FLEXIBLE GREECE

In July 2016 the SYRIZA (i.e. loony leftist) prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras called a hasty referendum to seek the approval of the people for a harsh EU/IMF bail-out package (the third one!). Rejection was particularly advocated by Yannis Varoufakis, the brilliant but erratic Finance Minister, and indeed the vote easily rejected the bail-out package.  However, after a few days contemplation, Tsipras decided to take the safer option and to knuckle under to the EU terms. Varoufakis lost office and heavily indebted Greece has feebly limped along. The bail-out notionally expired a day or two ago and Tsipras has since won an election and retained the premiership. These political gymnastics would have earned in the UK Churchill’s famous gibe at Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald “I never thought I would live to see the day that The Boneless Wonder was standing at the Treasury Bench!” But in Greece, a firm back-bone is a luxury it is unable to afford and Tsipras is forgiven.

Boneless if pragmatic Tsipras and erratic but smart Varoufakis

Since early June I have been mainly in Athens but have just returned from 10 days in our cherished Aegean island of Samos. We travelled by car ferry, not recommended in the crowded high season culminating in the 15 August Feast of the Assumption. The ferries are large and comfortable but the time spent waiting about to embark and disembark and the stifling car-decks themselves are a trial for an oldie like me. On the way back, on the short Mykonos to Syros leg, we were treated to an old-fashioned piece of salesmanship. A burly islander carrying a huge wicker basket full of Syros delicacies invaded the seating area and we bought some Halvadopitas.

Halvadopitas from Syros

Halvadopitas are waffle-like pies stuffed with creamy nougat and impregnated with sugar and honey. They are a cheap sweetmeat originating in Syros – not part of your calorie-controlled diet! Syros itself is an oddity. Once colonised by the Venetians and the French, she fell to the Ottomans in the 16^th century. For ages until the mid-19^th century, her population was entirely Catholic but various convulsions brought an influx of Orthodox refugees and the Orthodox now make a slim majority. A flexible ecumenical spirit between these two branches of Christendom allows the Catholics to observe Easter according to the Orthodox calendar – quite a concession, in favour of unity. Syros was once the largest Greek port, eventually being overtaken by Piraeus and by Patras, but it still prospers.

Our visit to Samos was really as landlords looking after our leased house and student flats. We, or rather my dynamic wife, ran around with painters, plumbers, carpenters and canopy sellers. We had to buy a new student bed and were concerned that the local Greek mattress (advertised as de luxe) was too hard. Our new student tenant reassured us that the mattress would be just fine – he had lain on much worse! As the sun was beating down, we found time to swim most days and to eat well in some of our favourite places;

Our favourite beach-bar, Hippy's at the Potami, Karlovasi, Samos

Happily, this year Samos has not been plagued by Afghan, Syrian, Iraqi and Pakistani refugees arriving via Turkey. The agreement between Turkey and the EU restraining this traffic seems to be holding fast, despite Erdogan’s threats. Fortunately for Greece, Turkey has found another adversary in the US, and suddenly Turkey needs friends as her economy and currency totter. Whose ego is the larger between Erdogan and Trump is hard to judge, but the US is much the stronger. In these volatile times, a pinch of Hellenic flexibility is a wise addition to the bubbling mixture!

SMD

20.08.18

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018

CATASTROPHE in ATHENS

The Greeks are a talented and likeable people but Greece is notoriously badly governed, corruption multiplies, competence dwindles and moral apathy is widespread. A mixture of these faults and an unlucky turn in the weather created a volatile mixture which duly exploded on 23/24 July in a series of fires. These caused 85 deaths near Athens, the destruction of 1,800 houses and countless cars, the ruination of thousands of acres of prime coastal land and an indelible stain on the reputation of the Greek State.

A wildfire takes hold

       

 There are wild-fires every year in Greece, often caused by arson. They are usually contained in some remote area – the Greeks shrug them off as a summer danger, seldom fatal. Until this year. The worst fires were near Mati, a village by the sea in eastern Attica, 29 km from Athens. Mati has expanded greatly over the last 60 years, first as a place for a weekend home for Athenians, then as an area for permanent commuter homes as Athens became too expensive or otherwise intolerable.

Developers years ago bought up the cheap scrub land and crammed in as many houses as they could, some quite substantial residences. In those days Greek planning laws were regularly flouted or ignored – width of roads, distance between houses, materials used, parking restrictions and so on – but nobody doubts the developers “squared” the municipality and the nationalised utilities as the “illegal” houses were connected to electricity and water without any problem – that is how business was done in Greece.

The Greek government makes much now of Mati’s “illegality” but that is a retrospective justification. The Government for decades cast a blind eye over Mati’s and a hundred other areas’ shortcomings and did nothing about them. Only in the last 6 years has the Government, under EU pressure, introduced a programme of legalisation of unauthorised buildings, costing the householder €500 +. Few in Mati probably bothered to pay up as they were not planning ever to sell their property. Fatally, the Government has no easy control of property as, alone in all Europe, Greece has no national Land Registry. The EU has sent money to have one, but progress has been glacial.

When, alas, the fires came, Mati was horribly vulnerable. The Fire Service had conducted no danger or evacuation assessment, the municipality had not erected any signposts towards the sea and Mati was full of car-borne residents and guests. Force 8 winds and swirling gusts made the direction of the fire unpredictable. Locals say the fire travelled very quickly and ripped through the area in a 15 minute inferno. There were many pine-trees whose shed needles and resin-soaked trunks were highly inflammable. Those who rushed for their cars found the narrow roads blocked by parked cars and access to the safe main road was impossible. One path to the sea was open but the second was hidden by residents’ gardens. Tragically one group of 24, unable to find a way out, held hands and huddled together, only to perish from inhaling smoke or from the dreadful heat of the fire.

