Category Archives: Greece

Greece

Tsipras outlines SYRIZA program, as Samaras shifts tone toward bailout renegotiation

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Alexis Tsipras laid out his party’s program for the upcoming June 17 Greek election on Friday.

Tsipras said a SYRIZA government would immediately reject the memorandum on coming to power and ask for Greece’s debt to be restructured or for a moratorium on repayments. It would then repeal a reduction to the minimum wage and extend unemployment benefit to two years. It would also repeal recent labor market reforms limiting collective contracts.

Tsipras set out how his government would stabilize the economy. He said public spending would be set at between 43 and 46 percent of GDP, rather than under 36 percent as agreed in the memorandum. The SYRIZA leader said he would raise revenues by cutting down on tax evasion, waste and corruption and forming an assets register for all Greeks at home and abroad. The wealthy would pay more under a new tax system, he said.

The key takeaway point is that it is not substantively different from the program under which he led SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς) in the previous May elections.

It does, however, highlight a subtle but unmistakable shift in the tone of Tsipras’s main rival, Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), the center-right pro-bailout party that finished first in the May election.  Samaras in recent days has increasingly been taking a softer line on renegotiating Greece’s austerity program with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all of which granted two bailouts to Greece in exchange for its adoption of austerity measures and labor market reforms.

Although Samaras has raged throughout both campaigns that a SYRIZA win would be catastrophic and lead to Greece’s exit from the eurozone, it’s clear that in the second campaign, ND and the pro-bailout PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement — Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα) are moving toward SYRIZA’s position.   Continue reading Tsipras outlines SYRIZA program, as Samaras shifts tone toward bailout renegotiation →

Greece

ND regains polling momentum against SYRIZA in upcoming Greek election

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As predicted, the upcoming (second) Greek election is increasingly looking like a showdown between the two key figures of the pro-bailout and anti-austerity camps — between Antonis Samaras, the leader of the center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία) and Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the leftist SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς).

Polls show that New Democracy may be regaining momentum against SYRIZA, which had jumped into the lead in polls following the election and during the coalition talks that failed to produce a viable government.  Each of the two parties can point to polls showing a lead, with nearly a month to go until Greeks return to the polls.  Both parties are polling over 20% after an election in which no single party won over one-fifth of a historically fragmented electorate.

Both leaders are already sniping at one another in advance of June 17 elections, the second in two months in Greece, amid global concern that the possibility of an anti-bailout government’s election could lead to Greece’s exit from the eurozone (with a fear that the process of ‘de-euroization’ has already begun and could well accelerate — capital flowing out of not just Greek banks, but banks in Spain, Portugal and Italy as well).

Tsipras on Tuesday was in Berlin, after a visit to Paris on Monday with popular leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon (pictured above), with the dual goals of calming fears about a potential SYRIZA-led government (Tsipras does not want Greece to leave the eurozone, but would like to renegotiate the terms of Greece’s bailout and austerity measures, four years into a devastating recession) and also building common cause with European leftists.  Tsipras has couched his electoral success in terms of a wider turn across Europe from austerity towards a more growth-oriented policy, as evidenced by the election of leftist anti-austerity François Hollande in France:

“Greece is a link in a chain. If it breaks it is not just the link that is broken but the whole chain. What people have to understand is that the Greek crisis concerns not just Greece but all European people so a common European solution has to be found,” Tsipras told reporters. Continue reading ND regains polling momentum against SYRIZA in upcoming Greek election →

Greece

Tsipras: Austerity will send us ‘directly to the hell’

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It was somewhat of a coup for Christiane Amanpour to get an interview in English with SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras.

With new elections scheduled in Greece for June 17 and with the radical left SYRIZA leading and/or tied with the center-right New Democracy for first place, Tsipras has become the face of Greece’s anti-austerity front.

Even in English, you can understand how his brazen charm and direct message — he has refused to accept the harsh budget cuts demanded in exchange for Greece’s bailout — has made him one of the most popular politician in Greece.

But I don’t think he did his cause any favors here — it’s mostly his limited command of English, I suppose, but he came across more as a Greek communist Balki Bartokomous* than as a mature leader ready to reassure the European Central Bank, the European Commission, Angel Merkel, Christine Lagarde or, frankly, even the Greek people. Continue reading Tsipras: Austerity will send us ‘directly to the hell’ →

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Worries about Greece’s immediate eurozone exit are extremely overblown

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Earlier this week, as the chances of a pro-bailout Greek coalition fell apart, you would think that the failure to cobble together a coalition was tantamount to Greece withdrawing from the euro and reintroducing the drachma.

