Greece is the main theme in the news all over the world since 26th of January, when the new government was elected.
No one thought that this would be an easy path.. Many people voted for SYRIZA since they didn't believe any of the rest political parties. Others, including me, were sceptical about it as they were overly offering money to all the workers of the public sector, without mentioning anywhere where they will find the money to act so or providing convincing answers for the development of the private sector which was severely demolished since the burst of the economic crisis in Greece.
The analysis that follows is made with two aspects in mind: why the election of this new government can act as a relief to the greek civil society and why this negotiation is actually so hard.
From the first point of view, Greeks have suffered severely during the last 6 years of recession. They have seen their standard of living being dropped down by 25%, the unemployment rate has been increased by 190,5%, 1.000.000 people have lost their job, there was a 38% salary reduction etc. The life of an average Greek has changed a lot in the past years.
They don't consume as much as in the past, but it's not only that.. It's the lack of hope that makes people miserable. The fact that you live every day watching the news, being bombarded about the new austerity measures that are taken and make your low-income shrink even more. Listening to people criticise your country, living with the constant fear what will happen with the next dose, being called names as lazy, not working, and feeling your national dignity being humiliated in the very low level. In the meantime, you know that Greeks according to the Eurostat work harder than the average employee in Germany or UK with 42,2 hours per week. All in all the national dignity and sovereignty of the country has been hurt. And for many people after such a long time of seeing our country obeying orders and being constantly bullied by Troika, International Monetary Fund and Germany, they finally feel proud of their country and that they actually act. They feel that someone is actually trying to make a difference, by opposing to their political wills.
However, this is not the only truth for Greece. It is also true that Greeks have spent the European money they have received with Delors' packages and National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) money for consumptive reasons and not development and infrastructure. This is one of the mistakes we pay this enormous debt right now and a reason that I and the sceptics were against SYRIZA before the elections. SYRIZA has an inconsistent programme on the economic scale. Every Minister has promised its electorate things that would need millions of euros to be enforced, that we clearly lack. That was the reason why many of us were opposed to this logic. There was a complete deny of reforms that needed to have been made before Troika, that would break the monopoly of certain trade unions and make the economy more competitive. These reforms, according to Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister, will be made but in favour of the development of the country. There is nevertheless a misunderstanding between the members of the government of what these reforms would include or not.
For example, Yanis Varoufakis speaking to Newsnight the other day referred to the privatisation of the port of Piraeus by Cosco, proclaiming that he is pro this reform whereas at the same time there are plenty of videos in Youtube with members of SYRIZA during the elections, claiming they were opposed to such a reform. So where does the truth lie? Are they willing to make reformations that will help Greece overcome these difficulties and conflict with the interests of certain groups? They need to decide what they want to do, and then yes I am totally with them. And that's why this negotiation is more difficult than ever. Because if it was only Varoufakis who was speaking ahead of Greece then things would have been much easier from my point of view as he is always consistent with what he says. The problem is caused by the conflicting views from the various members of the government.
The all important question that SYRIZA needs to answer while it tries to do its best and negotiate with our creditors is if it is willing to make a breakthrough with the interests groups and continue with the reforms or if it wants to bring Greece to 2008 with the chances of such a situation happening again in the near future extremely high, if the citizens, the parties and the government do not change the way they think and act.
They don't consume as much as in the past, but it's not only that.. It's the lack of hope that makes people miserable. The fact that you live every day watching the news, being bombarded about the new austerity measures that are taken and make your low-income shrink even more. Listening to people criticise your country, living with the constant fear what will happen with the next dose, being called names as lazy, not working, and feeling your national dignity being humiliated in the very low level. In the meantime, you know that Greeks according to the Eurostat work harder than the average employee in Germany or UK with 42,2 hours per week. All in all the national dignity and sovereignty of the country has been hurt. And for many people after such a long time of seeing our country obeying orders and being constantly bullied by Troika, International Monetary Fund and Germany, they finally feel proud of their country and that they actually act. They feel that someone is actually trying to make a difference, by opposing to their political wills.
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| Source: www.dikaiologitika.gr |
However, this is not the only truth for Greece. It is also true that Greeks have spent the European money they have received with Delors' packages and National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) money for consumptive reasons and not development and infrastructure. This is one of the mistakes we pay this enormous debt right now and a reason that I and the sceptics were against SYRIZA before the elections. SYRIZA has an inconsistent programme on the economic scale. Every Minister has promised its electorate things that would need millions of euros to be enforced, that we clearly lack. That was the reason why many of us were opposed to this logic. There was a complete deny of reforms that needed to have been made before Troika, that would break the monopoly of certain trade unions and make the economy more competitive. These reforms, according to Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister, will be made but in favour of the development of the country. There is nevertheless a misunderstanding between the members of the government of what these reforms would include or not.
For example, Yanis Varoufakis speaking to Newsnight the other day referred to the privatisation of the port of Piraeus by Cosco, proclaiming that he is pro this reform whereas at the same time there are plenty of videos in Youtube with members of SYRIZA during the elections, claiming they were opposed to such a reform. So where does the truth lie? Are they willing to make reformations that will help Greece overcome these difficulties and conflict with the interests of certain groups? They need to decide what they want to do, and then yes I am totally with them. And that's why this negotiation is more difficult than ever. Because if it was only Varoufakis who was speaking ahead of Greece then things would have been much easier from my point of view as he is always consistent with what he says. The problem is caused by the conflicting views from the various members of the government.
The all important question that SYRIZA needs to answer while it tries to do its best and negotiate with our creditors is if it is willing to make a breakthrough with the interests groups and continue with the reforms or if it wants to bring Greece to 2008 with the chances of such a situation happening again in the near future extremely high, if the citizens, the parties and the government do not change the way they think and act.
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