Burnt cars blocking the road at Mati

          

Those who got to the sea were confined to a rocky strip, not a beach. Crowded there, they waited 4 hours for rescue, having to immerse themselves in the water to prevent their hair catching fire and avoid smoke. Only when a local phoned the coastguard was any help available. Municipality and police had done nothing effective.

Victims await rescue by the sea

Unsurprisingly the grief of residents has turned to anger. Yesterday Panos Kammenos, the defence minister and leader of ANEL, junior partner in the governing coalition, visited Mati and he was mercilessly heckled by people who reckoned the government had let them down completely. He did not apologise but referred to the illegality of buildings in Mati, which did not impress his audience.

There will doubtless be an enquiry and equally doubtless nobody will be blamed and no radical action will ensue. The residents might have been more pro-active in ensuring their own safety. The municipality might have reminded itself about its duties and obtained the necessary resources. The fire service may ponder on the necessity of safety assessments for every community. Most of all the Greek Government should think why successive governments have neglected their basic duties and betrayed their people.

Burnt Houses in Mati

Today identification of 85 burnt and mutilated bodies continues and in time there will be a number of highly emotional funerals. Will these poor souls have died in vain?

SMD

27.07.18

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018

THE LEFT STIRS

A wave of Disillusion is sweeping the Western world with many electors turning their backs on conventional ideas and traditional shibboleths. Some of this insurrectionary sentiment will no doubt be a 9-day wonder and old battle-lines will reappear. But there are several issues which gnaw at the consciences of a wide public and the political class has been notably slow or ineffective in addressing them.

The tipping point for disillusion was the Financial Crisis which first struck in 2007 and became a global nightmare in 2008. All confidence in the integrity and competence of leading bankers, insurers, mortgage providers, central bankers and politicians evaporated in a matter of months. New faces have been substituted but the guilty from the past have not been punished: their conduct was not judged criminal though their recklessness and greed affected every household in the West. As the past is raked up, people react with disgust at the behaviour of those in Wall Street, the City and in Frankfurt whom they once esteemed. Nor has this conduct much improved as a spate of hefty fines for misrepresentation, rate-rigging and misconduct continues to flow. The public are still regarded by the financiers as sheep to be sheared.

In the US, many financial institutions failed or had to be rescued. Vast amounts of taxpayers’ money were mobilised in this stabilising effort but in essence the old elite was protected. Obscene remuneration packages are still prevalent.

Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, saviours/stooges of the old order

The gap between the super-rich (“the billionaires”) and the middle class is quickly widening. It is not to indulge in the politics of envy to question how tolerable this phenomenon may be. I watched Bernie Sanders the self-proclaimed “Socialist Democrat” debating on TV with Hillary Clinton, and his admittedly un-costed programme of re-imposing Glass-Stiegel, introducing comprehensive welfare, abolishing student loans and staying out of Middle East entanglements seemed sensible enough to me and struck a chord with the enthusiastic audience. Hillary will easily win the Democratic nomination, but Bernie pulls her leftwards – God save us from a dumbo Donald Trump presidency!

In Britain we talk of the “loony Left” with much justification and I have no feel as to how long Jeremy Corbyn will remain Labour leader. But he is the real thing ideologically and that thrills his supporters. The electoral pendulum will swing Left in due course. Tory reduction in tax credits for the poor is a risky strategy, easily depicted as uncaring and selfish, while deficit reduction is necessary but politically unsexy. The new Living Wage is a good counterweight but employers hate it. The Tories are probably safe enough until 2020 but their majority is thin and their backbenchers notoriously undisciplined. Disagreements over Europe may yet split the party – Brexit seems an imperative to me - and open the door to the renascent Left under Corbyn and his coterie. Corbyn too crusades against social inequality and unaffordable housing, serious issues requiring urgent solutions.

The UK's putative masters - John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson

Europe is in an appalling mess. It has all the hallmarks of a 1960s model car which has failed to adapt to the 2015 world. Protectionist and statist, Europe is falling behind her competitors: France, nominally socialist, is a busted flush struggling to keep up economically. Once mighty Germany is sullied by corruption abroad and corporate cheating at home. Her leadership is absurdly overrated as U-turn succeeds somersault over Ukraine, energy policy and mass immigration. Angela Merkel, like infinitely superior Margaret Thatcher, will be succeeded by some dim John Major figure but one day the Left will rule with unknowable but perilous consequences on the Rhine. Mediterranean Europe seethes under economically illiterate policies imposed by remote Brussels panjandrums like Schaeuble, Dijsselbloem and Juncker.

Dijsselbloem, Juncker and Schaeuble, Europe's grim triad

Years of blatant corruption from the conservative and socialist parties in Greece have made then unelectable, allowing radical leftist SYRIZA under Alexis Tsipras to fill the vacuum. The EU hate and fear this government and thought they had crushed it for ever when Tsipras was forced to knuckle under to the austerity diktats of the EuroGroup. However Tsipras strolled to a comfortable victory in the 20 September election, managed to dump his more extreme supporters and will be in charge for at least 4 more years. He faces a massive task to reform and clean up Greece. Tsipras remains a man of the Left and SYRIZA has the capacity to embarrass Europe on issues as diverse as mass Muslim immigration, debt forgiveness and the pursuit of tax evaders, bribe-givers and politicians on the take throughout Europe.

The Left nudges us all in some positive directions. I do not see Reds under the Bed or Barbarians at the Gate. The West simply needs to bring fresh thinking to perennial problems, to listen to the people and respect their sovereignty.

