Greece says it has had enough austerity

Greece has taken on the six-month role of EU president, using the opportunity to criticise austerity, spending cuts and fiscal policy laid down by Berlin and Brussels.

It said these policies could no longer be tolerated.

Greece has experienced the sharpest end of Europe’s debt crisis as well as receiving €250 billion in bailout money.

"Greece does not want to have any more fiscal conditionality," the finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, said. "It is out of the question because it is already too tough."

Some analysts believe that the crisis in the eurozone is now turning from a financial one into a political one.

"The acute phase of the financial crisis is now over," the US financier, George Soros, said last week. "Future crises will be political in origin." He foresaw a bleak period of Japanese-style stagnation worsened by constant bickering between EU national leaders.

"What was meant to be a voluntary association of equal states has now been transformed by the euro crisis into a relationship between creditor and debtor countries that is neither voluntary nor equal. Indeed, the euro could destroy the EU altogether."

Other countries also feeling the tight pinch of austerity share the same frustrations as Greece and observers note that Germany is becoming increasingly isolated.

Chancellor Merkel recently tried to initiate a new policy of structural reforms for eurozone economies, but not one other national leader provided any support for the move, even those traditionally in accord such as the Dutch, Austrians, and Finns. The reform was shelved.

The unpopularity of harsh austerity measures has been blamed for causing an increase in euro-scepticism expressed in nationalism and appealing to racists and xenophobes.

Many anxiously await the outcome of the May elections for the European parliament to see if the far right or hard left gain seats at the expense of the centre.

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