Δημοσιεύτηκε στο «Berkeley Blog», διαδικτυακό τόπο σχολιασμού και ανάλυσης του Πανεπιστημίου Καλιφόρνιας στο Berkeley (Πέμπτη 29 Ιανουαρίου 2015)
Under an
electoral system of dubious rationality (not to say fairness), SYRIZA, with 149
MPs out of 300, has come within a whisker of winning an overall majority of
seats in Parliament. The next government can count on the support of
‘Independent Greeks’, and secure a vote of confidence – at least for now.
So, what does
this all mean, for Greece and for Europe?
Looking back in anger
SYRIZA’s
meteoric rise to power is incomprehensible outside the context of the country’s
2009 debt crisis and 2010 bailout. The five years of misery that followed, with
GDP shrinking by 24% and unemployment rising to 27%, transformed Greek politics
beyond recognition. The sudden fall in living standards was a rude awakening
from the euphoria of the previous decade, when the Greek economy grew faster
than the EU average.
Moreover, the
humiliation of having the details of government policy dictated by unelected
officials in Brussels, Frankfurt or Washington DC, provoked a widespread sense
of impotence and anger. SYRIZA deftly exploited popular feelings, becoming the
leading force among anti-austerity forces, which included not only the
communists and the extreme Left but also the nationalist Right, with the
‘external’ support of the neonazis of Golden Dawn.
Strange bedfellows
Inevitably, all
this resulted in a fair degree of contamination. ‘Independent Greeks’, the reactionary party of
the xenophobic Right that emerged as SYRIZA’s main ally, has been rewarded for
its loyalty to the anti-austerity
cause with cabinet seats, with party leader Panos Kammenos at Defence. Even more
alarmingly, Nikos Kotzias, an ex-communist (of the pro-Soviet anti-Gorbachev
variety) who gradually reinvented himself as a strident nationalist (anti-western,
pro-Putin), will be in charge of Foreign Affairs. Not surprisingly, the new
government’s first move in Europe was to oppose EU sanctions against Russia
over Ukraine.
The overlap
between leftists and nationalists reached grotesque dimensions in the case of
the notorious Rachil Makrì, ex-Independent Greek, now SYRIZA. Among her many
antics, her recent vitriolic attack (“Shame on him!”) to Yannis Boutaris, mayor
of Thessaloniki, for daring to wear the Star of David on the Day of the Shoa, a
long-delayed gesture of honour to the memory of the almost 50,000 members of
the city’s once thriving Jewish community who perished in the concentration
camps. None of this prevented the good people of Kozani, in NW Greece, from
sending her to Parliament on the SYRIZA list, with far more votes than any
other candidate.
Deceptive narratives
Does this
matter? It probably does. SYRIZA has framed Greece’s predicament over the last
five years as a struggle for national liberation from the foreign yoke. It
promised voters an easy and painless return to the good old days before the
bailout. And delegitimized those who challenged that view as lackeys of Angela
Merkel – including progressive commentators who had the temerity to point out that
perhaps some austerity and a great deal of reform may be inevitable in an
economy running a budget deficit at 15% of GDP, and a current account deficit
at 16% of GDP, as Greece did in 2009. SYRIZA would have none of this: it
interfered with the simple narrative (“We did so well until these bloody
foreigners started to meddle in our affairs”) that proved so popular and
eventually paved the party’s path to power.
Towards a debt deal?
It is in this
frame of mind that the new PM and his ministers will meet their European (and
German) counterparts in talks about the future of the ‘Greek programme’. In a
certain sense, Greece may be closer to a successful resolution of its debt
problem than ever before. The wave of sympathy to the country’s plight
internationally is putting pressure on Germany and other creditors to accept a
deal that will lighten the burden of debt on the Greek economy. The possible
outlines of such a deal were sketched last week by celebrated economists
Jeffrey Sachs in an article
on ‘The Guardian’, and Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Chris Pissarides,
together with others, in a letter
to ‘The Financial Times’. The deal would include a lower interest rate, an
extended maturity, and a period of grace until the economy recovered.
To be sure, a
large majority of German voters, and politicians, remain opposed to any debt
relief for Greece, under the banner of Pacta
sunt servanda. They resent what they see as ‘Greek blackmail’, and feel
they can afford to call the Greeks’ bluff. After all, the 2010 bailout gave
German banks the time they needed to reduce their exposure to Greek bonds, now mostly
held by ‘institutional creditors’ such as the ECB. But the pressure is
mounting. After all, as both Sachs and Stiglitz et al reminded readers, it was the
1953 debt relief of Germany that laid the groundwork for the country’s Wirtschaftswunder of the 1960s.
This is probably
the best deal Greece can expect: some debt relief, plus fiscal space to
engineer the recovery (and the new government’s social programme), in exchange
of commitment to reform and balanced budgets, under a more benign international
supervision regime.
U-turn if you want to!
Is this
likely to happen? Not very. But it is not inconceivable that a watered-down
version of such a deal might indeed be offered to the Greek government.
Will it be
accepted? The question is less absurd than it seems. The fact is that SYRIZA
negotiators will go to the talks with a mandate to demand comprehensive debt
write-off and an end to austerity. The party is allergic to reforms: it has
fought tooth and nail even the most innocuous of them, defending the ‘right’ of
some workers to retire in their 50s on a handsome pension, or the ‘right’ of
teachers not to be assessed for their performance (and not to be disciplined
for not turning up at work at all).
The more
sensible among SYRIZA negotiators probably recognise that their negotiating
position is, to put it mildly, in urgent need of rethink. But their room for manoeuvre is limited.
Their electorate and public opinion at home will expect no less. In the macho
posturing of the last 5 years (and beyond), ‘compromise’ has become a dirty
word. The very rhetoric that has made their political fortunes beyond their
wildest expectations now risks painting them into a corner.
This is the
situation we are in. On the one hand, a decisive U-turn on the part of SYRIZA would
be difficult to sell to MPs, the rank and file, and the electorate. On the
other hand, an ‘uncompromising’ stance would provide German ordoliberals the
pretext they need to reject Greek claims outright, even at the cost of GREXIT.
Watch this space.
