German Finance Minister, Schäuble talks to students, 2013. Demotix/Goncalo Silva. All rights reserved.On July 5 Europeans will witness an extraordinary event. A sitting government will ask its people to decide on a major policy issue that lies outside its electoral mandate. It is difficult to exaggerate the radical nature of the coming referendum in Greece. In January 2015 the Syriza Party platform committed to ending austerity and remaining in the euro zone.
Now in July it faces the black and white choice of more austerity or Grexit. The Syriza government has not mocked democratic principle by invoking the cliché that "circumstances have changed" to justify doing what it promised never to do. Rather, it asks those who will be most affected, the people of Greece, to decide.
The Greek government faces inflexible demands for austerity from "the institutions", demands unchanged in essence from those imposed upon and accepted by the right-wing Samaras regime. Previously known as The Troika, the "institutions" consist of Wolfgang Schäuble (aka Eurogroup of finance ministers), Maria Draghi (European Central Bank), and Christine Lagarde (International Monetary Fund), each in his/her way more intransigently neoliberal than the other two (see hyperlinks).