SMD

17.10.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE KEEPS TSIPRAS BUT DISCARDS THE MIGRANTS

Alexis Tsipras is a most fortunate politician. After 8 months in office, his policies of defying Austerity, releasing Greece from EuroZone control and lightening the burden on his people have all turned to dust and ashes. He has had to submit to the disciplines of the euro, agree to a further tightening of taxes and start a radical overhaul of the tottering governmental institutions of Greece to win his €85bn bailout. His SYRIZA party was badly split, many unwilling to ignore the thumping anti-Europe verdict of the 5 July referendum, with 30% of his parliamentary members defecting or fleeing. Tsipras called elections and in many a democracy he would be out on his ear. In fact he strolled to a comfortable enough victory, albeit on a low 56% turnout, winning 145 seats out of 300, sealing his power by renewing his coalition with rightist Independent Greeks with their 11 seats. His re-accession has been greeted with the mother and father of a storm in Athens, thunder, lightning and a tornado – he has clearly upset the gods, but then we always knew that Zeus was a crusty backwoodsman Tory, itching to hurl his deadly bolts at any impertinent upstart.

Alexis Tsipras and Panos Kammenos celebrate their renewed coalition

     

The vanquished Vangelis Meimarakis

Tsipras’ road back was eased by the weakness of his opponents. There are now 9 parties in the Greek parliament and SYRIZA’s only serious rival was conservative New Democracy. It had an interim leader, Vangelis Meimarakis, a genial Cretan with the eyebrows and moustache of a taverna-owner. He is very much of the old guard and Greece needs a vision for the future. The other parties range from the horrible neo-Nazi Golden Dawn to the joyless hard-line Communists, with some oddball centrists in between. The once mighty PASOK is now led by lady Fofi Gennimata, easier on the eye than obese and snarling Evangelos Venizelos, but basically ineffectual. The SYRIZA dissidents, mainly from the far Left, only polled 2.9% and failed to reach the Parliamentary threshold of 3%.

Tsipras will have his work cut out to satisfy Brussels and Berlin. There is no goodwill towards Greece anywhere in Europe and the feeble Greek civil service will need stiffening by Germans and French just to keep pace with the changes. Home evictions and pension cuts are certain to raise popular tensions. The Greek economy needs to grow and there is scant sign of that as yet. Greece and Grexit may yet come back to haunt the chancelleries of Europe.

……………………………

A much bigger problem for Europe has been the Migration Crisis. An unprecedented wave of people (a “swarm” in Cameron’s accurate but rather unsympathetic phrase) has illegally entered Europe. Many are Syrians, Libyans and Afghans fleeing civil war or the horrors of ISIL. More are economic migrants from Turkey, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea and sub-Saharan Africa seeking a better life in prosperous Europe especially in Germany and Scandinavia. Refugee camps have long bulged in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States offering no sanctuary). This summer, the often calm Mediterranean has been an irresistible magnet for a quick sea journey from Turkey to the Greek islands or from Libya to Italy. Many drownings have wrenched the consciences of the West.

3-year-old Aylan Kurdi drowns

A Syrian father in desperation

Emotions have run high and many individual kindnesses, charitable instincts and actions have been stimulated to which all honour is due. Governments in Europe have been totally confused. Early attempts to fortify or close borders have manifestly failed. The numbers have been overwhelming around 500,000 arriving in 2015, already twice the total for 2014, a busy year. There are said to be at least 4m more wanting to come to Europe. The Greek islands of Lesvos, Cos and Chios have been inundated. The small port of Mytilene on Lesvos had 3 port policemen – now swollen to 60 but still not enough. The Greeks have given up controlling this influx and merely send them to the border with Skopje-Macedonia and onwards to Serbia, Croatia and Hungary to be met variously with open arms, pepper-spray and razor-wire. Austria has been generous (20,000 got there last weekend) and refugees were warmly welcomed in the streets of Munich, with Angela Merkel hailed as an unlikely Mother Theresa figure. However second thoughts are beginning to appear there.

Germany and France are backing a quota system to spread the migrants about, but Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania do not want any (Slovakia only might take Christians!). Britain will take 20,000 over 5 years.

Migrants storming the ferry at Lesvos

What to do with them all?  In the 1930s there was talk of settling stateless Europeans in Uganda or Madagascar (doubtful if the locals were consulted) but it was deemed impractical. I guess we will just have to live and let live together. Germany claims to have absorbed 8m Turks in the 50-odd years since 1960 and the migrants are only treading the well-worn path of the Goths, Vandals, Huns and Vikings. No doubt New Aleppos will spring up around Augsburg and Sheffield and there will be a resounding culture clash. I simply plead with our guests to be tactful. It is not quite the done thing to practice halal ritual slaughter on the Promenade at Folkestone and do not even think about inflicting FGM on our Rita down at the Barnsley chippie!

SMD

22.09.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

LEFTIES AT WAR

The imminent election as the Leader of the Labour Party, and putative UK Prime Minister, of loony-Leftist Jeremy Corbyn will make for a great comedy and probably ensure another Tory win in 2020. In Greece, nominally Leftie Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been doing handsprings and back somersaults to keep inside the Eurozone and to outmanoeuvre 25 dissidents in his own SYRIZA parliamentary group. He has called for new elections for 20 September which should rid him of his extreme Marxist millstone and allow the government of Greece to be carried out in a more-or-less rational manner (some hope!).

Struggles between the factions of the Left tend to be blood-and-thunder affairs and if a climax involving an ice-pick á la Trotsky is unlikely these days, we can be sure the brothers will be anything but fraternal and there will be none of the politely hypocritical “after you, Rupert” which characterises Tory power-pitches. Jeremy Corbyn is a throwback to a much earlier Labour generation, wanting to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy, sack the Governor of the Bank if he declines to print money to order, disarm unilaterally, end Osborne’s mild version of austerity and soak the rich. Even Michael Foot would have swallowed hard before promulgating such an insane programme, containing elements of Red Clydeside and envious trades union triumphalism.

Jeremy Corbyn rallies the faithful

The coronation of Jeremy seems inevitable in a shambolic election marred by entryism and chicanery – mind you the other candidates Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall (who? who?) hardly set the pulses a-racing. Labour seems to be succumbing to a death wish, shrinking into a dismal sect like the erstwhile Tribune Group or even The Levellers.

