Tag: Tsipras

What Syriza wanted

What Syriza wanted back in 2015 was debt relief and that is what it has got, with reservations, this week in a guarded €8.5 Billion deal from the EU with the IMF making debt relief, “a debt haircut” part of the overall deal and Germany claiming that nothing hd really changed at all. Tsipras has wanted debt-relief for some time: “ the debt has to be rescheduled so the economy can breathe and markets can restore their confidence”. The deal comes, though, on the back of a raft of tax, labour and pension reforms long demanded by Germany, and unlikely on their own to make the country more competitive while the doom of financial constraint continues to bind Greece and more importantly while the powerful in the EU block continue to treat Greece, a soverign state as the southern European poodle or as Papadimitriou termed “a sacrificial lamb”, obliged to obey whenever the more-powerful Northern block commands.

What is interesting, however, is that the deal, as it now stands, goes some way to vindicating the position adopted by Yianis Varoufakis during the initial negotiations. The EU hated Varoufakis and I gather insisted on his dismissal as a price for their agreeing anything at all with Syriza, but it is a story that we in the UK would do well to heed: The EU hates to be backed into a corner and whether the recipe is right or wrong, the EU is likely to delay rather than surrender to threats and bombast. “No deal is better than a bad deal” is the sort of threat the EU will take seriously.

As far as the Greeks are concerned, the EU has never played fair. Only a few days’ ago, the German finance Minister, Wolfgang Scheauble, was castigated in the press for repeatedly moving the goalposts: Dimitris Papadimitriou simply called him “dishonest”. Scheauble claimed rather bizarrely that the EU policies had “had a positive impact on Greece in the end, because it is now on a better path and, if it continues, we can all be satisfied.” I think he has never spoken to Greek pensioners who have seen their take-home pension dwindle over the last 8 years and a further cut is now promised well after the current government is over.

As far as Tsipras is concerned, however, it has all been a game of political posturing – he may have won some of the headlines, and he may have spun some of the deals to square with his socialist agenda, but he is pretty well no more than back where he started. For all his commitment to social reform Tsipras has presided over massive unemployment, over-taxed his people and driven up the cost of living.

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Tsipras

I had a very interesting meeting today with an old friend and I found we agreed on so many things, not least of all sympathy for Greece’s current situation and the strategies of Syriza. My understanding of Economics is not as good as his at all, and I tend to think that the whole story boils down to one larger country bullying another smaller country and that seems unattractive. But let’s have a go at analysing the issues….

The fear-mongers (John Mauldin, for instance, an American pundit, who compares Syriza to the Keystone cops) continue to dominate the press while the Greek Finance Minister is busy clarifying his aims and establishing that what was reported in the run-up to election is not quite what he intends to do- he is, of course, rather brilliantly making use of the natural ambiguity of anything that is translated from Greek, a language notoriously difficult to render with absolute certainty as many Biblical and classical scholars will readily attest. Greece remains the language of poetry and mysticism. German or Latin is the language of rules. I wonder which language best reflects “common sense”? Though in this case, after the election and directly on the BBC, the splendidly telegenic Finance minister can put his case very well in English.

The Greek situation still resembles a stand-off, but actually what Varoufakis says makes perfect sense. At least, it does when I am listening to him! He is admirably convincing. He should really take over here from Mr Osborne. (Osborne might have had a recent haircut but he has rarely spent time in the gym… oh and “haircuts”. More on that as a solution another day!)

So, two points- firstly about the result of a possible default and then about the right of Greece to default.

First Point:

The first point is that if Greece defaults, it surely does not have to leave the euro or indeed leave Europe, neither of which it wants to do –

1- There are countries, like Britain, that do not use the Euro and yet are part of the EU and there are countries like Kosovo, that are not part of the EU but, nevertheless, still use the Euro; Kosovo and the like can default because they do not have to abide by EU fiscal and monetary policy’s, in the same way, it should be possible and practical for Greece to default and still retain the Euro.

2 – Greece’s economy is much smaller, by some measure, compared to many companies registered in Europe, like, for instance, Deutchebank, BlackRock, BNP Paribas and so on and these can, like all companies, default, but they are not expected to give up the Euro if they do so.

3 – In the US, where the fiscal union is consolidated between the different states (i.e. an isolated default is much more dangerous), Detroit filed for Chapter 11 last year but still, it did not give up the dollar or leave the US union. The problem with Greece defaulting is not the Euro, but that Greece’s national debt is owned by various European governments who do not want to loose their money and have the power to make or bend the rules. It is essentially political and not economic. It is about bullies.

All countries in the Euro pay different interest rates although there is a single monetary policy – Different member states in the Eurozone are perceived by the market to have different risk levels, and so, they borrow money from investors at different rates of interest. The central interest rate set by the ECB is there as a regulator for the banking industry (private not public) and, indeed, all banks across the Eurozone, by law, can borrow at the same rate at the ECB, regardless of their exposure or Nationality. It is the ECB which sets the rate of interest for the financial sector to borrow money, NOT the Governments, no matter how powerful (or self-righteous) they may feel at the moment.

Second Point:

Secondly, and Finally, local democracy must count for more than the authority of a foreign, though powerful state like Germany. The culture or limiting choice because of the repercussions of bad decisions is an invasive one. If the citizens of Greece have expressed a wish in the ballot-box to stop the austerity and default, it is undemocratic to put pressure on them to not do so and it meddles with their rightful and respected sovereignty. Is default a good decision? Probably not, but we must, nevertheless, tolerate their wish to do so and probably more than that, facilitate that wish- in other words, make it easier for them and for us to negotiate the path towards a default.

There are many companies, peoples and governments that go bankrupt over and over again, and the people and businesses and governments that had lent money to them, thereby lose their money. Nevertheless, the right to declare bankruptcy is a constitutional right and the investors must accept their losses – after all, when making an investment, the investor accepts the return while also taking on the risk. Why should different laws apply for Germany! Why, in other words, should it be impossible for Germany’s creditors to default! It sounds to me like Germany is behaving like a Mafia boss in 1930’s Chicago. Time for a flustered Mrs Merkel to embrace reality. In a time of crisis, she could take a few tips from the man who simply comes across as cool- Yannis Varoufakis.

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