Bishop attacks EU for lack of solidarity

The head of Greece’s small Catholic Church has bitterly attacked the European Union, and crit­icised Western fellow bishops for showing no solidarity with his crisis-ridden country, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“Greece has stood alone against the entire EU – and its member states have acted egotistically, thinking only of their own interests,” said president of the bishops’ conference Bishop Franghiskos Papamanolis. “Greece finds itself in this situation through the fault of its rulers. But the European states are trying to gain their own benefits from the Greek crisis. This is no longer the European Union: it’s a pack of wolves out to devour the weakest.”

The bishop spoke as premier Alexis Tsipras’ left-wing government struggled to impose austerity measures insisted on by the EU and International Monetary Fund, two weeks after his Syriza party won its second general election in nine months.

In an interview with Poland’s Catholic information agency, KAI, he said he believed the 41-year-old premier had “good intentions in seeking to help the poorest and weakest” but had “no clue about economics”. He added that Greece’s crisis had been worsened by the mass influx of refugees from the Middle East and near-collapse of its tourism industry, and said his bishops’ conference had written in vain to the IMF, EU Commission and European Central Bank urging fairer terms.  

“We lack the spirit of solidarity which lay at the foundation of the European institutions. Yet this spirit is also absent in the Church, since we haven’t received a single gesture of solidarity from other bishops’ conferences,” he said.