And yet……Politics is a notoriously unpredictable business and elections are a lottery if the public is fickle. Expect the unexpected – the SNP swept Scotland earlier this year, maybe Corbynmania will one day afflict the South like an outbreak of rabies or St Vitus Dance and the bearded wonder will be adored by the WI in Surrey and in the banking parlours of Moorgate. Stranger things have happened.

40 economists, including Danny Blanchflower, ex-Bank of England, have supported Corbyn’s anti-austerity stance, which they describes as “mainstream”. The same kind of economic accolade was bestowed on Tsipras’ defiant policies towards the Eurozone by two Nobel laureates and Tsipras duly won his referendum denouncing austerity. Yet within days he realised that kissing the hem of the robe of Wolfgang Schaeuble was a price he had to pay to stay within the Euro and he duly abased himself. Tsipras and his demonised Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis may well have been “right” but the rest of the Eurozone were unpersuaded and surrender to the majority was unavoidable.

In Greece Tsipras remains very popular. He is admired for standing up to rich Europeans and his failure is seen as almost heroic. Reforming Greek pension schemes, cutting state spending and tackling the omnipotent oligarchs can maybe only be done by a relatively clean man of the Left like Tsipras. Hope remains that substantial Greek debt will be written off, a pet scheme of Varoufakis and now of Christine Lagarde from the IMF. Schaeuble may revive his idea of Greece “temporarily” leaving the Euro if this were to be done – a good Grexit deal in my view but not one with appeal to the Greek electorate.

The Greek political landscape is fragmented. The conservative New Democracy has an uninspiring interim leader Meimarakis, socialist PASOK has a new unknown lady leader and is weak, Potami is terminally ineffective – only the new SYRIZA splinter party Popular Unity, led by firebrand Panagiotis Lafazanis (another beardie!) with 25 members has much talent but their policies of leaving NATO, cosying up to Russia and the Arab world, nationalising the banks and dismantling capitalism are electoral poison and make Corbyn sound like Abe Lincoln. Popular Unity will simply disappear.

Radical Leftists Tsipras and Lafazanis

So I believe Tsipras will win the forthcoming election and will move more clearly towards Social Democracy. He may need a new coalition partner (Greeks do not easily do compromise) but he could give Greece the stability it has lacked in recent years. There are serious questions to answer all over Europe – how to narrow the gap between the very rich and the others, how to cater for an ageing population how to deal with mass immigration from the East – and above all how to get Europe economically prosperous again. Let the politicians show their mettle!

SMD

24.08.15

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE: LACKING THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

This is the time of year I normally write a sun-kissed update on the good life in Greece among the olive trees, the blue Med, the tasty kebabs and the chirruping cicadas. This year of 2015, there is palpable unease; a middle-class Greek friend of ours, reading about production collapses and stock market slumps, lowered her eyes and groaned “We are drowning!” Greece has been in difficulties for at least 6 years, but usually in early August the Greeks forget all that and concentrate on enjoying their blissful summer holidays. Bitterly divided themselves, surrounded by hostile states and beset by their creditor/”partners” in Europe, the outlook this month has seldom been darker or more hopeless. Everything is going wrong.

The sick charade of “discussions” between Greece and the Troika about the 3^rd bailout stagger on. Greece has already totally surrendered to the Eurozone and passed the enabling legislation. But as usual, the devil is in the detail and the Troika team is now led by Romanian iron lady Delia Velculescu of the IMF fresh from sucking the blood of Cyprus. She has been piling on the agony, demanding deeper cuts and much tighter impositions than had first been announced.

Delia Velculescu, the new scourge of Greece

There is a surreal aspect to these discussions in that Tsipras of Greece has stated the terms are much too onerous and unworkable and the IMF has already said it will not participate unless there is a substantial (30%+?) write-off of Greek debt. The Eurozone, especially Germany, refuses to consider any debt write-offs and will not participate in the bailout unless the IMF does so too. So deadlock and the collapse of talks seem inevitable. Greece will be forced willy-nilly out of the Euro despite her love affair with this wretched currency.  Germany will be shot of Greece, which is what she really wants. The ensuing period in Greece will be fraught, the leftist SYRIZA will be blamed, unjustly, and the panicked electorate could easily turn to the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, noisily nationalistic while her leaders are gradually released from custody. Let us hope that wiser counsels somehow prevail.

It is not easy to whistle in the dark. Despite extravagant claims, I cannot believe Greek tourism is booming. The modest hotels here on Samos have plenty proletarian Eastern European tourists on inclusive terms, but they hardly spend a bean. The usual open-handed Greek tourists are absent, the restaurants and tavernas are empty, the cars for hire immobile. Capital controls prevent Greeks from accessing their savings apart from €420 per week in cash, not much for a family in high season; so they stay at home dismally. Tempers are short, money is elusive and fear for the future stalks the land. Maybe things are better in the up-market resorts like Santorini, Mykonos and Corfu but the summer will soon end and grim reality intrude.

The world around adds to the problems. Every day at least 50 immigrants, mainly fleeing from Syria, arrive near us in Karlovasi in leaky boats from Turkey. They are allotted door-steps at the port and tiny patches of ground. They wash their clothes and depend on the locals (nothing from the municipality, NGOs or Europe) to give them food and water and milk for the many children. In the heat, generously people rally round. After a day or two they get temporary papers and a ferry passage to Athens. They are pointed in the direction of the Balkans and some get to Italy, some to France, most to Germany or Scandinavia. Greece can afford nothing: the problem is immense and insoluble.

Of course life carries on. The vineyards will be harvested in August – no problem about accessing the local wine, thank heavens! The Feast of the Assumption on 15 August marks the climax of the summer; there will be processions, conviviality and a few day’s break. The sea will be warm well into September, often a balmy month. By October, many seasonal places will close, the university students will have returned, hoping against hope for a decent job in Greece but making contingency plans for heart-breaking exile elsewhere.

