IF PUBLICITY gimmicks, political spin and defiant rhetoric could be monetised, Greece’s government would have covered all its funding needs for the year by now. Unfortunately these can be turned into votes during elections, but do not work when applied to negotiations for funding with lenders. The Syriza government should have realised this by now, after so many Eurogroup meetings that resulted in the same way – the demand for concrete reform proposals that would ensure Greece carries on meeting its budgetary targets.
This was agreed at the February 20 meeting of the Eurogroup, a deal Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis presented as a breakthrough and vindication of his positions. He also pledged to prepare a list of reforms over the weekend to submit to the Eurogroup for approval. The lists were submitted in instalments, but were vague and unconvincing – one of Varoufakis’ proposals was the recruitment of Greek citizens and foreign tourists to carry out tax inspections at establishments in the country’s tourist resorts. Were Syriza’s Marxist intellectuals joking or was this an illustration of their lack of experience of government?
How could Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Varoufakis expect to be taken seriously by lenders and win their confidence, when they showed more concern about wording and packaging than putting together concrete reform proposals? They both made a big issue out of inconsequential achievements such as the fact that they would not be dealing with the troika but with the ‘institutions’ and that they had replaced the memorandum with a ‘loan agreement’. They also barred the representatives of ‘institutions’ from visiting ministries, Greek technocrats meeting them at neutral venues instead.
This showed an astonishing lack of awareness of the precarious situation Greece is in. The country will have no money to meet its financial obligations within a few weeks and its government is taking stands over trivialities and playing silly games with the ‘institutions’ that would help its economy avoid entering a nuclear winter. There were also the daily onslaughts on Germany and its finance minister, which may have gone down well with the Greek public, but was not the smartest way to secure Berlin’s help or support. Yet tomorrow Tsipras will be visiting Berlin for talks with Chancellor Merkel.
This follows Tsipras’ marathon meeting, on the sidelines of the European summit in Brussels, with Merkel and other European leaders which lasted until the early hours of Friday. For some time Tsipras’ line has been that Greece’s economic problems should be addressed at a political level rather than by the Eurogroup’s finance ministers and on Thursday his wish came true. However, the European leaders merely repeated what the euro area finance ministers have been telling Varoufakis all along – to submit a list of reforms for evaluation, as soon as possible. Once the list of reforms is approved, the other eurozone countries will release the funds.
This was what was agreed on February 20, but the Greek government has still not managed to draft a list of reforms that could secure the approval of the lenders. Now that Greece’s problem has been addressed at a political level, with the same outcome, will Tsipras get serious and discover the sense of urgency that has been lacking so far? He said he was “more optimistic” after Thursday night’s meeting at which “all sides confirmed their intention to overcome the difficulties of the Greek economy as soon as possible.”
The reality, however, is that overcoming the difficulties, depends exclusively on one side – the Greek government which has so far failed to fulfil its February pledges. It has been given another chance, and it now has to decide whether it will carry on with the austerity measures (perhaps it could give them another name), as there is no other way to meet its bailout commitments or go for bankruptcy and an exit from the euro. In the former case, it would be accused of going back on all its election pledges but funds would be made available and the country would stay afloat.
Alternatively, it could honour its election pledges, opt for bankruptcy and plunge the country into a much deeper recession than the one experienced so far. The humanitarian crisis that Tsipras, supposedly, wants to tackle would grow geometrically. This is why it must be avoided at all costs. The Greek government must finally accept that it has failed to impose its agenda in negotiations with its lenders, put aside the humbling of Syriza and do what is right, under difficult circumstances, for the Greek people.
