At first glance, the eurozone’s handling of the Greek debt crisis, the revelations contained in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the vast financial support now flowing to Ukraine appear to belong to entirely different worlds. One concerns sovereign debt and financial rescue mechanisms; another, a criminal network involving sexual exploitation and elite protection; the third, a geopolitical conflict framed as a moral and strategic imperative.
Yet beneath the surface, all three expose the same underlying reality: a system designed to protect power, contain damage, and shift consequences downward.
Different crises. The same operating logic.
The Greek “Bailout” that wasn’t
For years, European leaders and much of the media repeated a simple narrative: Greece was rescued by its European partners after reckless overspending and mismanagement. European taxpayers, the story went, stepped in to save a failing state.
The truth is far less comforting.
The so-called bailout programmes, structured through mechanisms such as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), were not primarily designed to save Greece. They were designed to save European banks, particularly in Germany and France, which were dangerously exposed to Greek debt following years of aggressive lending.
Of the roughly €230 billion allocated to Greece across multiple programmes, only a small fraction went toward funding public services or keeping the Greek state operational. The majority flowed straight back to creditors in the form of debt repayments, interest payments and bank recapitalisation.
Greece functioned not as a beneficiary, but as a pass-through vehicle.
Accounting tricks, coercion and moral inversion
This outcome was enabled by the peculiar logic of modern banking. For banks, “assets” are not deposits or reserves, but loans outstanding. Writing down Greek debt early would have forced banks to recognise losses, eroding capital and threatening systemic collapse.
Instead, new loans were issued so old loans could be repaid. Interest was recorded as profit. Risk was transferred from private balance sheets to public institutions. Losses were socialised, while blame was moralised.
Former Bundesbank president Karl Otto Pöhl later acknowledged what many suspected: the rescue was about protecting German and French banks from write-offs.
Greek society, meanwhile, was forced to shoulder the burden through austerity, tax hikes, pension cuts, collapsing healthcare and mass unemployment, producing the largest peacetime economic contraction in modern European history, all while Greeks were portrayed as irresponsible and undeserving.
Crucially, many legal scholars and constitutional experts have long argued that key elements of the bailout agreements were democratically and legally questionable. The terms were imposed under extreme financial coercion, with the explicit threat of banking collapse and expulsion from the euro. Parliamentary consent was extracted under duress, raising serious questions about sovereignty, proportionality and the validity of consent itself.
In effect, Greece was compelled to accept obligations to save others, then held morally responsible for the consequences.
The Epstein parallel: Containing the crime, protecting the network
The Epstein files reveal a strikingly similar pattern of institutional behaviour.
Epstein was not merely a criminal acting in isolation. He operated for decades within elite financial, political and legal environments that repeatedly failed, or refused, to intervene. Despite overwhelming evidence, he received extraordinary leniency, including a notorious non-prosecution agreement that insulated not only himself but also potential associates.
As with Greece, accountability stopped precisely where power began.
The narrative was tightly controlled. Epstein was framed as a lone predator, an anomaly. Structural questions—how he accumulated influence, why protections were extended, who benefited from his connections—were largely sidelined.
Ukraine and the repetition of the model
A similar dynamic is now visible in the massive financial support mobilised for Ukraine.
Once again, extraordinary sums are being committed at speed, framed as unavoidable and morally imperative. Public scrutiny is limited, long-term accountability mechanisms remain unclear, and the future financial burden is increasingly shifted onto taxpayers across Europe and beyond.
As with Greece, citizens are told there is “no alternative”, while decisions with multi-decade consequences are made at elite levels. As with Greece, the language of emergency overrides democratic debate. And as with Greece, the eventual costs are likely to be socialised, regardless of who benefits most in the short term.
This is not an argument against Ukraine, but an observation about how power manages crises.
Different Tools, Same System
In Greece, the tools were financial: complex lending structures, delayed loss recognition, and technocratic language masking political choices.
In the Epstein case, the tools were legal: confidential settlements, jurisdictional fragmentation and selective prosecutorial discretion.
In Ukraine, the tools are geopolitical and fiscal: emergency funding frameworks, moral absolutism and deferred accountability.
The outcome, however, is identical. Damage is contained, elites are shielded, and the public absorbs the long-term cost.
Narrative as a Weapon
All three cases rely on disciplined storytelling.
Greece was depicted as the villain to justify austerity. Epstein was isolated as a monster to avoid scrutiny of enabling systems. Ukraine funding is framed as unquestionable necessity, pre-empting debate.
As economist Mark Blyth has argued, crises are often less about economics than about who controls the story of blame and responsibility. Once the narrative is fixed, policy follows, and dissent is marginalised.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion
Greece was not rescued; it was used. Epstein’s victims were not protected; they were managed. The public is not consulted; it is presented with faits accomplis.
In each case, intervention occurred not to correct injustice, but to preserve institutional stability and elite credibility.
Until this reality is openly confronted, future crises—financial, political or moral—will follow the same script. Only the names, locations and victims will change.
