Tag Archives: nd

Greece

Seven lessons from the Greek election results

1 Comment

samarasloses

Greece’s voters have effected a political earthquake in making leftist Alexis Tspiras their new prime minister, delivering a near-majority to the far-left and giving the European Union its first full-throated anti-austerity government since the onset of the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis in 2009-10.Greece Flag Icon

Tsipras’s party, SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς), is now the most left-wing governing party in the European Union and, with the exception of economist Yiannis Dragasakis, who served as deputy finance minister in a short-lived technocratic government a quarter-century ago, it’s a party with no significant governing experience.

greece2015

hellenicparliamentDespite a 50-seat ‘winner’s bonus’ for SYRIZA, which significantly outpolled New Democracy, the party fell just short of an outright majority in Greece’s unicameral Hellenic Parliament (Βουλή των Ελλήνων). Earlier, today, however, Tsipras announced that he would form an alliance with the Independent Greeks (ANEL, Ανεξάρτητοι Έλληνες), an anti-austerity spinoff from New Democracy. Its leader, Panos Kammenos, last week scoffed that Europe is governed by ‘neo-Nazi Germans,’ and he is something of a loose cannon on the Greek political scene, and he has sometimes veered toward nationalist and even anti-Semitic rhetoric. Like Tsipras, he has brutally denounced the conditions of Greece’s two bailouts over the past half-decade, but he agrees on little else with the country’s new leftist prime minister.

* * * * *

RELATED: EU should give Tsipras a chance to govern

RELATED: Meet Greece’s new economic policymakers

* * * * *

So what should you make of the fast-moving events in Greece and the aftermath of Sunday’s elections? Here are seven key lessons.

Continue reading Seven lessons from the Greek election results →

Greece

Tsipras predicts Greek debt haircut after German elections

2 Comments

tsipras2

The great thing about Washington, D.C. is the flow of visitors we see from throughout the world and the relative access to top officials through top-notch organizations such as the Brookings Institution, which hosted Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras for a 90-minute session Tuesday.Greece Flag Icon

The beleaguered Greek economy has receded from headlines somewhat since the razor-close election in June 2012 (itself a rerun of an earlier inconclusive vote in May 2012) and since the conclusion of the latest agreement, reached in October 2012, between Greece’s government and the ‘troika’ of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank for the disbursement of cash to the nearly bankrupt Greek government in exchange for €13.5 billion in budget cuts.

Tsipras leads SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς), which finished a very narrow second place to the center-right New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), whose leader Antonis Samaras, now prime minister, leads a broad pro-bailout coalition.  Although SYRIZA lost the election, it’s the largest anti-austerity force in Greece, and it either leads or ties New Democracy in most polls.

Given that Greece’s unemployment rate keeps increasing (it’s currently around 27%) and it’s entering its sixth consecutive year of economic contraction, even as the government’s been forced into adopting increasingly harsh austerity measures, it’s hard not to see Tsipras as a future prime minister.

Tsipras, who’s made several international trips since last June, has been on somewhat of a campaign to convince the world that he’s not a crazy socialist to be feared, but rather well-placed within the Keynesian macroeconomic tradition of the social democratic left, whose European leaders believe that austerity alone cannot deliver the kind of boost to the economy that will result in greater GDP growth and more employment.   Continue reading Tsipras predicts Greek debt haircut after German elections →

Greece

Greek government, troika reach agreement on Greek bailout

Leave a comment

It seems all but done — Greece’s government and the ‘troika’ of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission have reached an agreement on the latest disbursement of funds that Greece needs to finance government operations, in exchange for a series of budget cuts and labor market reforms. 

In an additional twist, there are quasi-official reports from both Germany and Greece that the bailout program will be extended from the end of 2014 to the end of 2016, which will give Greece until at least 2016 to whittle down its budget deficit to the 3% required under EU rules, though it seems unlikely that Greece’s budget will be anywhere near to closing in on that target by even 2016.

The details are essentially as described over the past four months — €13.5 billion in budget cuts over the next two years, €9 billion of which will take effect in 2013.  The bottom line for Greek finances is that a Greek exit from the eurozone, which seemed virtually inevitable through much of 2012, has now been delayed, and delayed for a significant amount of time (Citi, for example, lowered its odds of a ‘Grexit’ to 60%, and predict it could still happen, but only in the first half of 2014).

That’s a significant victory for Greece’s prime minister, in office for barely four months, Antonis Samaris (pictured above, right, with Euro Group president and Luxembourg prime minister Jean–Claude Juncker), and it will now give him some breathing space to turn to Greece’s economic depression.

For me, there are three notable political aspects to the deal worth noting:  Continue reading Greek government, troika reach agreement on Greek bailout →

Germany, Greece

Samaras ‘negotiations’ with Berlin not going so swell

1 Comment

It didn’t go so well for Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras on his visits with European Union leaders in Berlin.  His plea for more time to come up with cuts to the Greek budget is being met with stony nonchalance from both German chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured above right, with Samaras) and French president François Hollande, to say nothing of German civil society.

Samaras has requested an additional two years to come up with an additional €11.5 billion in cuts to the Greek budget.  While Merkel — and especially Hollande — were sympathetic to Samaras’s plea and reiterated their support for Greece to remain in the eurozone, Samaras will return to Athens having won no concessions from Berlin or Paris.

Business daily Handelsblatt writes:

“Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras does not tire of making new demands. Now he wants more time, for the health of his economy. Not more money, only more time — at least according to his requests to Berlin and Brussels. And, in Berlin and Brussels, there will be much discussion about whether Greece should be granted more time.”

