Summary of the 1 March 2016 session at the European Parliament “Restructuring of debt – reconstruction of democracy”

Video: Eric Toussaint: “The Greek public debt crisis is a web of lies”

17 March 2016 by Eric Toussaint

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Several members of the Greek Debt Truth Committee (GDTC) attended the session on 1st March 2016 at the European Parliament in Brussels on the topic “Restructuring of debt – reconstruction of democracy”.

The session was organized by Nikolaos Chountis, Vice-minister of the first Tsipras government (January-July 2015) and MEP representing Popular Unity since September 2015, replacing Manolis Glezos. The conclusions of the GDTC’s report enabled the participants to throw new light on the diktats imposed on Greece by creditors and the European authorities.

Here we propose to take a closer look at the contributions of four of those present. Eric Toussaint, spokes-person for CADTM International and the GDTC’s scientific coordinator.



Eric Toussaint: “The Greek public debt crisis is a web of lies”

Eric Toussaint first recalled the link between the creation of the Greek Debt Truth Committee and the significance of ELE, the Greek Debt Audit Campaign that preceded it from May 2011. The initiative emerged with very strong grass-roots citizens’ participation. Eric Toussaint deciphers the “web of lies” spun by the European authorities to camouflage the way private French, German and Greek banks had been bailed out.

This is only one of many examples of the doublespeak practiced by the European authorities in the persons of Jean-Claude Trichet, Manuel Barroso or Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to conceal the truth about Greek public debt. Eric Toussaint points out that Greece is not a special case, since Ireland, Portugal and Spain experienced similar mechanisms.


To access complete coverage of this session, use the following link: http://www.guengl.eu/news/article/events/restructuring-debt-rebuilding-democracy


And contributions of :
- Zoe Konstantopoulou : “The Greek Debt Truth Committee’s final report scared the creditors.”
- Maria-Lucia Fattorelli : “Before anything else can be done, there must be a debt audit”
- Cephas Lumina: “The Paris Club has no legitimacy”


Translated by Vicki Briault and Mike Krolikowski (CADTM)


Author
Eric Toussaint

is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.

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