Sure enough, signs of a “bank jog” emerged this week, as Greeks pulled out over €1.2 billion in deposits from Greek banks on Monday and Tuesday amid the political tumult.  An article in Der Spiegel declared that it is time for Greece to leave the euro and even Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund said that, although it would be “quite messy,” it is time to start thinking about how to engineer a Greek exit from the euro.

But with an interim caretaker prime minister, Panagiotis Pikrammenos, being sworn in today, and new elections scheduled for just over a month from today, the warnings of Greece’s immediate exit from the eurozone are extremely overblown. Continue reading Worries about Greece’s immediate eurozone exit are extremely overblown →

Greece

New Greek elections imminent amid alarm over potential euro exit

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With each of the top three leaders exhausting their mandate to form a government following the May 6 Greek elections, and with Greek president Karolos Papoulias failing in his attempt to bring party leaders together to form a caretaker, technocratic government of non-political leaders, Greece will head to the polls again in June, as concern swept the eurozone that Greece’s exit from the single currency might be imminent.

The election will pit center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία) and center-left PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement – Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα) against SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς)  and a stable of various anti-austerity parties on both the left and the right.  In the prior May 6 election, ND won 18.85% of the vote and 108 seats in the Greek parliament; SYRIZA finished a strong second with 16.78% and 52 seats, besting PASOK at 13.18% and 41 seats. PASOK had won the previous 2009 elections and had joined in a unity coalition in November 2011 alongside ND to support Greece’s bailout and accompanying budget cuts.

The battle for first place — under Greek election law, the first-place winner takes an automatic bonus of 50 seats in the Hellenic parliament, while the remaining 250 seats are distributed proportionally among all parties achieving over 3% support — will be between New Democracy and SYRIZA, however, and their leaders were quick to point fingers at one another Tuesday for the breakdown over a potential government. Continue reading New Greek elections imminent amid alarm over potential euro exit →

Greece

June Greek elections now almost certain

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Here’s your Monday update on the Greek coalition talks.

All three of the top party leaders have been unable to form a government, and President Karolos Papoulias, over the weekend, has been unable to bring the top leaders together to join a unity government.

New elections, likely to be held June 17, are now all but certain:

Greece’s biggest anti-bailout party, SYRIZA, defied overtures to join the government Sunday, deepening the impasse. Leader Alexis Tsipras won’t attend a new meeting called by Papoulias Monday for 7:30 p.m., state-run NET TV reported, without saying how it got the information.

“SYRIZA won’t betray the Greek people,” Tsipras said in statements televised on NET TV after the meeting with Papoulias and the leaders of the New Democracy and PASOK parties. “We are being asked to agree to the destruction of Greek society.”

Papoulias spent the day trying to coax the country’s three biggest parties into a coalition after a week of talks failed to deliver on mandates to form a government. If Papoulias’s efforts fail, new elections will need to be called. Monday’s meeting will be with the leaders of two of the three biggest parties, and the head of the smaller Democratic Left party, NET said.

Greece’s political impasse since the inconclusive May 6 election has raised the possibility another vote will have to be held as early as next month, with polls showing that could boost anti-bailout SYRIZA to the top spot. The standoff has reignited concern the country will renege on pledges to cut spending as required by the terms of its two bailouts negotiated since May 2010, and, ultimately, leave the euro area.

Greece

Kouvelis refuses to join unity Greek government without SYRIZA; Samaras attacks Tsipras

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So the latest in the Greek drama over forming a coalition government is vaguely predictable.

Yesterday’s signs of an early breakthrough between PASOK (under the leadership of Evangelos Venizelos) and the Democratic Left (under the leadership of Fotis Kouvelis) crumbled today after it became clear that Kouvelis’s idea of a unity government must include the more radical SYRIZA (under the leadership of Alexis Tsipras).

Any unity government would also have to feature New Democracy (under the leadership of Antonis Samaras), which, as the top vote-winner in Sunday’s election, will hold 108 seats in the Hellenic parliament.

But as I noted yesterday, New Democracy and SYRIZA are simply too far apart in their approaches to the bailout in order to form any viable coalition.

