Advice to Greece’s Creditors: Hold Your Own Referendum

In their referendum yesterday, Greece voted no to accepting their creditor’s demands, perhaps in the belief that they could stay on the euro if they did so. Their creditor’s should respond with their own referendum. It would strengthen their hand if they were to give the rest of Europe a vote on the matter. Does the average European want to be tied to these idiots who understand nothing except that they get to demand more money? It is of course entirely likely that, under the influence of socialist rhetoric, they would indeed want that. Still, it is always nice to have a say in things, or at least to be asked one’s opinion, something that is rare in the European Union, and that opinion, whatever it was, would help guide those pushing austerity measures on Greece. Either they could do so in the knowledge that most of Europe was behind them, or they would find that they needed to come up with a new and more lenient deal, one that the rest of Europe preferred.

Of course, the idea of such a referendum ignores the reality that people in different countries will see the matter in different ways. People in Italy, Portugal and Spain may side with Greece, while those in Germany would not. Expect that if there were such a referendum, and if most people outside of Germany sided with the Greeks, there would then be a German referendum on whether they should even bother staying with the euro.

Face it, the European Union with its currency was a bad idea right from the start.