By Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos
Ambassador ad honorem
Dec. 11, 2020
We shall not deal in analyzing the unacceptable decision of the European Council since it’s not worth to lose our time with decisions that have no meaning and lead the EU to dissolution since it is incapable of functioning in an effective way.
It should be recalled once again that when Argentina invaded the Falkland islands in 1982,only three weeks were needed for sanctions to be imposed on April 15,1982.Greece then supported the imposition of sanctions that included an arms embargo and interruption of commercial relations with Argentina.That decision has no relation to today’s decision that treats Greece and the Republic of Cyprus as third countries and not as member-states of the EU.
Greece should now take the following steps:
1. It should denounce the memorandum of 2010 on the basis of the procedures of the Vienna Treaty on treaties.The Treaty anticipates the possibility of denouncing a treaty for mistakes made (article 48),for fraud (article 49),for corruption of a representative of a State (article 50),for coercion against a representative of a State (article 51), for a fundamental change of circumstances (article 62 b).
2.It should raise the issue of stopping debt payments because of the pandemic because by 2028 it must pay 66,7 billion euros to its lenders.
3.It should emphatically raise with Berlin the payment of the loan that Germany had imposed on Greece during the occupation,whose value in current prices is estimated to be between 13 to 422 billion euros,even by threatening to confiscate German assets in Greece.
4.It should officially announce that it will not agree to the extension of sanctions against Russia when they are to be renewed and it should keep a negative position on issues of sanctions against third countries.
The above steps should be taken simultaneously with the EU and Berlin by Greece and in this way Athens will exert strong pressure which might result in having substantial sanctions imposed on Turkey.Otherwise there is no meaning for Greece to remain in the EU.