The bay of Avlakia, Samos, where we eat heavenly food at Kosmos

So the problems abound in 2015. But the beauty of Greece is eternal and the spirit of her people will surely revive as she creates her own destiny.

SMD

4.08.15

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE: SALVATION AND DAMNATION

It has been a torrid political July in Greece. Deadlock with the Eurozone brought in capital controls and closed banks on 1 July followed by a stunning 61%/39% referendum vote rejecting further austerity on 5 July. The euphoria was short-lived, even though slippery New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras resigned; high profile finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was also dropped and on 12 July Alexis Tsipras and new finance man Euclid Tsakalotos were forced to accept astonishingly harsh terms from the Eurozone for a €86bn third bailout. These terms were approved by Parliament on 15 July, with SYRIZA badly split, but with much opposition help. Turmoil and recriminations abound.

Tsipras besieged and defiant

 

       

Tsakalotos exhausted and depressed

Illusions and contradictions have plagued this issue in a bewildering manner. The Greek government misled its people by offering both continued membership of the euro and an end to austerity. It was either one or the other – not both. An end to austerity could only come, after a turbulent period, from Grexit, while staying with the euro involved a bailout on harsh terms. The Greeks decided that Grexit was too risky and they had to swallow the bailout terms. They were in no position to resist further. The stark fact is that Greece will have borrowed €336bn in 3 bailouts; its lenders expect to be repaid and have little sympathy for a serially mismanaged debtor.

The Eurozone for years has maintained that membership is permanent and unchangeable. Yet Germany suddenly proposed that Greece “takes 5 years out” to steady herself with her own new drachma currency, helped by the others, in a “velvet” Grexit. This might have been the way forward if it had been suggested months ago but it was aired far too late and seemed to be just another bright idea from incurably Hellenophobic Wolfgang Schaeuble. Angela Merkel and the EU Commission seem to have rejected the idea, but it still hovers somewhere in the Brussels/Berlin miasma. We may well hear more of this proposal.

The economic “thinking” behind the new bailout terms is absurd. Greece should certainly enact laws to overhaul its pension system, update labour laws, liberalise professions and slash government extravagance in a Thatcherite fashion. The €50bn “trust fund” however is a naked asset-strip and its expectation of being “monetised” soon is fantasy – who will buy nationalised Greek assets at a fair value? This provision has all the hallmarks of the poison pens of Schaeuble and his Dutch minion Dijsselbloem. But Greece is in no position to increase taxes (assuming they are collected) nor to run an annually increasing surplus; her economy is in its 6^th year of deep recession. She needs stimulus, not deflation. Most of all she needs jobs for her 26% unemployed, few of whom receive any state benefits. Europe has failed to bring any intellectual vitality to the party.

Reaction in Greece has been predictably bitter. Successive Greek governments bear most of the blame and the situation is not helped by insults and lurid adjectives. Protests took a predictable course; anarchists tossed their traditional Molotov cocktails at the riot police; civil servants went on strike; Varoufakis tweeted about the idiocy of the Eurozone. The fraught issue of debt sustainability will re-surface soon, as all know Greece cannot shoulder such high debt and write-offs are inevitable in due course. Talk of the solidarity of the Eurozone and its inevitable progress have a hollow ring here – never have European states hated each other so much since 1945.

Nobody comes out of this well and no fundamental issue has been resolved. Greece was dealt a weak hand yet failed to find any dependable allies or set out a coherent narrative; Merkel showed that she was wholly lacking in leadership qualities, whatever her many flatterers may say: France seemed helpful in the last days but was essentially doing Germany’s dirty work politely: the EU Commission fluttered about but Juncker is not an inspiring figure; only Schaeuble was presumably satisfied that his arrogance and vindictiveness triumphed, but at how high a cost for the reputation of Germany and the blighted future of Europe.

Europe has never been more disunited and disgraced. Greece is a side-show but her martyrdom will be regretted and ever deplored. The British people will surely remember how Greece was treated in the UK’s 2017 Referendum together with the craven actions of the EU and they will cry “OUT” to defend their own national integrity with an overwhelming voice.

SMD

17.07.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE:A LOUD "NO" TO EURO-BLACKMAIL

It was, to be frank, an idiotic referendum asking a highly technical question about a Eurozone offer, which had since been withdrawn. But it came to be seen as submission to, or defiance of, the diktats of the Eurozone. By a 61%-39% margin, the Greeks chose brave defiance and can now walk tall into the Fiery Furnace. The arrogant fat-cats in Brussels and Berlin have received a well-deserved poke in the eye.

EuroGroup chairman's Dijsselbloem's horror at the referendum result

I am a neo-Thatcherite Tory and hold no brief for SYRIZA, especially for its loony Left faction, a useless amalgam of the ghosts of Jack Jones, Hughie Scanlon, Wedgie Benn and Michael Foot – incapable of running a whelk-stall. If I had a vote I would support ANEL (Independent Greeks), the junior members of the coalition, doughty enemies of austerity but otherwise solidly conservative. There are capable SYRIZA people, including Alexis Tsipras himself, Nadia Valavani, architect of a generous tax instalment scheme and Euclid Tsakalotos, economic spokesman, educated at St Paul’s, who read PPE at Oxford and also has an Oxford PhD, low-key and civilised.

Charismatic Yanis Varoufakis has just resigned as Finance Minister to help Tsipras clear the air. The other Euro Finance Ministers hated him for his lecturing manner and simply because he was much smarter than they. He repeatedly insisted that Greece needs debt relief, anathema to the Eurozone, although the IMF eventually supported his views. It is, alas, a vain hope that Wolfgang Schaeuble has the same modesty to realise that his sclerotic views are an obstacle to any agreement and his retirement aged 72 is now overdue.

