeed: a brutal oppressor that is scornful of democracy, national identity and the livelihoods of ordinary people.

The turning point may have come this week with the latest intervention by Brussels: bureaucrats are threatening to bankrupt an entire country unless opposition parties promise to support the EU-backed austerity plan.

Let’s put the Greek problem in its proper perspective. Britain’s Great Depression in the Thirties has become part of our national myth. It was the era of soup kitchens, mass unemployment and the Jarrow March, immortalised in George Orwell’s wonderful novels and still remembered in Labour Party rhetoric.

[saras]

1. The last time someone treated countries in Europe like this, WWII was the result

[intaglio]

2. No

Money grubbing, incompetent Greek politicians destroyed Greece. The EU is trying, in a hamfisted way, to give Greece the chance to recover.