The Odiousness of Greek Debt in Light of the Findings of the Greek Debt Truth Committee

Abstract

Unlike the popular narrative, which suggests that the Greek debt crisis was the result of lavish spending, this article demonstrates that the ‘crisis’ was generated by a transformation of purely private debt into public debt. This finding is supported by the preliminary report of the Greek Parliamentary Committee on the Truth of the Greek Debt, which clearly demonstrated the exponential increase of private debt in Greece risked the collapse of the private financial institutions exposed to it, namely Greek, French and German banks. This prompted the three nations to exert pressure on the Greek government to recapitalise and nationalise Greek banks through Eurozone and IMF funding. This funding, which came to be known as ‘bailout for Greece’ was nothing more than a salvation of private banks through EU taxpayers’ money, only 5% of which went into the Greek economy. The article shows that the process by which the debt was transformed, as well as the post-crisis bailout were odious, illegal and illegitimate and the ensuing debt itself was unsustainable and wholly against fundamental human rights.