Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Eric Toussaint interviewed by Herve Nathan, of the French weekly Marianne

Marianne. When it came to power, the SYRIZA party referred to the cancellation of German debts in the context of the London agreement some sixty-two years ago (27 February 1953). We were reminded that the Federal Republic might owe huge amounts to Greece… Can you explain?

Eric Toussaint. Actually there are two different kinds of debt. The first is the result of the war loan bonds that the Nazi occupiers forced on the Greek government between 1941 and 1944, some 476 million Reichmarks (the German money of the time) making Greece pay the cost of its occupation. This loan has never been repaid. With a moderate interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. rate of about 3% a year this debt, the repayment of which has been requested by several Greek governments, would amount to €12 to €15 billion today, which may be compared to the €15 billion that Berlin agreed to loan to Greece at an interest rate of 4.5% as part of the first memorandum in 2010. Today the German government is Greece’s creditor for €15 billion [and vice versa]. On the other hand the Federal Republic of Germany did not have to pay for war damages to countries that were occupied by the 3^rd Reich. Along with Poland and the USSR, Greece was one of the countries that suffered the most, much more than France, Belgium or the Netherlands. If we add up the 1941 war loan and war damages Germany owes between €100 and €200 billion to Greece, between one or two thirds of Greece’s current public debt…

This is huge indeed, and we may wonder to what extent Greek people are aware of this German debt.

Greece never formally relinquished its right on this debt. During the 1953 London conference on the German debt, compensations for WWII war damages were left to be settled in peace treaties between Germany and the countries that had won the war, and because of the Cold War with the Soviet bloc they never materialized. In 1981, when Greece joined the European Community (now the European Union), the government, led by PASOK didn’t raise the issue, since the country benefited from substantial European structural funding. But the 2010 crisis and the very harsh conditions enforced by lenders including Frau Merkel’s Germany have brought the issue back into the political limelight!

Greece has thus been treated very differently from the Federal Republic of Germany…

Indeed. During the London conference The young Federal Republic’s creditors examined debts accumulated by Germany since the 1920s (including those that were to stand for WWI compensations as enforced by the Versailles treaty) and those contracted between 1945 and 1953. Signatories, i.e. Western allies (the US, France, the UK...) not only reduced West Germany’s debt (interests and capital) by 62.5%, but they also created the conditions that permitted the country to recover as rapidly as possible. Repayments were not to exceed 5% of export revenues, interest rates Interest rates When A lends money to B, B repays the amount lent by A (the capital) as well as a supplementary sum known as interest, so that A has an interest in agreeing to this financial operation. The interest is determined by the interest rate, which may be high or low. To take a very simple example: if A borrows 100 million dollars for 10 years at a fixed interest rate of 5%, the first year he will repay a tenth of the capital initially borrowed (10 million dollars) plus 5% of the capital owed, i.e. 5 million dollars, that is a total of 15 million dollars. In the second year, he will again repay 10% of the capital borrowed, but the 5% now only applies to the remaining 90 million dollars still due, i.e. 4.5 million dollars, or a total of 14.5 million dollars. And so on, until the tenth year when he will repay the last 10 million dollars, plus 5% of that remaining 10 million dollars, i.e. 0.5 million dollars, giving a total of 10.5 million dollars. Over 10 years, the total amount repaid will come to 127.5 million dollars. The repayment of the capital is not usually made in equal instalments. In the initial years, the repayment concerns mainly the interest, and the proportion of capital repaid increases over the years. In this case, if repayments are stopped, the capital still due is higher…

The nominal interest rate is the rate at which the loan is contracted. The real interest rate is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. were between 0.5% and 5%, and the public debt could be partly repaid with German money (deutschemark), which was of little value for international transactions at the time. It meant that creditor countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the US) could only use those revenues to buy German goods. In this way they contributed to the fast recovery of German corporations such as Thyssen, Siemens, IG Farben…, those very corporations who had helped the Nazi war effort in the first place. The German debt served to develop the export market for the country. Finally creditors’ disputes were to be taken to German courts. All the opposite of what the EU, the ECB ECB
European Central Bank The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html and the IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org imposed on Greece.

