Greece, The Troika and Maggie Thatcher
By David Morris
July 20, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
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"ILSR"
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In its policies toward Greece, the “Troika” — a new
shorthand for the combined will of the European Commission, European
Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund — has actively and
enthusiastically embraced Maggie Thatcher’s social and political
philosophy, memorably captured in her chilling assertion, “There is
no such thing as society.”
That philosophy has found its fullest and most
concrete exposition in a 2014 “competition
assessment” of Greece made by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD analyzed 555 Greek
regulatory restrictions and made 329 specific recommendations the
Troika expects Greece to enact with dispatch. Again and again the
report views as virtually criminal regulations that favor small
business, local ownership, and a reliance on local and domestic
suppliers.
The OECD, for example, points an accusing finger
at a Greek regulation requiring milk labeled “fresh” to have a
maximum shelf life of 5 days. The regulation makes Greek “fresh”
milk, on average, more expensive than in other EU countries. Why?
“The high retail price of milk in Greece is a direct consequence of
the high prices paid to Greek producers, since the five-day
regulation makes imports next to impossible.” To the economists at
the OECD and the Troika price is all. But the majority of Greeks,
and I daresay many of the rest of us, might well support an
agriculture policy that asks us to pay a few more cents for a bottle
of milk to sustain and nurture an ecosystem of small, domestic dairy
farmers.
The OECD demands Greece abolish any laws
restricting the days or hours a business can operate (e.g., Sunday
closing laws) — despite the fact that several European countries
have enacted such policies to protect workers and small businesses.
Germany has some of the most restrictive rules on opening hours of
all.
The OECD insists, “The current retail price
regulation of books should be abolished…” Why? “(N)ew retail
channels such as the Internet will be developed.” The market demands
that small publishers and bookstores make way for Amazon.
The OECD bids Greece abolish ownership provisions
to “allow the development of retail pharmacy chains not owned or run
by pharmacists.” The country’s pharmacy care should be opened to
giant drugstore chains.
Each of these examples reveals a full-throated
assault on Greek society by the Troika. Let’s examine the OECD and
the Troika’s bid to overturn Greece’s pharmacy laws more closely.
These require, as noted, that pharmacies be owned and operated by a
licensed pharmacist, prohibit a pharmacist from owning more than one
store, require that over-the-counter drugs be sold only in
pharmacies, and cap the price of these medicines. The OECD’s demands
galvanized a 24-hour strike by pharmacists in mid June.
The OECD report oddly leaves out the fact that
about
half of the countries in the European Union have pharmacy
ownership laws. For more than a decade these laws have been
challenged by the European Commission, which increasingly views its
primary mission as reducing any sense of national identity and
cohesion. The EC has disputed these popular laws in Austria,
Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal and
Spain.
In 2009 the European Court of Justice agreed with
the European Commission that prohibiting corporations from operating
pharmacies does restrict the freedom of establishment and the free
movement of capital. But it ruled pharmacy ownership laws an
acceptable exercise of national authority.
The Court
observed, “It is undeniable that an operator having the status
of pharmacist pursues, like other persons, the objective of making a
profit. However, as a pharmacist by profession, he is presumed to
operate the pharmacy not with a purely economic objective, but also
from a professional viewpoint. His private interest connected with
the making of a profit is thus tempered by his training, by his
professional experience and by the responsibility which he owes,
given that any breach of the rules of law or professional conduct
undermines not only the value of his investment but also his own
professional existence.”
Most Americans may be unaware that we too have a
law protecting independent pharmacies. The same year the European
Court of Justice affirmed the right of nations to protect
independent pharmacies, a Walmart- and Walgreens-backed bill was
submitted to the North Dakota House of Representatives to overturn a
unique state law that requires pharmacies to be owned and operated
by a licensed pharmacist.
The bill was
defeated 35 to 57. In 2011, the giant chains tried again and
suffered an even more lopsided defeat 26 to 68. In 2014 an entity
financed exclusively by a $3 million contribution from Walmart
(North Dakota’s population is 740,000) hired an out-of-state
signature-gathering firm to put a measure to overturn the law on the
ballot. Voters rejected the measure 59-41 percent.
North Dakotans obtain their medications from 171
independent and locally owned pharmacies throughout the state. They
clearly like the system, and a
report
from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found they have every
reason to. North Dakotans have pharmacy care that outperforms care
in other states on every key measure, from cost to access. North
Dakota prescription drug prices are more affordable than in
two-thirds of all states. North Dakota’s rural areas are 51 percent
more likely to contain a pharmacy than similarly-populated areas of
South Dakota, which is dominated by large pharmacy chains. North
Dakota urban areas have more pharmacy competition
North Dakota is the only U.S. state with a
pharmacy ownership law but Greece is not the only European state
that has one. Nor is it alone in having Sunday closing or retail
book pricing laws.
Greece continues to have the legal right to enact
such regulations. But its almost-prostrate government may no longer
have the capacity, nor the will, to defend rules that have shaped
the culture its citizens have cherished for so long.
David Morris is co-founder of the Institute for
Local Self-Reliance and directs its initiative on The Public Good.
He is the author of the New
City States,
Seeing the Light, and three other non-fiction books. His essays
on public policy are regularly published by On the Commons, Alternet,
Common Dreams and the Huffington Post.
Connect David on
twitter or email dmorris(at)ilsr.org
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