Schaeuble and Varoufakis, the best of enemies

The Eurozone’s treatment of Greece regarding the referendum has been despicable. Brussels and Berlin reckoned here was the great chance of regime change and they bombarded the venal Greek media with mendacious propaganda about the imminent collapse of the banks, about the coming hardships and shortages and, they talked of approaching “Armageddon”.  They made common cause with the wholly discredited Greek opposition (RIP today for Mr Samaras and his gang.). Germany’s vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel blatantly called on Greeks to vote “Yes”, as did bibulous EU President Juncker, upsetting the Greeks no end.  The Eurozone bag of poison embraced browbeating and economic blackmail, racial insults of “lazy” Greeks (“Untermenschen”) and a huge dose of lies and misrepresentation. Their erstwhile mentors, Messrs Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels, have taught them well.

But history only takes you so far. In practical terms Greece needs to do a deal with the Eurozone soon to win an infusion of funds combined with some long-term hope, maybe with a debt relief element. All depends on the goodwill (sic!) of the ECB. Otherwise, and I would say inevitably, Greece should leave the Euro and run its own devalued currency. Properly managed and governed that could be the making of Greece, but faith in Hellenic common sense and determination is in short supply. Thrill and astonish us, Mr Tsipras!

Tsipras triumphant on 5 July 2015

                                   

SMD

6.07.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015                    

GREECE ON THE BRINK OF GREXIT

After 5 months of posturing, wriggling, misinformation, ultimatums, deadlines and acrimonious exchanges it finally looks as if (events can change here with extraordinary rapidity) Greece will finally exit the Eurozone after her bailouts expire on 30 June and she fails to pay amounts due to the IMF on the same day. The Greek, European and certainly the British public have been bored to tears by the whole sorry saga and have long subsided into a catatonic stupor. The fratricidal strife between Ed and David Miliband is a much more compelling story, if you are looking for blood and thunder, while rather more important issues like Russian aggression, ISIS expansion, Islamic terrorism and mass emigration from the Third World should really be troubling our pretty little heads.

The Greek Team, Tsipras and Varoufakis

Greece is by any measure a basket-case. GDP has declined 31% since 2010, unemployment is 26%, youth unemployment exceeds 50%. All industries, except tourism, are depressed and empty small shops, once a staple living for many Greeks, litter every high street. A fraudulent €130bn Eurozone imposition in 2010, stitching up the Greek taxpayer to bail out the French and German banks was followed by a €110bn tranche in 2012 carrying onerous conditions of austerity and reform. These economic policies have totally failed, triggering off a reverse multiplier effect. The feeble and corrupt Greek governments in power since 1981 and after The Crisis had done nothing to arrest this precipitate decline.

When Leftist SYRIZA won the January 2015 election, the Eurozone was alarmed. SYRIZA promised Greece an end to austerity and an end to servile obedience to the hated Troika (EU commission, ECB and IMF). “Negotiations” stumbled on for months with all Greek requests for alleviation of austerity met with adamant refusal and zero flexibility. Insistence by the Eurozone on further deflationary VAT taxation and cuts in pensions (already 40% down) were exposed as nonsense by charismatic economist Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister (not actually a member of SYRIZA). Varoufakis’ stance was supported by all academic opinion and even privately by some Eurozone officials; but in politics being right is only half the battle – persuading key players is also necessary. Austerity had long become a religion in Brussels and Berlin and apostasy was unthinkable.

Deadlock was inevitable in this scenario of “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”. The weak and outgunned Greek fox did well to bob and weave against wildly over-rated “Swabian housewife” Angela Merkel, sclerotic Wolfgang Schaeuble and the rest of the gang of Germanophil FANGS (Finland, Austria, Netherlands, Germany and Slovakia). Anonymous Hollande made France irrelevant, while recovering Spain, Portugal and Ireland were hostile. Only Italy’s Renzi was fitfully sympathetic. The EU Commission in Brussels tried to be helpful with Moscovici sensible but Juncker fluctuated daily and dispensed his slobbery kisses and tactile stroking to all comers (I pray he never receives Her Majesty!) Gloomy Draghi at the ECB has kept the Greek banks alive but is likely imminently to pull the plug. Preening Lagarde at the IMF is out of her depth.

Rigid Schaeuble

Sneering Dijsselbloem

                                                                            

The final (?) crisis came last week when the Greek plan was rejected out of hand and the Eurozone responded with even tougher conditions. Tsipras of Greece was furious: “This odd stance seems to indicate that either there is no interest in an agreement or that special interests are being backed.” In truth the Eurozone were not negotiating in good faith, they were hell-bent on regime change and were indeed backing special interests – the Quisling political parties in Athens, led by Samaras of New Democracy. As time was running short, the Eurozone expected Tsipras to buckle under and submit to their diktats. In fact he completely wrong-footed them by calling a 5 July referendum on the Eurozone proposals, as he has no mandate to leave the Euro, but he will oppose their programme. He fights for Greece and with this move “Even the ranks of Tuscany, could scarce forbear to cheer.”

Greece faces a difficult number of months as a new currency will have to be introduced and there will be much disruption. If we were in France in 1793, the tumbrils would be rolling. The worst of the scare-mongering I largely discount; a devaluation is a necessary stimulus and does not mean the end of civilisation as we know it. Greece really needs help in the form of debt forgiveness and a mini-Marshall Plan but Europe does not have the imagination or generosity to proffer it. Greece will muddle through and the Eurozone will heave a sigh of relief, though its financial loss will be huge.

But, what a dismal example the whole episode is of Euro-incompetence. The UK electorate should take note and vote a Big “OUT” at the 2017 In/Out referendum!

SMD

28.06.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

MEDIA SPIN AND FRENZY

I am mildly addicted to keeping up with “the news” particularly with a general election in Britain and here the interminable wrangle between the Eurozone and Greece about bail-out finance. What I see and hear on TV and in the written media sometimes excites and pleases but more often depresses and dismays me and I suspect that is precisely the intention of those who control the media. I and millions of others are essentially having our intellectual defences weakened as a prelude to manipulation and exploitation by powerful vested interests. We need to resist their deceptions.

