ECB ignores debt dilemma - Frankfurt protests

IN his 1974 novel, Take the War to Washington, Peter Van Greenaway deals with the Vietnam War, envisaging disaffected veterans literally bringing the conflict — with all its horrors — to the centre of power in the US.

That is what appears to be happening in Frankfurt, the seat of financial power not just in Germany but in the EU.

Anti-austerity protesters yesterday clashed with riot police near the new, grotesquely lavish headquarters of the European Central Bank. It was organised by Blockupy, an alliance of leftist groups that has repeatedly led protests in Frankfurt’s banking district, mostly directed at the ECB.

Yesterday was meant to be a celebration at the official opening of the 185-metre skyscraper — a glass tower that took five years and €1.3bn to build. Instead, it became the focus of a demonstration against the inhumane operations of the bank, which has insisted on a regime of austerity in indebted countries such as Ireland and Greece.

The ECB’s moral imperative is that the welfare of EU citizens should be subordinate to paying back debt owed mainly to German banks.

It brings to mind a more recent polemic by David Graeber, Debt: The Last 5,000 Years, which opens with the provocative statement that ‘debt does not have to be repaid’.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Finance Minister Michael Noonan could do worse than read both books.