During his swearing-in speech
as Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras was
clear: “Our aim is to achieve a solution that is mutually beneficial for both
Greece and our partners. Greece wants to pay its debt.”
The European Central Bank’s
(ECB) response to the Greek government’s desire to be conciliatory and
responsible, was also very clear: negative. Either the Greek government
abandons the programme on which it was elected, and continues to do the very
thing that has been disastrous for Greece, or the ECB will stop
supporting Greek debt.
The ECB’s calculation is not
only arrogant, it is incoherent. The same central bank that recognised its
mistakes a few weeks ago and began to buy government debt is now denying
financing to the very states that have been arguing for years that the role of
a central bank should be to back up governments in protecting their citizens
rather than to rescue the financial bodies that caused the crisis.
Now, instead of acknowledging
that Greece deserves at least the same treatment as any other EU member state,
the ECB has decided to shoot the messenger. Excesses of arrogance and
political short-sightedness cost dear. The new despots who are trying to
persuade us that Europe’s problem is Greece are putting the European project
itself at risk.
Europe’s problem is not that
the Greeks voted for a different option from the one that led them to disaster;
that is simply democratic normality. Europe’s threefold problem is inequality,
unemployment and debt – and this is neither new nor exclusively Greek.
Nobody can deny that austerity
has not solved this problem, but rather has exacerbated the crisis. Let’s spell
it out: the diktats of those who still appear to be running things in Europe have failed,
and the victims of this inefficiency and irresponsibility are Europe’s
citizens.
It is for this precise reason
that trust in the old political elites has collapsed; it is why Syriza won in
Greece and why Podemos – the party I lead – can win in Spain. But not all the
alternatives to these failed policies are as committed as Syriza and Podemos
are to Europe and to European democracy and values.
The Greeks have been pushed to
the point of disaster, yet the Greek government has reached out and shown great
willingness to cooperate. It has requested a bridge agreement that would give
both sides until June to deal with what is little short of a national emergency
for the majority of the Greek population.
It has proposed linking
repayment of the debt to growth (the only real way of paying creditors and of
guaranteeing their rights), and has indicated its desire to implement those
structural reforms needed to strengthen an impoverished state left too long in
the hands of corrupt elites.
Greece has accepted a primary
surplus (1.5% of GDP instead of the 3% that the troika had demanded) to give a
minimum margin for dealing with the social consequences of the crisis and to
devote, if necessary, a portion of the profits made by central banks after
buying Greek bonds.
This means, pure and simple,
making sure the European money destined to help Greece is in fact aid for
citizens and for the economy, and not a way of rewarding the banks and slowing
down recovery. However, faced with the statesmanlike moderation of a
government that would have every reason to be more drastic, the ECB and the
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, respond with a dogmatic arrogance that sits
ill with European values. The question is: who will pay for their arrogance?
The most short-sighted cynics perhaps think that this is the Greek government’s
problem and it does not affect the rest of the European family.
Yet we need only look at what
has happened to the Greek socialist movement Pasok; the formerly mighty German
SPD, which is now utterly subordinate to Merkel; the ideological collapse of
the French Socialist party, heading for historic humiliation at the hands of
Marine Le Pen; and at the socialists in
Spain, who are so desperate they would prefer the right to win the coming
election rather than Podemos.
Austerity has shattered the
political space historically occupied by social democracy, so it would be in
the interests of these parties to rectify this and support the Greek
government.
It seems that Italy’s Matteo
Renzi, despite his lukewarm support, is alone in fully grasping what is at
stake in Greece. Or do people perhaps think that if Europe’s leadership refuses
to budge in its attitude, then the “normality” of austerity can be restored? It
is unwise to put a democratic government between a rock and a hard place. The
wind of change that is blowing in Europe could become a storm that speeds up geopolitical
changes, with unpredictable consequences.
The viability of the European
project is at stake. Pro-Europeans, especially those in the socialist family,
should accept the hand offered by Tsipras and help curb the demands of the
pro-austerity lobby. It’s not just their own political survival that is at
stake but that of Europe itself.
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