Indeed, if any broad pro-bailout coalition were possible, Samaras would have likely formed it when he had the first opportunity to form a government earlier this week.  If any broad anti-austerity coalition were possible, Tsipras, whose SYRIZA finished a strong second in Sunday’s election would have likely formed it as well.

Meanwhile, Samaras has attacked Tsipras and SYRIZA in a lively forecast of the right’s attack in any future election campaign.  With Sunday’s election behind us, the battle lines are clearly drawn, and a new election will be a clearer showdown between the Samaras view and the Tsipras view — Samaras will run as the champion of austerity, arguing that it’s the only way to guarantee Greece’s continued membership in the eurozone; Tsipras will run as the champion of renegotiating Greece’s position, arguing that the current deal is strangling any chance of economic growth in Greece.

If the talks crumble, as expected, Greece’s president will bring together the top party leaders for one last attempt to implore a national unity government; if that fails, the next option will be new elections in June — polls show that new elections would find Tsipras’s hand strengthen and the anti-austerity left in a much clearer position to form a government.

Greece

Who is Fotis Kouvelis?

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With Fotis Kouvelis, the head of Greece’s Democratic Left (Δημοκρατική Αριστερά), the most moderate of the three vaguely anti-bailout leftist groups to thrive in Sunday’s election, now in discussions with Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister and the leader of center-left PASOK, to form a national unity government, the center spotlight of Greek — and European politics — now shines on Kouvelis, who was ranked the most popular party leader throughout the election campaign.

Kouvelis, at 63 years old, is as soft-spoken and understated as his young leftist rival Alexis Tsipras is brash:

Avoiding the fiery rhetoric and bombastic speeches popular with Greek politicians, Kouvelis speaks in a measured tone and is seen as a figure who can restore the country’s dignity.

”Political intensity and the power of a stance or a proposal cannot be found in yelling, but in the content of what you have to say,” Kouvelis told Reuters.

Pledging to ditch austerity policies without jeopardizing Greece’s membership of the euro zone, Kouvelis has successfully lured away former PASOK voters disillusioned with the Socialist party’s support for unpopular wage, spending and pension cuts.

A fixture in Greek politics since the 1980s, he has been a member of parliament since 1989 (except for a brief spell from 1993 to 1996), and served briefly in 1989 as a minister of justice.

Kouvelis formed the Democratic Left in 2010 with fellow members of Synaspismós, the leading party in the SYRIZA group that Tsipras leads, over differences with Tsipras’s more radical opposition to the bailout and Greek budget cuts.  Prior to Sunday’s election, the Democratic Left held 10 seats in the prior Hellenic parliament — four former SYRIZA MPs and six former PASOK MPs who joined the Democratic Left only in March 2012.  On Sunday, the Democratic Left won 19 seats and nearly 7% of the vote.

Kouvelis has walked a tight line throughout the election campaign — he strongly supports Greece’s continued membership in the eurozone and his party’s slogan has been “the responsible left,” and throughout the campaign, he refused to join forces with SYRIZA.  After Sunday’s vote, he also seemed to rule out a coalition with PASOK and the center-right New Democracy as well.  Nonetheless, he has strongly opposed the harsh austerity and other terms mandated by the bailout Greece has received — his program has emphasized the renegotiation of Greece’s bailout, including some debt forgiveness from the European Central Bank.  He also favors stimulus spending to bring Greece out of its current near-depression economic conditions.

If he is serious about joining a coalition with PASOK, the key question will be how far PASOK (and New Democracy, if it joins any such unity coalition) is willing to consider a renegotiation of those terms.

If any such coalition succeeds, Kouvelis will reap the political benefits of pulling the pro-bailout parties into an acknowledgement that the current bailout terms are too harsh, bringing some relief to Greece’s economy and a reprieve from the harshest elements of its austerity program, and restoring some stability to Greece’s politics — for a while — without drawing the international ire that would result from a further debt default or a return to the drachma.

Greece

Venizelos gets the mandate, but new elections still probable in Greece

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UPDATE, 2:45 pm ET: After Venizelos (left) met with Kouvelis (right) earlier today, it appears that Greece is a bit closer to forming a governing coalition, although it remains unclear to me which parties would join such a unity coalition:

“The moment of truth is approaching for everyone,” said Kouvelis, who has so far had a guarded approach to entering a unity government. “I propose the formation of an ecumenical government made up of trustworthy political figures that will reflect and respect the message from the elections.”

Kouvelis, whose appeal seemed to be directed at [SYRIZA] and New Democracy, added that this government should have a specific goal.

