The Eurogroup President Jean Claude Juncker urged last night Greece to reinvigorate its efforts to slash spending, sell assets and improve tax collection. He also called for the two main Greek political parties, the Socialists in government and the Conservatives in the opposition, to get together and discuss the crucial battles that lie ahead and find some reasonable compromise. Juncker was quite emphatic to say that while the Eurozone will continue to show ‘solidarity’ to Greece, the Greeks have to show solidarity with one another.
Although the Eurozone’s solidarity is paid very dearly by the Greek citizens and their taxes – there is no such thing as a free lunch, is there? – Juncker is right to point out that the Greeks appear undeserving of other Europeans’ solidarity when they cannot get their act together and find some common ground.
It was only the day before yesterday when Yanis Varoufakis (www.yanisvaroufakis.com ) called upon the Prime Minister to refuse any new loans unless these come with a substantial restructuring of the economic governance of the Eurozone. Whether right or wrong in his view on how Greece and Europe can get out of this financial crisis, Yanis had one point: the Greek Prime Minister has to exert one of his important abilities: his ability to talk to people in a simple and direct way, sharing some empathy with them. George Papandreou has to speak to the people, Varoufakis suggests, but not on his own. He has to take his former high school class mate and current leader of the main opposition party, Andonis Samaras, with him.
Indeed one wonders aren’t the Greek political elites ashamed? is it possible that the citizens are drowning under continuous tax increases and a galopping unemployment rate and they the political parties (at least the two main ones) cannot just find some common ground to face the crisis? The debt won’t disappear overnight no matter how hard we wish it. Some courageous decisions need to be taken (one or the other direction) and society has to mobilise – not so much to protest but also to avoid the currently rising civil disobedience!
Instead of speaking frankly and openly to one another – as it seems that the Irish and Portuguese elites are doing – the Greek elites are paralysed in their own concerns for power (the opposition party) or in their belief that they can make it on their own (the Socialists). But they cannot continue hiding behind cheap justifications of the kind: We (the gov/nt) asked them to come to talk but they did not participate, or we (the opposition) cannot support the measures taken by the government because they did not consult us first – (actually the new leader of the New Democracy party seems to believe that because they ousted from the party a couple of its most corrupt members and since the former Prime Minister has gone home, they have now no responsibility any more for where the country stands – it was not ‘them’ who led the country where it is now!?). One actually wonders sometimes whethere it will be the Greek economy or the Greek political system to collapse first!?