Callanan: Next EU summit should plan for orderly withdrawal of Greece from the Euro
Posted, February 15, 2012 @ 13:00
Speaking in a debate in the European Parliament on the next EU summit on the 1st March, European Conservatives and Reformists group chairman Martin Callanan MEP, called on EU leaders to use the next summit to prepare a plan for the orderly withdrawal of Greece from the euro.
He said: "European politics is no longer anchored in reality. EU summits are becoming a political ritual, divorced from the real world.
"Nobody believes that the latest package will save Greece.
"Even if all the measures agreed on Sunday night are implemented - and that looks increasingly unlikely - then by 2020, after eight more years of grinding austerity, Greece would still be in a worse position than Italy is now!
"Greece is suffering from a 30% loss of competitiveness against Germany. How do you eliminate such a deficit? Economic reform will, in the long-term, be essential. But in the short-term, there is only one solution: a devaluation coupled with a default is the only way to salvage something from the wreckage of the Greek economy and to save a generation or more of young Greeks from a miserable economic inheritance.
"All the energy currently being devoted to drafting and ratifying a new treaty that is irrelevant to the ongoing crisis would be better employed drafting and implementing a plan for the orderly withdrawal of Greece from the euro, including carefully prepared support for the banks that will be most affected.
"That is the sustainable solution - everything else is just a very expensive exercise in kicking the can down the road."