“This government’s mission, which will have a specific program and timeframe that will last until the European elections of 2014, will be twofold: Firstly, to keep the country in the European Union and euro and, secondly, to being the gradual disengagement from the [EU-IMF] memorandum.”

Kouvelis had previously indicated his willingness to join a SYRIZA-led coalition, and Venizelos will meet with Tsipras and Samaras on Friday.

Together, PASOK, SYRIZA and the Democratic Left would only command 119 seats, but a coalition of New Democracy, PASOK and the Democratic Left would command 168 seats.  Based on the past 72 hours, I cannot see any unity government that would bring together New Democracy and SYRIZA into the same government, so I think that any Kouvelis-endorsed coalition would include New Democracy and not SYRIZA.

Although Kouvelis has been touted as a potential prime minister, it is hard to see Samaras standing down as prime minister in favor of Kouvelis — it is New Democracy, after all, that would contribute 108 of the 168 seats in such a coalition.

One possibility, perhaps, is that Venizelos is willing to pull PASOK further away from its pro-bailout position and from its former caolition partner, New Democracy.  If the 33 seats from the center-right, but anti-bailout Independent Greeks are somehow in play: a PASOK-SYRIZA-Democratic Left-Independent Greeks coalition would carry 152 seats.

The supposed breakthrough comes as the first post-election poll shows that SYRIZA would win a second vote in June with 27.7% to just 20.3% for New Democracy and with PASOK languishing in third place at 12.6%.  With SYRIZA’s popularity climbing, Venizelos and Kouvelis know that it will come largely at the expense of their own parties, which may be driving them toward a coalition government, thereby avoiding new elections.

Stay tuned!

Continue reading Venizelos gets the mandate, but new elections still probable in Greece →

Greece

Golden Dawn: Ugly is as ugly does

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Also in Athens today: this spectacle.  

What an ugly start for an ugly party — an amazing show of disrespect of freedom of the media, with ridiculous rant thereafter by Golden Dawn’s neo-fascist leader.

It’s striking that of all the various shades of political ideologies currently represented in the Hellenic parliament after Sunday’s vote, Golden Dawn is the only one that neither the pro-bailout or anti-bailout forces wish to associate.

It’s actually one of the reasons Greece is headed toward second elections — with both potential pro-bailout and anti-bailout coalitions just short of a majority, the 21 seats Golden Dawn has won are off the table for either coalition.

Greece

Expect a Samaris / Tsipras showdown if Greece holds new June elections

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Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the leftist SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς) has not yet concluded that he cannot form a government, but it seems increasingly unlikely.  If he fails, Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister and leader of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement – Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα) will yet have an opportunity to form a coalition.  If Venizelos fails, Greece’s leaders will have one last opportunity to form a ‘national unity’ government.

All things being equal, however, as neither the pro-bailout nor the anti-bailout forces seem to be able to summon enough strength to form a government, it certainly looks exceedingly likely that Greek voters will go to the polls again in June.

So who wins and who loses in the event of a second election? Continue reading Expect a Samaris / Tsipras showdown if Greece holds new June elections →

Greece

Who is Alexis Tsipras?

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UPDATE (6-16-12):  We originally (and mistakenly!) used a photo from this photographer — he has some strikingly amazing photos of Greece and its political scene, so everyone should go check them out, especially one day away from the next Greek elections.

* * * *

With New Democracy unable to form a coalition government, the spotlight now falls on the newest star of the Greek — and European — political scene to take a stab at forming a new government.

Although it remains unlikely that he can do so, there’s no doubting that Alexis Tsipras will be a key player in the next act of the Greek drama unfolding before a global audience.

Tsipras is the leader of SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς), which outperformed polls and finished second in Sunday’s election with 16.78% of the vote and 52 seats in the Hellenic parliament, quadrupling SYRIZA’s vote share in the previous 2009 legislative elections.

SYRIZA is technically a coalition of parties, of which Tsipras’s own Synaspismos is the largest member, and has contested Greek elections as a coalition since 2004, when it won its first six seats.  Tsipras, who scored third place in the 2006 Athens mayoral race, became SYRIZA’s leader in 2008 and has been a member of Greece’s parliament since 2009.

