Just when Mrs Merkel thought she could return to her
knitting and the hordes of featherbedded bean-counters in Brussels were
planning vast expense-account dinners in the best restaurants of Brussels, up
pops Greece again to spoil the party. Remember Greece? Yes, they are that lot
who falsified their economic figures to gain admittance to the Eurozone in 2001,
were bailed out twice with injections of loans of €240bn in 2010 and 2012 and
who have been woeful laggards in Europe for the last 5 years. The Greek
parliament has finally failed after three tries to elect a new President with
the required majority and this has triggered off fresh elections to be held on
25 January. These elections can mean big trouble ahead for the Eurozone.
The trouble emanates from the fact that the likely winners,
Far Left SYRIZA, a unitary party only since 2013, made up of euro-communists,
Greens, militant trades unionists, Marxist dreamers, Guardian readers and the tender-minded in general, is pledged to
renegotiate the terms of the hated memoranda controlling Greece accompanying
the bail-outs delivered by the so-called “troika” of the EU Commission, the European
Central Bank and the IMF. Nobody in their right mind would normally vote for
this motley crew but for many devastated voters the alternative of allowing the
current New Democracy / PASOK coalition to retain power is just too awful to
bear contemplation. SYRIZA is riding high currently with 28% support in the
opinion polls ahead of New Democracy with 25%.
The present Greek government, a New Democracy / PASOK
coalition, must be the worst in Europe and one of the worst in the world. It is
headed by crafty but despised Antonis Samaras with an unattractive record of
disloyalty to colleagues, a long-stated ambition simply to be Prime Minister
and whose policies in office have amounted to total subservience to Germany’s
wishes. Yet he trumpets garbage about “the Greek success story” and has
promised the desperate people “light at the end of the tunnel”. PASOK leader
Evangelos Venizelos, obese and irascible, is his detested deputy.
 |
| Samaras and Venizelos, a toxic couple |
Meanwhile Greece is demonstrably bust, the government unable
adequately to finance education, its health system, national defence and local
authorities. Evidence of decay and neglect is everywhere, pensions have been
cut by at least 30%, unemployment is 26% and youth unemployment about 50%.
Greek national indebtedness stands at €322bn, 180% of GNP, when the Eurozone
limit is supposed to be 60%. The brightest and best Greeks leave the country
sorrowfully, the life-blood of the nation ebbing away.
Worse still, after 40 years of alternating PASOK and New
Democracy regimes, the stink of corruption pervades the country. Clientelism,
nepotism, graft and bribery are rampant especially in professional circles
among the “elite”, lawyers, judges, bankers, senior civil servants and doctors
not to mention the fetid politicians themselves. Some wrong-doing is blatant as
the perpetrators are often protected by generous immunities and short statutes
of limitation. The country needs a wholesale clear-out and Spring-clean, a new
start.
Accessories to these crimes are the European Commission and
the European Central Bank. If Greece were outside the Eurozone, it would long
ago have devalued her currency, sought help from the IMF and recovered after a
tough year or two. However Greece is in the Eurozone and a devaluation is
impossible. Instead Greece has had to accept more loans on harsh terms and toe
the economic line purveyed by Brussels. This amounts to a savage deflation,
during which income and property taxes have been sharply raised and after 5
years of recession 20% of GDP has vanished, businesses undermined, the middle
classes have been decimated and poverty and deprivation stalk the land. The
idiotic Eurozone policy of slow strangulation has not, and never would have,
revived the patient. Public morale is shattered in Greece and recession fatigue
has set in, hence the attraction of SYRIZA.
 |
| Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza |
Alexis Tsipras is a 40-year-old middle class civil engineer.
In his youth he was a Young Communist and student activist and he later joined
the radical left Synapsismos group
which formed the core of SYRIZA, a confederation of leftist splinter groups.
Unexpectedly SYRIZA polled 27% and became the second largest Greek party in the
2012 election. Tsipras says he wants Greece to remain in the Euro, reject current
austerity programmes and negotiate with Greece’s external creditors to write
down or forgive debt. It is hard to see how this programme is compatible with
Eurozone membership.
Tsipras is an opponent of neo-liberal capitalism, which he
claims exploits smaller countries like Greece; he proposes to soak the “rich”,
punish tax evaders, oppose any further government cuts and support the
nationalisation of the banks, which he believes should not be run for profit.
Much of this is hare-brained and potentially very damaging. Tsipras is
clean-cut, likeable, eloquent and untainted by scandal.
SYRIZA is one of many
populist parties springing up in Europe, like UKIP and SNP in Britain, National
Front in France and Podemos in Spain. These parties express the peoples’ dismay
at and rejection of traditional politics. In Greece New Democracy and PASOK
personify the Ancien Regime. Brussels
is doing all it can to save the existing Greek coalition with interfering
Juncker saying: “I would prefer to deal with known faces” and urging Greeks not
to vote “the wrong way”. This simply provokes the Greeks further. There is also
a rumour of a German-funded slush-fund of €60m to bribe voters and media to
support Samaras.
I do not see the Greek electorate returning New Democracy
again and believe SYRIZA will win on 25 January. It will be the largest party –
it gets a 50-seat bonus in the 300-seat legislature by winning – but it may not
have an overall majority and may have to form a coalition. The new government
will certainly have a revolutionary flavour yet its existence will be what the
Greek people want, carrying a democratic mandate – not something much respected
in Euro circles. I expect there to be fraught negotiations between Brussels and
Athens and, if wise heads prevail, a face-saving deal done on Greek bonds
followed by a smooth exit of Greece from the Eurozone linked to a comprehensive
IMF package. Wisdom is in short supply in both Brussels and Athens and, if no
agreement is reached, I see chaos and violence following Greece’s disorderly
exit from both the Eurozone and EU to the detriment of everyone.
SMD
2.01.15
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment