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Alexis Tsipras Should Win the SYRIZA ‘Civil War’ by Philip Chrysopoulos The Greek Reporter Feb 24, 2015 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has achieved a lot using his charisma. He won the election, he formed a government immediately and got to work right away. He even managed to get behind him people who haven’t voted for him, or wouldn’t even think of voting for him. In less than a month, he has the majority of Greeks rooting for the negotiating team struggling to get Europe to agree with his government’s proposals. He even got the silent approval and support of opposition party members. Who would have thought then, that the first guns pointed at him were not from the opposition but from inside the SYRIZA ranks. The sharp criticism Tsipras has received from prominent figures of the Greek Left like Manolis Glezos and Mikis Theodorakis after Friday’s deal with Greece’s creditors has shaken the party. A few SYRIZA MPs followed and criticized the party leader for his stance. SYRIZA’s emblematic MEP Manolis Glezos was the first to fire at him by stating he apologizes to the Greek people for contributing to the illusion that the Troika will be kicked out, the Memorandum will be torn to pieces and austerity measures will be abolished. Far worse, he asked for SYRIZA voters to protest and take action against the government stance. And the language that he used belongs to student manifestos and not to an experienced politician. For example, calling Greece “the oppressed” and Europe “the oppressor” sounds immature at least. It is true that Tsipras did not keep all his election campaign promises for the simple reason that if he had done so, Greece would have been out of the Eurozone by now, isolated and strapped for much-needed cash. However, one of his promises was to keep Greece in the common currency bloc, something that swayed more voters his way and secured the SYRIZA victory. So, no one can blame him that he didn’t keep this one. There was an ambivalence in people’s expectations and SYRIZA’s pre-election pledges: you couldn’t “tear up the hated Memorandum” and remain in the Eurozone because, simply, the Memorandum was a condition to stay in the Eurozone. In other words, you can’t default on your payments and at the same time ask for more loans. Also, you cannot ask for financial aid without any obligations. You cannot ask for solidarity when you say to those who lent you that you refuse to pay them back, especially when you proclaim that you fight for the good of all Europe. Tsipras has learned a lot of valuable lessons during the first three weeks of his administration. The Eurogroup negotiations was a crash course in reality for him. The compromises he made – and they were many – were indeed for the good of the Greek people. By managing to replace the word “Troika” with “institutions” or “Memorandum” with “agreement” has boosted the pride of Greek people, and this is no small feat. Tsipras has shown great maturity in the last few days. He silently admitted to himself that the cash register is empty and no leftist rhetoric can fill it. He measured the pros and cons of a head-on collision with Europe and did the sensible thing: to sharply turn the wheel. If there was ever a dilemma for him whether he should satisfy the majority of Greek people who want to remain in the Eurozone or SYRIZA‘s radical left platform who would prefer to see Greece isolated, he chose to do the right thing. As for his left-side critics, the marxist fantasies may still ring in their ears after the election but they don’t have a solid, realistic proposal as for what line the new government should follow. Until they do, they should leave Tsipras alone to do the job. <http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/02/24/alexis-tsipras-should-win-the-syriza-civil-war> Quartz deciphers Europe’s jargon-laden plans for Greece so you don’t have to by Tim Fernholz and Jason Karaian Feb. 25, 2015 . . . Now, parliaments in a handful of euro zone countries must vote to approve the four-month extension by the end of the month, or else the stress on the Greek financial system may lead to full collapse. Greece still won’t receive any further aid from its lenders until it gains final approval of its new reform packages, and judging by the above, the country has bought itself time to make its case, not confidence. <http://qz.com/350045/quartz-deciphers-europes-plans-for-greece-so-you-dont-have-to> German MPs urged to take tough line on Greece Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin February 25, 2015 An influential German business group is urging MPs to take a tough line on Greece ahead of a Friday vote in the Bundestag to approve an extension to the country’s bailout. The lower house of Germany’s parliament is broadly expected to pass the four-month extension that eurozone finance ministers agreed with Athens on Tuesday. Nonetheless, Chancellor Angela Merkel could face a sizeable rebellion within her Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. If nothing else, the warnings from the CDU’s business caucus and other conservatives reflect widespread unease about providing additional support to a Greek government amid doubts about its reform pledges. In a letter to lawmakers, Kurt Lauk, president of the CDU’s Economic Council, wrote: “A simple extension of the aid programme without effective terms would mean that we are knowingly throwing further good money after bad.” The council, an association representing business interests, is a longstanding critic of eurozone bailouts. It argues that rescues create moral hazard for governments that mismanage their economies. Any further aid for Greece should be made subject to successfully implemented reform and transparent accounting, the council added. “So long as Greece does not produce goods at a competitive rate, the catastrophic situation will not change. Greece must drive forward the modernisation of the economy and state institutions,” it said. Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, has urged fellow CDU members to support the extension of the rescue package, and will address lawmakers from the Christian Social Union at a special sitting over the Greek bailout on Wednesday. Greece’s cash-strapped new government is counting on the extension to unlock €7.2bn in bailout payments by June. Germany’s ruling coalition has 504 of the 631 seats in the Bundestag, and Ms Merkel can count on support from the Social Democrats to comfortably push through the extension. The government has argued that passing the proposal does not amount to a final endorsement of Athens’s reform plans. But the rise of the German eurosceptic party Alternative für Deutschland has increased domestic pressure on Ms Merkel over her eurozone strategy. The AfD entered the European Parliament last year and has since won seats in German regional assemblies, with exit polling showing that the anti-euro party has won a large share of disaffected CDU voters. A small-scale rebellion in the CDU over the Greek bailout would be a nod to the eurosceptic portion of the electorate, analysts say. Josef Janning, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said: “As long as there is a clear majority [in favour], it means relatively little apart from signalling to a segment in the German public that if they are critical of euro-rescue policies they don’t have to vote for the AfD: there is a little sceptical banner in the CDU.” CDU dissidents have taken to the airwaves to make that case. In an interview on Wednesday morning, Klaus-Peter Willsch, a CDU legislator, said Greece’s reform plans were not specific enough to pass muster. Mr Willsch, a familiar critic of Ms Merkel’s eurozone policies, told Deutschlandfunk, the state broadcaster: “What we have before us [the reform list] is mere prose. The Greek side has reissued a compilation of adjustments they have already agreed to . . . the only numbers that can be found in the seven-page paper are that the number of ministries should be reduced from 16 to ten.” Wolfgang Bosbach, a CDU legislator who voted against previous Greek bailouts, announced after a party meeting on Tuesday that he would oppose the measure on Friday. David Bendels, a member of Conservative Awakening, a Bavarian lobby group, urged members of the CSU to reject the extension proposal. He told the online edition of Handelsblatt, the business daily: “Anything else would be gross negligence and betrayal of the German taxpayers.” Mr Bendels said the Greek government was performing “cheap conjuring tricks” rather than planning to implement serious reform. The reaction in the German press to the Greek reform plans has been broadly favourable, however. In an editorial, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the conservative broadsheet, said: “What is noticeable is what is missing from the list of proposals — no mention of debt haircuts, election slogans or the immediate raising of the minimum wage. "The softening language of the Athens government shows that it has become realistic and avoids confrontations that they can only lose.” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fd51e310-bcd8-11e4-a917-00144feab7de.html On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 2:35 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > The Telegraph, Feb. 25 2015 > Greece to stop privatisations as Syriza faces backlash on deal > > The Syriza leadership risks falling between two stools as it tries chip away > at the austerity regime without triggering Greece's ejection from the euro > > Greece's economy minister said the country will cancel the privatisation of > Piraeus > > By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Athens >25 Feb 2015 > > Greece's Leftwing Syriza government has vowed to block plans to privatise > strategic assets and called for sweeping changes to past deals, risking a > fresh clash with the eurozone's creditor powers just days after a tense deal > in Brussels. > . . . _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
