Walking today in the early Spring sunshine around the Mere at Thorpeness, in Suffolk’s deepest countryside, I was taken aback to see this sign warning me to “Beware Sheep Grazing”. Actually, what it said was “Beware Sheep Grazing”, underlined. That is, these were not just any old kind of animals, e.g. bulls or lions or hippopotami… they were SHEEP.
I confess that till now I have held a stereotypical view of sheep as somewhat docile animals, more liable to be victim than aggressor. A nervy but generally cooperatively-minded flock to be guided, tended, by the Lord himself. (For more on docility, try the website Sheep 201.)
I have intuitively felt that sheep should be allowed to safely graze, even at the risk of splitting an inifinitive, to the gentle murmurations of Baaa..ch’s gentle music.*
But it seems I may be wrong.
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The Greeks may have destroyed Troy, but the Troy-ka are out for revenge – the troops of the European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank have arrived. The Trojan mission - Occupy Athens. Or in the (almost as blunt) words of the Eurogroup’s statement,
“To this end, we deem essential a further strengthening of Greece’s institutional capacity. We therefore invite the Commission to significantly strengthen its Task Force for Greece, in particular through an enhanced and permanent presence on the ground in Greece, in order to bolster its capacity to provide and coordinate technical assistance.”
There is no pretence that the mission is there to advise the Greek government. On the contrary, it is there to monitor and supervise on behalf of the Troy-ka:
“The Eurogroup also welcomes the stronger on site-monitoring capacity by the Commission to work in close and continuous cooperation with the Greek government in order to assist the Troika in assessing the conformity of measures that will be taken by the Greek government, thereby ensuring the timely and full implementation of the programme.”
Moreover, the Greeks are required not only to change their laws, but also their Constitution:
“Finally, the Eurogroup in this context welcomes the intention of the Greek authorities to introduce over the next two months in the Greek legal framework a provision ensuring that priority is granted to debt servicing payments. This provision will be introduced in the Greek constitution as soon as possible.”
Fortunately for Greek democracy, “as soon as possible” is not very soon.
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"If fiscal consolidation were suddenly stepped up further at the expense of the disposable income of people with a high marginal propensity to consume, these economies could be thrown back into stagnation"
— IMF World Economic Outlook 2011
With my co-legal worker from Liberty, outside De Beers in Piccadilly… and credit to Banx of the FT for the cartoon which I love
