Mrs Merkel goes to Athens. Why?
By Nick Malkoutzis
One of the first tasks young Otto von Wittelsbach and his regency
council undertook shortly after the Great Powers appointed him king of
Greece in 1833 was to try to subdue the people of Mani. Greece’s first
head of state, Ioannis Capodistrias, had met his death two years earlier
after attempting to bring some of the Maniots into line over their
refusal to pay taxes. The newly-arrived Germans launched three military
operations involving thousands of Bavarians soldiers marching into the
southern Peloponnese. They all proved fruitless as the wily and
determined Maniots made best use of their limited resources and inferior
numbers.
Then, the council decided on a more nuanced approach.
They dispatched a Bavarian diplomat called Max Feder to the area. Feder
spoke Greek and had good knowledge of Mani. He travelled the region, sat
in village squares and met with locals face to face. Rather than force
the Maniots into submission, Weber convinced many of the local kapetans,
or clan chiefs, to join a new military unit consisting just of locals
that would be responsible for policing their own area. It proved a
significant move in bridging the gap between the Maniots unruliness and
the emerging establishment. “Kindness and tact succeeded where coercion
had been powerless,” wrote Patrick Leigh Fermor in his magnificent book,
“Mani”.
For the last three years, much of Europe – Germany, in
particular – has looked upon Greeks as the continent’s Maniots, refusing
to pay their share and follow the rules. There have been no military
expeditions but a fiscal vice and a flurry of brickbats have been
deployed in the attempt to get Greece to conform. Like the Bavarian’s
forays, the European’s tactics have not had the desired effect. Today,
many Europeans see Greeks as impetuous inhabitants of an outpost into
which it is no longer worth venturing or pouring money. Many Greeks now
believe Europeans are only intent on subjugating them, while having no
interest in their history, culture or painful predicament.
Into
this melee, steps Angela Merkel. Until recently, the instigator of
several verbal assaults on Greece, the German chancellor now appears to
be opting for a diplomatic route. Her surprise trip to Athens on Tuesday
looks like an attempt to bridge differences, an effort to try a little
kindness and tact. Whether she shares Feder’s success is impossible to
predict.
There are many reasons why Merkel’s visit seems too big a
risk to take. The main one is that it will create a renewed sense of
instability at a time when Greece’s society and political system is
already being put through the wringer. The recent general strike, the
daily protests, the clash involving protesting shipyard workers at the
Defense Ministry, the ugly exchanges in Parliament, the slew of
corruption and tax evasion scandals, the disintegration of PASOK and the
ascendancy of Golden Dawn have all contributed to the sense that Greece
is a country clinging on for dear life.
Tuesday will be an
opportunity for some to voice their disapproval and anger about what has
happened over the past three years. The country’s two largest unions,
ADEDY and GSEE, have called a work stoppage and protest to which the
main opposition party, SYRIZA, has given its full backing. It is not
clear if Merkel would have followed protocol and met with the leftists
but by advocating protest over dialogue, SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras
blew his chance to put his argument about a Europe of equals to the
leader he holds most responsible for undermining this vision. The
right-wing Independent Greeks and its leader Panos Kammenos, whose
raison d’etre is to criticize Merkel and Germany, have called for a
human chain to be formed around the German embassy. Kammenos, the
Foghorn Leghorn of Greek politics, surely cannot believe his luck: there
is nothing that makes a cartoon character’s eyes spin more than a
pantomime villain. Merkel’s visit provides an opportunity for Kammenos
to revive his party’s flagging poll ratings.
A tense atmosphere
and a heavy police presence on the streets of Athens on Tuesday are a
given. Over the last couple of years, these two ingredients have caused
dangerous side effects when mixed and shaken vigorously. The potential
for Merkel’s trip to turn into a public relations disaster for both
sides is real.
No matter how cordial discussions between the
German chancellor and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras are behind closed
doors, if there is mayhem on the streets, that’s the image that will be
shown on TV sets around Europe. Those who feel that the unruly Greeks
are not worth saving will have their minds made up by what they see,
especially if this includes pictures of German or EU flags being burned
or protesters waving placards of Merkel dressed as an SS officer – all
of which have happened in isolated cases at previous demonstrations.
Domestically, if police or protesters get out of hand and there are
injuries or serious damage, greater stress will be placed on the fragile
social and political balance.
