"To Be in the Same Boat: You Either Go Together or Sink Together"

This wednesday, JSBP was back in room 297, we were got the opportunity to speak with Mr. Andras Baneth. He is from Hungary but currently works in Brussels for the European Commission. I found Baneth to be an interesting speaker because he seemed to take a less formal approach and more of a discussion which helped me to understand what he was saying. He explained to us how there are 27 member states and how they certainly do act as separate states. Unlike in the US, there is no common language that ties them together, and although the Euro is the currency in most, even that does not tie every state together. There are very keen on preserving their own culture and proud of their cultural/political independence. Baneth discussed how the purpose of the EU is to bring countries together to make decisions together instead and solve it "at the table, not the battlefield." He argues that making countries interdependent cuts back on problems.

The main interest that I took from Baneth's talk rooted from all the discussion with Greece. I felt like I could really understand what he was saying because I had just been to Greece and seen the struggles myself. I was also fascinated to hear what he thought about Greece's future and if he thinks Greece can get out of this mess because I certainly spoke to a lot of locals who do not think Greece can continue to stand strong on its own. One of the police men who I met there said how he thinks in 3 years, Greece will be under military rule. I asked Baneth what he thought of this and I was interested to find that he actually thought there was some validity to that statement. Of course, Greece is probably going to go bankrupt and I really enjoyed hearing his take on this. Baneth introduced a very interesting point about how Greece got into this mess in the first place. He said that they didn't do their own work in the first place. They lied about their financial numbers and actually cheated when it came to how much money they really had. They were never actually meeting the amounts of money they were supposed to and when the EU found out what was really going on, they discovered that they were short lots of money. Now in order to receive help, Greece must agree to conditions put out to them. Germany, the most powerful financial player in the EU, is going to help bail Greece out because if they just let them fail it would be a huge economical loss for them. They have already put so much money into Greece already that if Greece goes bankrupt there would be no point to their help in the first place and they would have no hope of ever getting their money back. I hope they save Greece I would be so sad if it failed!
The thing I found fascinating that Baneth touched on was the whole psychology aspect of it. If Greece goes bankrupt, people will be scared. They will be scared because if a Euro country fails, what will happen to a non-euro country? And if everyone lets Greece fail, what will happen to other weak countries, will they let them fail too? The psychology of the whole thing will act as another reason to keep Greece afloat. People don't want to let one country fail, because once one fails it could start a trend of other countries not helping and letting failure happen. And bringing it back to the EU goals, the EU wants everyone to to interconnect and be interdependent so they do not want a member state to fail. And I DONT WANT GREECE TO FAIL! I love it too much!
The last really interesting thing that I have been beginning to realize here is the difference in identity when it comes to Europe versus the United States. Baneth even directly said it in his talk. He pointed out how when people ask where you are from, I would say, America and then say Maine. Proud to be identifying as one universal country. If you ask a Hungarian person where they are from, they are more likely to say Hungary, then Europe, the complete other way around. They have a great level of pride to be from their own nation and would rather identify with that than with Europe. I think this is very interesting because I had never really thought about how I do this, but I actually do, every time! Its interesting to think about how people identify.
I found this talk very interesting and I was so happy to be able to hear people's ideas on Greece and the situation. I think I will be the US Ambassador to Greece!

I LOVE GREECE! It will not fail!

Sarah, MFC and Court I AM SO JEALOUS you are going to Greece. Kiss it hello for me.