LIES AND OTHER TRUTHS - THE GERMAN MYTHS OF THE EUROCRISIS

Harald Schumann
Journalist Berliner Tagesspiegel and author

What is happening to Europe in the name of the troika? Consisting of the IMF, ECB and European Commission, it is demanding austerity measures on a devastating scale. Is this Europe's policy?
Schumann states: „Only the middle class, state employees, pensioners, the sick and the unemployed had to bear the burden of adjustment. The economic elites, on the other hand, were spared everywhere. Worse still, the troika forced governments to sell off valuable state-owned companies at rock-bottom prices, helping the privileged to enrich themselves at the expense of the general public.“
Schumann's conclusion after Europe's current decisions on Greece: „The Greeks may keep the euro, but they are losing their democracy. (...) This made visible what euro critics have always complained about: the single currency, as it is currently organised, undermines the democratic constitutions of its member states, and by no means only in Greece.“

Moderation
Robert Misik, Journalist and author

Harald Schumann studied social sciences and landscape planning in Marburg and Berlin and graduated with a degree in engineering. From 1984 to 1986, he was an editor at the Berliner tageszeitung; from 1986 to 2004, he wrote for Der Spiegel, among others, for many years as head of the politics department at Spiegel Online, as science editor and as capital city correspondent.
Schumann became famous at the end of the 1990s with the bestseller The Globalisation Trap, which he and Hans-Peter Martin wrote and which has been published in 24 languages.
In 1994, Schumann moved to the Berliner Tagesspiegel and since then has focussed on issues of economic power and the financial industry. In February 2015, his documentary film „Macht ohne Kontrolle - Die Troika.