The Guardian

Negotiations between the EU and the Greek government concern more the very essence of what the notion of Europe represents than the financial considerations that many of Greece’s creditors wish to focus solely upon (Report, 13 February). 

The fact that Greece’s debt repayments are unsustainable has been well argued in your pages. But the depth of the humanitarian crisis that the debt repayment arrangements have generated may be difficult to comprehend by anyone who has not seen impoverished people in Greece rummaging through dustbins in search of something to eat or hanging around street markets at closing time to collect discarded foodstuffs.

If “humanité” was the leading characteristic of the Enlightenment, and one that the notion of Europe still encompasses, then this is being sacrificed in a futile attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, by penalising the section of the Greek population that had no part in the decision-making process leading to the current crisis. The only “charge” that can be levelled against the Greek victims of austerity is their erroneous faith that the politicians they voted for every four years would safeguard their economy. However, on this issue the Greeks are not the sole culprits, as the present situation of many European states clearly shows.

The Greek people have sent a clear message that they do not trust those who brought this crisis upon them. Unless this message is heard and acted upon, the entire European project will prove unworthy of its stated aims. The Greek government deserves the breathing space it has requested to try to resolve the financial situation for the benefit of all Europeans: a Greek default would not only involve significantly higher financial losses for all of Europe, but would also irrevocably undermine the intention embedded in European treaties of “drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe”.
Michael Yianneskis
Honorary professor, University College London

Why is Helena Smith (Athens port in a storm, 10 February) repeating the neoliberal mantra that the regulatory race to the bottom is the only option for Greece? She contrasts the “hive of activity” that are “the Chinese-run piers” to the “slow motion on the other side of the port [where] state employees [are] protected by labour rules and given higher wages – the result of years of unbending trade-unionism … many believe Cosco’s high-energy regime is what is needed nationwide if Greece is to emerge from their worst recession on record, etc”.

Hailed by the Greek right as its greatest achievement during its recent bloody minded course of asset-stripping the country, Cosco’s acquisition of Pier II of the Piraeus port in 2010 involved the modification of the national collective agreement so as to reduce the minimum wage, and the amendment or premature termination of most other collective labour agreements. The new conditions have been clearly documented, inter alia, in briefing papers before the European parliament. One condition put forth by Cosco was that none of the more than 500 workers be unionised.

There have been numerous claims of abuses of working conditions, such as eight-hour shifts with no meal or bathroom breaks, workers having to be available 24/7, no overtime pay for working nights or weekend shifts, and salaries half of what they are at the neighbouring Greek-operated pier.

Is the deterioration of working conditions claimed, union-bashing and the undercutting of labour protection on this scale, really the price to pay to get the country off its knees, or do we have to wait for the next wave of worker suicides before we contemplate that there may be alternatives to this form of social dumping and market blackmail?
Emilios Christodoulidis
Professor of jurisprudence, University of Glasgow

• News of Syriza’s ongoing attempts to rescue the Greek people from punitive austerity has recently been pushed off the front pages by the revelations of the HSBC tax evasion scandal. But the exposure of an institutionalised condoning of tax evasion, not only by the banks but also HMRC, does bear some similarities to the criticisms levelled at Greece, whose tax-evading workforce living the life of Riley has been blamed for bringing the country to its knees. Our tax-evading class, on the other hand, seems to deserve some indulgence, such as a minimal bill and immunity from prosecution, because they are creators of wealth.

Please, let’s not hear any more crude caricatures of workshy Mediterraneans and prudent northern Europeans, nor any more implications that whole nations are either honest/dishonest or hardworking/lazy. It’s not about national stereotypes, it’s about a corrupt wealthy elite and a struggling underclass.
Marcus Weeks
Hastings, East Sussex

• Greece cannot be allowed to fall out of the eurozone because then we will all have to accept the lazy and stupid word “Grexit”. Media speculation would also increase around Spexit and Porexit.
Chris Trude
London