Techniques of persuasion or, more brutally, propaganda, have been refined greatly in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Now “the News” is a manufactured article, distilled by mendacious press releases, pithy sound bites and by armies of spokesmen and lobbyists. Almost 100 years ago, a vituperative newspaper campaign against unflappable Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, full of half-truths and distortion, helped bring down his coalition in 1916. A similar series of attacks on Stanley Baldwin in 1931 provoked him to utter his famous put-down of the rampant Press Barons: They are aiming to exercise power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. This shaft hit home (Baldwin had borrowed the phrase from his cousin Rudyard Kipling) and Rothermere and Beaverbrook were firmly shut up.

Britain's modern Press Barons have been a rum lot – remember Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, much favoured by bankers and fawned upon by politicians but hardly convincing guardians of the common weal. British newspapers are often fiercely partisan, most of conservative hue, like The Telegraph, The Times and the Daily Mail though the Left is catered for in The Guardian, The Independent and in parts of the provincial press. The populist tabloids switch sides inconsistently. The TV and radio channels are regulated by an Ofcom Code requiring impartiality and although I am often enraged by what I think is Leftie bias in the BBC, the consensus seems to be that most broadcast media is broadly impartial; Sky News and ITV are accused of maybe leaning too far towards the Right. 

The current election campaign will be an exercise in distortion. The voters will be offered false choices (“either support our NHS spending programme or face the closure of your hospital”), selective statistics, half-truths and the suppression of inconvenient facts. The electorate want to see and hear the party leaders but their public exposure will be carefully choreographed; face to face debates are sharply limited and while some monitors of discussions are excellent – Julie Etchingham of ITV and David Dimbleby for the BBC shone – the ego of Jeremy Paxman intruded into the Sky/Channel 4 interviews of Cameron and Miliband, as if the viewers wanted to hear him and not the politicians.

Pass the sick-bag, Alice

 The TV programmes, especially the 5 challengers evening on BBC before a clearly Leftie audience, gave unwarranted exposure to undeserving outsiders; the sight of the 3 witches from Plaid, the Greens and the SNP embracing enthusiastically afterwards, beside a sheepish Miliband, leaving Farage rather forlorn and isolated was one of the more stomach-churning moments so far. 

The OBR tries to keep the politicians honest when it comes to statistics about the economy but not much restraint is shown elsewhere. New words have been coined – “truthiness” (gut feeling as fact) and “proofiness” (bogus statistics) to describe common political debating techniques. Thus we hear about the number of immigrants, HIV infection among them, the prevalence of zero-hours contracts, the rate of deficit reduction, the future value of Scotland’s oil – all matters open to interpretation and spin – and we are left none the wiser. Mercifully the campaign itself is quite short, although all the signs are that the result will not be clear-cut and unfamiliar coalition building will occupy Westminster and bemuse the voters for many days after polling.

Yet the British media is far better regulated than the Greek, Greece being the place for “excitement”, if that is what you want, as Cameron rather sardonically remarked. The main Greek press and media channels are all owned by highly conservative oligarchs, who have ne’er a good word and many a bad one to say about the incumbent SYRIZA government. There are endless political panel programmes on TV with some kind of “balance”- accommodating all the 6 parties in Parliament (neo-Nazi Golden Dawn excluded). Greek politicians are noisy, shrill and dishonest so the discussions usually end up in an undignified shouting match. New Democracy’s star-turn is loudly manic Adonis Geogiadis, operating at off-the-meter decibel levels, probably certifiable in any normal society. The Greek equivalent of the BBC, mismanaged ERT, was closed down as an economy measure in 2013 but has partly reopened. Journalists and commentators of any previous reputation are now cosily in the financial pocket of the oligarchs. Nobody expected any better of Greece.

What makes the situation scandalous is the interference of the EU. The grand-daddy of all propagandists was the unlamented Dr Josef Goebbels, henchman of Adolf and fellow-suicide in the 1945 Berlin Bunker. Goebbels specialised in The Big Lie, wholly fictional, and repeated so often and so loudly that his audience came to believe it. His heirs in Berlin and Brussels do not repeat his ravings about “the Zionist world conspiracy” but have moved on to “the sacred status and irresistible progress of the Euro”, equally fictitious. They use well-trodden techniques, mud-slinging, ignoring proof, card-stacking and so on to spread their gospel. 

Wolfgang Schaeuble playing the blame-game

      

The Eurogroup’s struggle with Greece is well known. After the latest abrasive dust-up in Riga, it has mounted a concerted campaign via Bild and such-like against Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. They call him “irresponsible”, “amateur”, a “gambler” and say he is impossible to work with. On cue, the Greek media uses exactly the same vocabulary to defame Varoufakis. In truth, Varoufakis is no amateur, but a professional economist and he regales the Eurogroup in perfect English with mini-lectures on the merits of Keynesian economics – the multiplier effect of government spending etc. – views long rejected by monetarist Eurozone governments. So Varoufakis irritates them, though they suspect he may be right. They campaign for Varoufakis’ removal (the German ambassador directly asked Tsipras to sack him) a blatant interference with Greek sovereignty. It is of course the message rather than the messenger they hate – Euro austerity is a toxic failed policy which SYRIZA refuse to administer further to the ailing Greek economy. The Eurogroup’s real aim, under puppet-master Schaeuble, is to bring down the SYRIZA government of Alexis Tsipras.

If they succeed, the ghost of Dr Goebbels will be proud of their handiwork. 

SMD

27.04.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015

GREECE ON THE BRINK

The long-running drama surrounding Greece’s ability to stay in the Eurozone will soon be resolved. After all the sound and fury, I believe a calm decision needs soon to be made by the Greek government to announce she cannot meet her international liabilities, that she therefore will default, call for discussion with creditors and apply for further assistance from the IMF. The drachma will be introduced immediately in substitution for the euro together with appropriate capital controls. Creditors will have to accept a sharp haircut imposed by Greece. Contrary to the received wisdom I look upon this as a golden opportunity for Greece and a blessed relief for the rest of the Eurozone.

