Greek welcomes its new masters, led by a German!!

Within the month the new Government of Greece will arrive and take up their positions,

The European Commission has set up a task force to oversee the implementation of austerity measures and structural reforms, according to documents seen by Kathimerini.

The task force, an initiative of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, is to have two headquarters - in Athens and Brussels - and direct contact with Barroso’s office and that of Prime Minister George Papandreou. The Athens office will be the point of reference for all visiting inspectors currently offering technical advice to different ministries.

An additional 25 officials, members of the new task force, are to start arriving in Athens in the second half of August.

Make no bones about it, this team of 25 is the new Government of Greece,

According to sources, the decision to create the task force was prompted by the government’s failure to implement measures pledged in exchange for the first 110-billion-euro bailout in May last year. Greece’s creditors - the EC, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - clearly deemed that a foreign task force would help push through a new slew of measures approved.

After all if the Greeks vote against the measures being demanded of them this new body seems to have the power to overule them.

Astonishingly the Commission has decided that the person to run this new Government will be a German, Horst Reichenbach. The decison to take a long time Commission official who hails from Kiel, will no doubt be greeted by the Greeks with all the equaminty that such a decision requires.

After all there is no bad blood between the two nations.

I can only guess that this was done to placate Mrs Merkle. I cannot be persuaded that Barroso would be so cloth-eared himself.