In a political world that’s been full of old men named Samaris, Papandreou and Karamanlis for nearly a century, the 38-year-old Tsipras — he was born four days after the fall of Greece’s military dictatorship in 1974 and is a civil engineer by training — sticks out as a fresh face and the undisputed face of the left’s anti-bailout sentiment:

A cool, mild mannered politician who shuns neck ties and likes to get around on his motorcycle, Tsipras can be a fiery orator in parliament, railing against austerity.  Often blamed by the socialists for inciting violent protests, he has promised to freeze payments to creditors and renegotiate measures included in Greece’s latest rescue package.

Commentators believe that if a second round of elections occurs, Tsipras will have enough political momentum to command enough seats to form a government:

Spiros Rizopoulos, a political communications strategist and chief executive of Spin Communications, thinks that a second round of elections is inevitable and would likely favor SYRIZA at the expense of the country’s two mainstream parties.

“Tsipras will do better in a second round. He has momentum at a time when people are ready to listen to anything,” said Rizopoulos. “If he is smart, he will start moving to the center. But politics is all about momentum and he has got the momentum.”

Two years of harsh austerity measures, adopted by Greece in exchange for successive bailouts from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund, have pushed the economy deep into recession.

If Tsipras is successful, he may yet transform SYRIZA into the main vehicle of the Greek left, displacing the longtime socialist PASOK, which has supported the harsh budget cuts and various rounds of bailouts since it won the 2009 legislative election.

Greece

BREAKING: ND leader Samaras unable to form coalition

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From E Kathimerini:

Antonis Samaras, leader of Greece’s center-right New Democracy, has failed to form a governing coalition following Sunday’s Greek election.

”We did everything we could,” Samaras said. ”It was impossible (to form a government). I handed back the mandate.” Samaras, whose party won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s inconclusive election, was given the first chance to form an administration by President Karolos Papoulias.

Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece’s second-place party, SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left), will now have an opportunity to try to form a government, but the likelihood that he can build a coalition is even more remote, and a second election is looking increasingly likely.

Greece

Greek election results: Samaras and ND to have first chance to form government

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A day after an election that scrambled Greek — and potentially, European — politics, party leaders are surveying the new reality of Greek parliamentary politics in search of a workable governing coalition.

The center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), which finished in first place, and which accordingly won the greatest number of seats in the Hellenic Parliament.  Under Greece’s new election law, 250 seats are distributed by proportional representation, while an additional 50 seats are awarded to the party with the highest support — even if, as in this election, the “winner” gets less than 19% of the total votes cast.

Nonetheless, even with its skewed number of seats, New Democracy is projected to hold just 108 seats, far below what it would need to form a government.   Accordingly, ND leader Antonis Samaras will have the first shot of forming a coalition — and will attempt today to build one among pro-euro and pro-bailout parties. Continue reading Greek election results: Samaras and ND to have first chance to form government →

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Three elections — and three defeats — for EU-wide austerity

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The concept of a ‘democratic deficit’ has long plagued the European Union — the EU’s history is littered with grand, transformative schemes planned by EU leaders that voters have ultimately rejected as too sweeping.  As recently as 2005, French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed EU constitution, smacking the EU elite for getting out too far in front of an electorate that clearly did not approve.

Sure enough, the story of the last three days — in the UK, in France and in Greece — will go down in EU history as a similar pivot point against German chancellor Angela Merkel’s attempt to impose strict fiscal discipline across the continent, even as additional electoral hiccups await in the North-Rhine Westphalia state elections later this week, the Irish referendum on the fiscal compact later this month and French and Dutch parliamentary elections due later this summer.

French president-elect François Hollande will now immediately become the face of the EU-wide opposition to austerity and is expected to challenge Merkel with a view that advocates more aggressive spending in a bid to balance fiscal responsibility with the promotion of economic growth — a distinct change in Franco-German relations after the ‘Merkozy’ years.  In his victory speech, Hollande called for a ‘fresh start for Europe’ and laid down his gauntlet: ‘austerity need not be Europe’s fate.’

It is an incredible turnaround from December, when Merkel and deposed French president Nicolas Sarkozy single-handedly pushed through the fiscal compact adopted by each of the EU member states (minus the UK and the Czech Republic), which would bind each member state to a budget deficit of no more than just 0.5% of GDP.  The treaty followed in the wake of the latest eurozone financial crisis last November, during which both the governments of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Georgios Papandreou in Greece fell, to be replaced by Berlin-approved technocratic governments, each tasked with the express purpose of making reforms to cut their governments’ respective budgets.

Continue reading Three elections — and three defeats — for EU-wide austerity →