There
is, unfortunately, very little optimism about the critical meeting on Monday,
June 22 with Greece and its creditors. There is very little reason to think
that the institutions controlling much of Greece’s enormous debt are going to
bend on their demands for economic/social reforms in Greece before releasing
more cash. And there is even less reason to hope that the rigid ideologues that
now run Greece have the slightest intention of implementing reforms that might
help Greece but would weaken their political position.
If the talks fail there is a very
good chance that Greeks would rush to pull whatever funds they have left out of
the banks, thereby creating the situation that would call for capital controls.
Another logical consequence is that Greece would fail to make scheduled
payments to the International Monetary Fund and would start on the slippery
road to default and possible exit from the Euro.
A reasonable person might think this
is a scenario to be avoided at all costs. It could plunge Greece into the
economic unknown and severely intensify the poverty and hardship already suffered
by many in the country. But that same reasonable person would be making the
same mistake that Greece’s European counterparts have been making for the past
five months, i.e. believing that the ruling Syriza party has any interest in
compromise or making a mutually beneficial agreement.
All one had to do is listen closely
to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s comments at the opening of the new
parliament or the comments of other Syriza MPs and ministers to understand the
total commitment to a failed ideology. Various Syriza MPs have said over and
over again that the government should never sign a deal and that returning to
the drachma with the ensuing economic chaos would be a very good thing. The
Minister of Education said a key policy of his ministry would be to eliminate
the concept of excellence in education. Who knows? Perhaps in his mind such a
thing as educational excellence smacks too much of the dreaded elitism. Maybe he really does think a generation of morons can compete with the Chinese and Indians who have no problem promoting excellence. In his opening speech Tsipras
mentioned four times the Greek word roughly translated as equalization. Only now are people realizing that his version of
social and economic equalization is to drag the top down, not bring the bottom
up. In his brave new world everyone is the same – they’re all desperately poor
with no hope for the future. Even today at the 11th hour Greece’s
finance minister Yiannis Varoufakis is saying that he hopes the creditors will
fulfil their responsibilities to save
Greece and, by the strange extension of his unique logic, all of Europe.
Needless to say he failed to say much about Greece’s own responsibility to come
up with a realistic compromise.
In the beginning many in the
European Union thought Tsipras’s opening remarks last winter were just part of
electioneering. Surely, they thought, he would become more rationale in time,
and separate himself from the leftist ideologues in his own party. Wrong. A
Greek journalist friend in Brussels made an interesting observation early in
the negotiations. “Too many people here
think there is a difference between the ‘good’ Tsipras and the ‘bad’ hard left
element of the party. They’re wrong. There is no difference at all.”
Perhaps the most surprising element
of all, however, is the inability of very smart people in Greece to mount any
opposition to these destructive developments. Where is the broad-based
communication program pointing out to ordinary Greeks just how much they will
suffer under new drachma regime? Why
leave the moral high ground to Syriza? Perhaps there is a fatalistic acceptance
of what is considered inevitable.
I remember a dinner party last fall
in Athens when a group of lawyers and businessmen were discussing what would
happen if Syriza won the election. Most were modestly hopeful that disaster
could be avoided. One former bank executive had a very succinct response to the
question. “Train wreck. Huge train wreck.
That’s what will happen. Perhaps from the rubble we can build a good economy.” That
certainly was a conversation stopper.
Another businessman, one who pays
all his taxes and obeys the country’s labyrinthine regulations was beside
himself with anger. “These liars will
ruin everything! They are going to turn us into the North Korea of the Aegean.
They have no idea of the damage they are causing for generations. Any young
person in Greece with an IQ of room temperature will leave.”
But again, why are these sentiments
restricted to private conversations? Where is the leadership of the opposition?
It takes more than dry speeches in parliament to counter Syriza’s bombardment
of mis-information.
An exasperated Greek-American who
recently moved back to Greece is re-thinking his decision. “These idiots in government are ruining what
could be paradise! They have succeeded in something I thought was impossible.
They have made Jersey City, New Jersey look better than Greece. That takes
talent.”