Polite Merkel and Tsipras but lacking chemistry

Greece has received two Eurozone injections - €110bn in 2010 and €130bn in 2012. It has now been confirmed, as long suspected, that the first tranche of €110bn was designed principally to enable Continental banks to withdraw funds from Greece to protect the euro, substituted by sovereign buying of Greek bonds. Negligible amounts actually filtered down to help the Greek economy; the inexperienced Greek government of the time näively did not understand these mechanics although Greek taxpayers had to service all the loan. The second tranche of €130bn was of more direct assistance, but was coupled with a draconian regime to enforce austerity and control all government expenditure and by this time Greece’s indebtedness had rocketed. PASOK Prime Minister George Papandreou appalled the Eurozone by saying he wanted first to call a referendum to approve this deal democratically; within 2 weeks he was deposed in murky circumstances and a slavishly pro-Eurozone coalition was established, first led by the technocrat-banker Papademos and then, after elections, by the New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, in coalition with the drastically diminished PASOK, who did anything Brussels and Berlin demanded.

The bail-out deal ended on 28 February but a month previously the cosy atmosphere in Athens changed with the election of SYRIZA a fierce critic of Eurozone policies. SYRIZA capitalised on the austerity-fatigue of the Greeks, the widespread social distress as unemployment, new taxes and deep welfare cuts bit, and on the corruption, incompetence and easy surrender of national sovereignty of the New Democracy – PASOK coalition government. After an unseemly wrangle the Eurozone agreed to extend the bail-out deal to 30 June, but any disbursements (€7.2bn is undrawn) were linked to Greece towing the Eurozone line. 

To the indignation of the Brussels fat-cats, Eurozone policies have been challenged for the first time by pipsqueak Greece and the logic of its programme ridiculed by articulate and highly qualified economist Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister. Greece has (admittedly rather belatedly) produced a comprehensive schedule of costed economic measures, but the Eurozone has only nit-picked, complained and procrastinated. There is no political will in Brussels and Berlin to disburse any funds, while ever larger Greek repayments to the IMF loom. There is no meeting of minds between Greece and the Eurozone; default and Greek exit from the Eurozone look inevitable.

Schaeuble and Varoufakis fail to agree

Tragically both sides are right. The Eurozone will point to Greece’s bad record of combining promises with minimal action. No creditor will lend more without careful monitoring. The Greeks, with their history of corruption and incompetence, cannot easily be trusted. Moreover if austerity worked in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, why not in Greece? The Greeks say they are determined to reform their economy but the concrete evidence of this is sparse. The Greeks in turn look upon the Eurozone-imposed programme as an affront to their sovereignty and they reject it entirely. The medicine simply does not work and they explain the inelasticities of their creaky economy and the urgency of their programme of social spending. Under protest they have submitted their own programme, but feel they do not need to justify every word to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels while they themselves have a strong democratic mandate. A variety of quite separate side issues has emerged – Greece’s justified pressure for sensible discussions about German WW2 reparations, Greece’s rather cynical wooing of Putin’s dangerous Russia, German and conservative hatred of any Leftist regime in Europe.

 If Grexit is inevitable, it will be a major set-back both for Greece and for the Eurozone. The Brussels commission will have failed to keep the Euro band-wagon running smoothly. Certainly other debt-laden nations will examine their options carefully.  But in the broader scheme of affairs, Greece is a gadfly and her defection may be manageable for the Eurozone.

Ideological tensions were inevitable. Of the 30+ ministers in the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition, 6 once sat on the Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party – seasoned proponents of Agitprop, and probably imperfectly cleansed of their old credo. SYRIZA is not well-disciplined, but remember, to the average Greek voter it is infinitely preferable to the fetid previous New Democracy – PASOK coalition. Staying in the Eurozone is a SYRIZA talisman so Grexit will be a heavy political blow.

 The Eurozone does all it can to undermine the Tsipras government; a stream of vituperation emanates daily from Germany and her satraps - I call them the FANGS (Finland, Austria, Netherlands, Germany and Slovakia). Mario Draghi at the supposedly neutral European Central Bank has been notably hostile and exercises any discretionary decision against Greece.

Internally SYRIZA is of course beset by the New Democracy opposition with deluded Antonis Samaras preening himself as a triumphantly returning Prime Minister – some hope! The Press and the TV channels, mainly oligarch-owned, attack the government constantly and sow despair and discontent. Yet SYRIZA remains popular and would easily enough win any election or sway any referendum. It receives solid support from conservative Independent Greeks, opposed to austerity and German domination, led by outspoken defence minister Panos Kamenos.

Grexit, if it comes, may be a long drawn-out process. Greece will impose capital controls belatedly to reduce the flight of capital from her stricken banks: the can could “be kicked down the road” by the Eurozone eking out small doses of the promised funds. Even a default can be subject to grace periods and delayed recognition. 

Yet Greece fundamentally cannot pursue any independent policy within the Euro. Its goods are over-priced, her labour costs are too high and her institutions are not up to the challenge. It is better to confront reality. The return of the drachma will usher in a substantial devaluation, bringing short-term severe shortages and dislocation. In time however Greece will find markets in Europe and elsewhere for her agricultural produce, relatively substantial extractive industries, modest modern industries and growing tourism. Maybe she can stay in the EU, but she may be better off not being subject to Brussels rules and quality standards. If Brussels is at all helpful the transition can be less painful, but the Eurozone will be very unhappy and maybe embittered by the financial haircut Grexit will imply.

The remaining Eurozone should be happy that a long, intractable headache is over. The dream of a fully integrated United States of Europe can be developed by core Europe, even if one or two drop out like Greece. I am glad that the United Kingdom will not be part of this “ever closer union” – at odds with our history, culture and national predispositions. May European, Greek and British statesmen rise to the momentous occasion!

SMD

15.04.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015