Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

A very valuable lesson about the real qualities of democracy in the European Union and the economic and monetary union has been delivered in the past month's dealings between the European authorities and the Greek Government. All of the democratic values that the EU supposedly stands for were quickly forgotten when faced with a Greek Government elected on a programme of breaking with austerity. Instead, that Greek Government was met with a statement from the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, that there could be no democratic choice against the European treaties. The German finance Minister, Mr. Wolfgang Schäuble, indicated that elections change nothing and there are rules. These are rules of neoliberalism, written into law by successive European treaties, the six-pack and the two-pack. They are precisely the rules that caused the establishment parties here and across Europe to laugh at us for suggesting that they would lock in austerity policies. Now look at the position; it is just as Henry Ford said when he indicated that people could have whatever colour they wanted for their car, as long it was black. The European authorities are indicating that countries may have elections and elect any kind of government, as long as it implements austerity policies. That is not democracy.

As Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned, we were also laughed at for saying that there was a process of militarisation across the European Union, but two days ago the most powerful politician within EU structures made an open call for an EU army. That is also a valuable lesson about the nature of the Irish Government: utterly pathetic, craven and treacherous. It is helping to deliberately, consciously and repeatedly stab the Greek Government and ordinary working people in this country in the back in order to get a pat on the back from Merkel and keep up the lie that Ireland is a good pupil of austerity. That is despite the fact that working people here share with the Greeks an unsustainable and odious debt burden, and the same interests in lifting that burden. What happened in the past month and half was a co-ordinated assault by capitalism to effectively annul the election results in Greece. The rich took their money from the banks in Greece at a tremendous and increasing rate on a daily basis, and the attack dog of European capitalism, the European Central Bank, bared its teeth. These are the same people who effectively co-ordinated a silent coup, getting rid of previous governments in Greece and Italy and replacing them with government by the banker for the banker.

The ECB threatened to bring down the Greek banking system and put a gun to its head by threatening withdrawal of emergency liquidity assistance. At the Eurogroup meetings, Merkel and her allies, including the Irish Government, demanded total retreat and humiliation from the Greek Government. The result was a deal in which very significant concessions were made by the Syriza Greek Government, including procedures with the troika, which continues but is renamed as "the institutions". There is acknowledgement of the debt and the refusal of any unilateral changes to austerity. The only significant concession was a reduction of the primary surplus requirement, which may allow the Greeks to implement a programme to ameliorate the very worst elements of the humanitarian crisis. Even that will not satisfy European capitalists, and they will return in June for more, using the same methods of blackmail and threats again and again.

There are very profound lessons in this for us in the Chamber and those across Europe who are fighting for a different sort of Europe, where the millions come before the millionaires. This EU is fundamentally undemocratic.

The rules of the economic and monetary union and of the EU are a neo-liberal straitjacket designed to enforce adherence to right-wing economic policies. Any left government must therefore be prepared to break those rules. It must prepare people for a confrontation with those rules and with the bankers and bondholders in Europe and their political representatives for whom those rules are written. A left government will have to pursue its demands for debt repudiation to the end without being scared of the threat of bringing down the banking system or being pushed out of the euro. We cannot be blackmailed. We have to say austerity has to end and stand in solidarity with those elsewhere in Europe who are doing that.

See this speech in context