Sure, but the London agreement was part of a wider legal and ideological context, to assure Western Europe’s economic recovery …

Germany had to be reconstructed as fast as possible as a bulwark against the Soviet bloc. The means were found to help allied countries, France, Belgium and the UK also had US debts cancelled and $13 billion were granted as part of the Marshall Plan Marshall Plan A programme of economic reconstruction proposed in 1947 by the US State Secretary, George C. Marshall. With a budget of 12.5 billion dollars (more than 80 billion dollars in current terms) composed of donations and long-term loans, the Marshall Plan enabled 16 countries (notably France, the UK, Italy and the Scandinavian countries) to finance their reconstruction after the Second World War. assistance (worth about $100 billion today), including $1.5 billion for Germany ($10 billion today). This gesture resulted from considerations developed by the Roosevelt administration before Europe was liberated on the advisability of awarding loans or grants. The US had decided for grants so as not to compel European countries to export their goods to the US in order to obtain the dollars they needed to repay their debts. This was a generous decision, but actually a protectionist measure. US companies would not have to compete with European goods in their home markets. Grants on the other hand would make it possible for them to sell their machine tools, assembly lines, or farming equipment to West Europeans, thus maintaining full employment in the US, as had been the case since 1942. The choice proved favourable to all until the mid-1950s. The lesson to be drawn from that era is that prosperity has to be shared.

Is this what is called a virtuous circle?

Exactly. Lessons had been drawn from the terrible mistakes of the Versailles Treaty and of the policies in the 1920s, as shown by John M. Keynes. It was also a time of regulation. In 1944 the IMF was created to supervise the stability of monetary exchanges and control capital flows; the World Bank World Bank
WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :

1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;

2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;

3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.

As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.

was to finance economies that had to start anew. This would result in the boom decades after 1945, thirty years of economic growth and full employment in the Western world, while the EU today is caught in a downward spiral because of its restrictive policies, its insistence on fiscal balance Balance End of year statement of a company’s assets (what the company possesses) and liabilities (what it owes). In other words, the assets provide information about how the funds collected by the company have been used; and the liabilities, about the origins of those funds. , lower and lower wages, the irrevocability of debts, and because it comforts stronger economies at the expense of weaker ones.

But why do the Germans cling to these policies when their failure is so obvious?

Angela Merkel clings to this absurd logic because she considers that Europe, with Germany at its hub, must be more competitive than the US, China or any other emergent country (Russia, Brazil, India). She has one objective: take wages to even lower levels and reduce more workers to poverty, in and outside Germany. Matteo Renzi in Italy and François Hollande in France do not challenge this position. They actually duplicate the Harz reforms that were the undoing of the German social model from 2003-2005. In Italy with the Law on Labour, and in France with the ‘Macron’ law, they just demand less fiscal efforts.

However, is it a good thing for the SYRIZA leaders, who wish to negociate with the EU, to bring up Second World War issues? Isn’t it like telling them: you must pay for your past mistakes?

German people are not responsible for the Nazi regime. There is is no ‘collective debt’ of the Germans’. On the other hand it is unacceptable that Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble should present their demands on the Greeks as “generous”. With the Greek crisis the cost of Germany’s 10 year government bonds fell from 3.4% in 2010 to 0.4% in 2014. This 75% cut allowed Germany to save €63 billion, because the markets did not want to take any more risks and rushed to buy ‘Bunds’. This is also true for France. The German government, the ECB, or the IMF, whose Managing Director Christine Lagarde claims that debts have to be paid, manipulate public opinion. Michel Sapin has the same discourse. Citizens have to be mobilized so as to keep Greece on its knees. Conservative leaders want to defeat Tsipras so as to prevent the Spanish people from electing Podemos at the end of the year. Economists falsify history when they claim that the euro crisis started because of Greece. Greece was indeed the weaker link but it was the euro zone that had been badly designed in the first place. From the moment the euro was introduced significant money transfers from countries of the North to countries of the South (Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain) were replaced by loans from major banks in the big countries (Germany, France, Italy…) to countries at the periphery. Banks grabbed mortgages and thus blew up the speculative bubble Speculative bubble An economic, financial or speculative bubble is formed when the level of trading-prices on a market (financial assets market, currency-exchange market, property market, raw materials market, etc.) settles well above the intrinsic (or fundamental) financial value of the goods or assets being exchanged. In such a situation, prices diverge from the usual economic valuation under the influence of buyers’ beliefs. until it exploded. In 2012 the Greek debt was restructured and bank loans were replaced by loans from governments, i.e. from taxpayers. And this money - €240 billion – was used to repay the financial institutions in the North…

Translated by Mike Krolikowski and Christine Pagnoulle