Wolfgang Münchau sobre a saída do euro, a "suspensão da democracia" e a ruptura com a UE

Um interessante artigo de Wolfgang Munchau  — defensor da ideia de que Portugal e a Grécia deveriam falir dentro da UE e (co)responsabilizá-la persistindo no interior dela —sobre a "suspensão da democracia" que a "saída unilateral do euro" implicaria. Parte das medidas que tornariam "tecnicamente" necessário algo de muito parecido com um estado de sítio antes ainda de a decisão da ruptura ser anunciada já tinham sido, entre nós, postas em evidência, há largos meses, por Francisco Louçã, e por muitos outros, antes e depois dele — alguns dos quais têm intervindo neste blogue ou sido aqui trazidos à colação. Mas a análise de Munchau é mais expressiva e precisa do que a de Louçã, além de que o seu texto indica em termos convincentes como e porquê a saída unilateral do euro por parte da Grécia ou de Portugal seria, na realidade e no mínimo, um primeiro passo para a secessão e a saída da UE, ao mesmo tempo que acarretaria a suspensão da ordem constitucional e das suas garantias fundamentais.  Aqui fica um excerto e o link que permitirá a aconselhável leitura na íntegra.


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The euro is the currency of the EU. Just as Scotland cannot break out of the pound, Greece cannot break out of the euro. Britain has an opt-out, and so does Denmark, but for the others, the euro is obligatory. Once you are in, you are in. The only way to get out is to leave the EU, which is possible under the Lisbon Treaty. So the strict legal answer is that, to leave the euro, Greece would have to leave the EU.

European law has many trapdoors. A European official once told me that Greece could leave the EU on Sunday night, and re-enter on Monday morning. Sure, this is not what Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union intended, but who knows what the European Court of Justice might decide if such a case landed on the bench.

At this point, we have to assume a number of different scenarios. Is this exit agreed with the others, and if so, will they support it financially? Or is it a unilateral act, which Angela Merkel learns about in the newspapers? An agreed exit could come about when a consensus is reached both inside and outside Greece that the adjustment burden is too high, and that the costs of subsequent rescue programmes would become economically and politically indefensible. A sudden exit could be the result of an accident, or a mistake. I would assume Greece would remain in the EU in the first scenario, but not in the second.

In the worst-case scenario, an enraged Greek prime minister gets his cabinet to vote to exit the euro on a Friday afternoon. At this point, he cannot go to parliament. He must issue a decree—a temporary act to be ratified by parliament later—to leave the euro and reintroduce a national currency.

When he leaves the cabinet meeting, he will have to commit a raft of legal and constitutional breaches, possibly even crimes. He will immediately have to do the following: close the borders; enforce a prolonged bank holiday; stop all transactions; and cut off the banks from international communication, including via satellite. He might have to send in the police or army to enforce the transactions ban. The bank holiday will last as long as it takes, perhaps a week.

Once he has secured the borders and throttled the banks, he goes on television and announces the decision. Of course, he will ask parliament to ratify this decree subsequently, but first he will have created all the facts. It is, of course, impossible to leave a monetary union while going through an open parliamentary procedure. The banking system would have collapsed before the opposition leader had a chance to speak. Secrecy is important for this to work. For a country to leave the eurozone, democracy will have to be suspended.

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