This begs the question of why
Samaras and Merkel think the visit might be a good idea. From Samaras’s
side it appears an opportunity to increase his legitimacy both at home
and abroad. Presumably there is little the Greek premier can tell his
counterpart that he didn’t already say in Berlin a few weeks ago or will
have the chance to at the EU leaders’ summit in less than two weeks.
Rather, for the New Democracy chief this is the moment that he can truly
claim to have completed his political rehabilitation. Ostracized by
many European leaders, including those on the center right, due to his
opposition to the austerity measures adopted in the first two years of
the EU-IMF program, Samaras has been winning over his peers since being
elected in June. “He’s the best port we have in this storm,” a European
Commission official told the Wall Street Journal last week. The
newspaper adds that Merkel’s opinion of Samaras has changed
substantially and that she was impressed by the Greek delegation that
visited Berlin in August. There was no way Samaras could pass up the
opportunity to host Merkel in Athens and prove to his critics at home
and abroad that he has travelled the road to redemption.
For
Merkel, the purpose of Tuesday’s visit seem a little more practical. All
the indications are that over the last few weeks she has ditched her
equivocal position on Greek euro membership for a clear line in favour
of keeping Greece in. This position is at odds with the views of some
members of her party and government.
It was impossible to miss,
for instance, the contrast between statements on Greece last week by
Merkel’s spokesperson Steffen Seibert and her Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble, who is much more sceptical about supporting Greece. «All of
the countries which are in a program, except Greece, which is in a
particularly difficult situation... have made remarkable progress,» said
Schaueble on Thursday. A day later, Seibert told the press: «We see
that the reform efforts have increased under the Samaras government and
we want to support that.» By visiting Greece, Merkel is sending a clear
message to her colleagues that backing its continued membership of the
eurozone is now the party and government line. It is an invitation to
doubters to back her or keep quiet.
With the countdown to next
year’s federal elections underway, Merkel is also hoping for a piece of
one-upmanship on the Christian Democratic Union’s main rivals, the
Social Democratic Party, which has been highly critical of the way the
chancellor has handled the Greek problem and has maintained a much
clearer position throughout the crisis in favour of Greece remaining in
the eurozone. It is probably not a coincidence that Merkel’s visit comes
only days after the SPD, which trails the CDU by almost 10 percentage
points in the polls, named former finance minister Peer Steinbrueck as
its candidate to run against the chancellor. In one of his first
interviews after winning the nomination, Steinbrueck told Die Welt
newspaper that Greece should be given more time to complete its fiscal
consolidation. “We cannot tighten the screws any further,” he said. “And
the chancellor must finally tell the German people the truth: Greece
will not be able to borrow money on the capital markets in the coming
seven or eight years. We will have to help it until then,» he added.
The
prospect of Germany having to help Greece for many more years is
another reason behind Merkel’s visit. It has become increasingly clear
over the last few weeks that a potentially unbridgeable gap is
developing between the International Monetary Fund and the eurozone over
how to proceed with the Greek crisis. The IMF is insisting that an
official sector debt restructuring be incorporated into the Greek
program but many of the Europeans do not want to contemplate such a move
at this stage. For Germany’s politicians in particular, the prospect of
having to explain to a domestic audience which has largely negative
view of Greece that there is a need to write off part of what it owes to
its eurozone partners and the European Central Bank is anathema,
especially now the election jostling has started.
This means the
eurozone is nearing a make-or-break moment with respect to Greece. A
failure to put restructuring on the table now will lead to the IMF
extracting itself from the Greek program. Although it contributes a
relatively small part of the bailout, its withdrawal would change the
dynamics of the process and put extra pressure on the Europeans. As the
main paymaster, the onus would be on Germany to assume a decisive role.
This means having a clear idea of what it wants to achieve and what
needs to be done to achieve it. Settling the Greek issue is the first
step in this process.
Decisions about an extension to Greece’s
fiscal adjustment period, a second restructuring, the role of the
European Stability Mechanism in tackling Greece’s runway debt and how a
possible Greek financing gap might be bridged are among those that must
be taken in the coming months. As has been the case throughout the past
three years, Germany’s leanings on these issues will act as the
eurozone’s metronome. Somewhere in this process, Greece and its partners
have to arrive at a formula that gives it a chance of economic
survival. The current path does not, instead it has led to both sides
straying dangerously far from the common interest they have to embrace
in order to make things work. Merkel and Samaras need to walk away from
Tuesday’s meeting and subsequent ones over the next few weeks having
abandoned the impression that either side is being forced into an
unacceptable compromise. Coercion simply won’t work. Just ask the
Maniots.
[Kathimerini English Edition] |
|
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen