General Electric Presents Greece
Two members of the German Parliament are suggesting that the Greek government should sell off some of their uninhabited islands for cash. This being Europe, and this being Germany, it didn’t take long for comparisons to the Second World War to emerge. Even the conservative daily Die Welt has called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to apologize for the suggestion. So the idea is probably a non-starter.
Presumably, the progenitors of this idea mean that Greece should sell the property rights of the island to private investors, and that they will continue to be Greek territory. But why not take this idea on step further? Why not sell off the soverignty attached to the islands as well and make them the sovereign property of another state altogether? After all, the only islands in question are uninhabited and owned wholly by the Greek government; it’s not as if someone will go to bed one night with a house in Greece and wake up the next morning to find he now lives in Japan.
Or better yet, why not sell an island or two to a consortium of people who want to set up their own sovereign state? It could be like seasteading without having to go to all the inconvenience of creating new land on the high seas. We tend to think of sovereign states as possessing timeless and immutable borders, but 150 years ago Germany didn’t exist, and then it was split in two for 45 years before being reunited. The Westphalian state order doesn’t preclude changing borders, only using violence to change those borders. (Don’t mention the war.)
If this fails, Greece could simply sell national naming rights. “General Electric presents Greece” has a certain ring to it.
Alternatively, the Greek government could make significant structural reforms, create a plan to repay funds borrowed from other EU countries, and get the public sector unions on board with changes. But why go to all that work when you can just put the ol’ territorial integrity on the block?
