Everything suggests that the Greek Prime Minister, rather than pursuing a clearly defined objective, is no strategy other than the retention of power
What does Alexis Tsipras? The issue is becoming more and more with the events jostling in the Greek crisis. She worries even his own supporters, who wonder where their leader leads. Since the night of Friday 26 to Saturday, June 27, during which he announced a referendum, the Greek Prime Minister multiplies interventions to call his countrymen to vote “no” to proposals from European creditors and the IMF. After removing his delegation of the Eurogroup negotiations it seeks contact with European partners he nipped without many respects.
Following this, he took at least two initiatives to try to revive negotiations. According to a proven since he took office in January, he sent letters to representatives of “institutions” meant to clarify the terms of the debate. While he was campaigning for a ‘no’, he wrote to Jean-Claude Juncker that he accepted reforms “in the spirit of the proposals of the Commission in Brussels,” proposals that he called Greek voters reject! He asked at the same time an extension of the second aid plan, a few hours of its expiry, and a third two-year aid plan he refused there not long ago. While reaffirming its claim of a Greek debt restructuring.
The next day, he sent another letter in which he accepted the proposals of the “institutions”, with some amendments that were the points stumbling of trading last week. It is not necessary to approve the hardline Wolfgang Schäuble to admit that this letter “did not provide the necessary clarity” . It is as if Alexis Tsipras wanted to show his fellow citizens, the majority might be tempted to vote “yes” in the referendum, he did everything to reach an agreement and that all responsibility for failure rests on European partners.
casualness and amateurism
Did he have a hidden agenda? He wanted from the beginning negotiations failed because it would fundamentally hostile to maintaining Greece in the euro zone as suspect some of his opponents? We can not totally exclude it. Alexis Tsipras has indeed left wing of the small groups of nebula that created the Syriza party in the main purpose of the bonus of 25 seats for the party came top in parliamentary elections. He was an opponent of the euro, if not Europe. He changed position both to reflect the majority opinion in Syriza and attract voters acquired in the European Union.
However, this old belief does not explain everything, including the amateurism and the casualness with which the Greek representatives have conducted negotiations with “institutions”. The daily Kathimerini, which is certainly not tender with the team in power, stresses that Syriza has neither experts nor ministers with government experience, with the exception of Yannis Dragasakis, Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, which was communist minister in the ephemeral coalition government with the right from 1989 to 1990. Coincidentally, Dragasakis advised Alexis Tsipras to accept the latest proposals of the creditors and not to organize a referendum. Specialist in game theory, the Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis found in relations with his European colleagues an opportunity to test his abstract constructions. The least one can say is that the success was not at the rendezvous.
Everything suggests that Alexis Tsipras, rather than pursuing a clearly defined objective, navigates view no strategy other than the hold on power. He arrived in government by campaigning against austerity, as did all Greek governments before him. You can not blame him for wanting to hold promises he probably knew reckless but you can criticize the blindness which he demonstrated on the country’s real situation.
After five months procrastination during which the economy deteriorated, the choice was between a reasonable compromise with creditors, at the risk of displeasing a fringe of his party and the electorate, and leadership on the various trends of Syriza. Alexis Tsipras chose the party. He felt his authority challenged, if not threatened by the anti-European left, who had missed only twenty votes (out of 200) in May, the vote of a favorable motion to abandon the euro by the central committee of Syriza. A play on populist instincts, he found more populist than himself, his party and outside, among the Independent Greeks, xenophobic his allies in government, and of course in the fascist party Golden Dawn (Syriza, Independent Greeks and Golden Dawn are the only parties that voted for the referendum in Parliament).
At the same time, the Prime Minister can not fully endorse the Eurosceptic tendency without losing the support it needs in Supporters of Europe. The announcement of the referendum was a way for him to get out of this dilemma. If the ‘no’, he can expect to return to the negotiating table reinforced with a popular mandate to wrest further concessions from creditors. It is not sure that the maneuver also proves adept as hoped.
Supporters of the euro give voice
First, the victory of the no “is far from certain. Polls are uncertain but they do not exclude a majority for the “yes.” Alexis Tsipras would then be placed in a very delicate situation. He suggested that he could not endorse the acceptance of proposals of creditors and therefore it would be “without him,” formula that some have interpreted as a possible resignation. In the process, he sent the letter accepting conditionally the European proposals. Figure it!
Then, the political and social atmosphere is deteriorating day by day, with demonstrations of pensioners who have not received their pensions, queues at ATMs since the banks are closed and capital controls that freezes the economy, threats to the tourist season … Whether we use the word or the leaking, Greece is bankrupt. Blame Europe think some Greeks. At the irresponsibility of the government, say others.
Within the Syriza party, supporters of the euro also give voice. A group of twenty MPs, the newspaper To Vima, elected to the European Parliament, even ministers, do not hide their disagreement with an erratic policy that leads the country (and the party) in the wall. The Mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis and his colleague from Salonika, Yannis Boutaris, two independent persons popular, campaigning for a ‘yes’. Discrete supporters or affirmed in Europe, all count toward Alexis Tsipras reflections. It wants to show, without really convincing, he does everything to maintain dialogue with creditors. With the referendum, he pulled out one last card up his sleeve. He himself is more secure than it is a plus.
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