“Our instinctive reaction regarding Samaras’ request is, well, that could be something. Given the near 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures that Germany experienced last weekend, we can empathize with Greek lethargy.”

“But is the Greek prime minister right? Is time instead of money really better? I say no.”

“We have known for a long time that time is money. Perhaps Angela Merkel will also say that to the Greeks. Despite the hot and sweaty 40-degree temperatures, there will be no more days off.”

Athens News reports that Merkel’s comments at a joint press conference with Samaras Friday were particularly tense:

“We expect Greece to deliver all that has been promised,” Merkel declared. In remarks that were unusually sharp for a joint news conference, she stressed that Berlin has heard words in the past but now expects deeds.

The tough talk contrasted sharply with the head of state honours and diplomatic smiles with which Samaras was received on his first official visit, complete with red carpet and band.

Merkel said that Samaras’ visit is a sign of the “very close ties” between the two countries, only to add later that each side had lost credibility in the eyes of the other and that trust must be regained.

And these are demands from someone who ‘Europe’ was desperate to win June’s Greek parliamentary elections.

Can you imagine how horrific the reaction would have been if the request had come from Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς)?

Merkel spent Sunday trying to calm the waters against anti-Greek feeling in Germany, after German Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann attacked the European Central Bank’s buying of state debt, and Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the governing Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union), the Bavarian conservative party and sister party of Merkel’s own Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union), speculated that Greece would leave the single currency by next year.

Greece

Who is Yiannis Stournaras?

Leave a comment

After a rough start for Greece’s newly inaugurated center-right government — Greece’s new prime minister Antonis Samaras remains immobilized from an emergency eye surgery over the weekend and his first pick for finance minister (Vassilis Rapanos, the head of the National Bank of Greece) resigned after falling ill last Friday — it looks like Greece finally has a finance minister.

Samaras has appointed Yiannis Stournaras as the new finance minister, although Stournaras will not attend the European Union summit in Rome that kicks off Thursday.  Samaras will not be able to attend, nor will the party leaders of his two coalition partners, Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of the center-left PASOK and Fotis Kouvelis, the leader of the more anti-austerity Democratic Left.  Instead, Greek president Karolos Papoulias, will lead the Greek delegation.

Meanwhile, in another blow to the Samaras government, newly installed deputy shipping minister George Vernikos resigned Tuesday after opponents pointed to his use of offshore companies, which are often used by Greeks to avoid taxes.

Stournaras is a generally respected professor and economist — most recently, he has served as the general director of the influential Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research, a Greek economic think tank and as development minister in the caretaker government between the May 6 and June 17 elections.

He is most well-known for his role in designing economic policy in advance of Greece’s accession into the eurozone and is known in Greece as “Mr. Euro” — it’s certainly difficult to miss the symbolism in that.  Stournaras has also worked as special adviser to Greece’s finance ministry and the Bank of Greece in the 1980s and 1990s.

Reuters reports that the Stournaras appointment, although widely applauded, does not guarantee any quick solution for the Greek economy’s future:

He faces a difficult juggling act – pushing for more time and money from sceptical foreign lenders while coaxing reluctant officials at home to push through unpopular reforms.

“Stournaras is a serious, respected person who will inspire some confidence in the markets. But he is entering a bad government, where many old-style, spendthrift politicians are occupying key positions,” said political analyst John Loulis.

“He will have to wage a hard battle against them. He is entering the wolf’s lair and he won’t survive without the prime minister’s solid support.”

A troubling nugget comes from The Financial Times, whichreports that none other than PASOK leader Venizelos, also the former finance minister who negotiated Greece’s second bailout (that the government now hopes to renegotiate), just last week vetoed the reappointment of Stournaras as the permanent development minister.

Cyprus, Greece

No country for old men

1 Comment

It’s not been the best week for the new Greek government.

Later this week, the key decision-makers of the European Union will be engaged in the latest attempt at ending the eurozone’s crisis at a conference in Rome.

But the new Greek prime minister won’t be there. And neither will his finance minister, a post that may now be vacant.

A week after his center-right, pro-bailout New Democracy won a narrow victory in Greece’s parliamentary elections, Antonis Samaras had emergency surgery over the weekend to repair a detached retina.

Meanwhile, his nominee for finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, the president of Greece’s national bank, has resigned (or turned down the offer — he was never formally sworn in) after falling ill on Friday and being rushed to the hospital.

Newly sworn-in foreign minister Dimitris Avramopoulos won’t attend.

Neither will Evangelos Venizelos, a former finance minister and leader of the center-left (and also pro-bailout) PASOK nor Fotis Kouvelis, the leader of the more leftist (and moderately anti-bailout) Democratic Left.  Both PASOK and the Democratic Left are supporting Samaras’s government, but have refused to take any ministerial roles in the new government — indeed, both Venizelos and Kouvelis seem incredibly terrified that the staunchly anti-bailout and radical leftist SYRIZA will steal even more of their support base.  SYRIZA placed a strong second in the June 17 elections and now threatens to displace PASOK as the dominant party of the Greek left.

Greece’s president, Karolos Papoulias, will lead the delegation instead.

Leading Greek newspaper To Pontiki calls out the government for its “sloppy handling” of Greece’s representation in Rome, but it is hard to blame Samaras too much for the unfortunate timing of two medical emergencies.  But the incident marks an ominous tone for Greece at a time when the country seems to have days or weeks (not months) to shore up Greece’s position in the eurozone.  After a campaign in which even Samaras agreed that the bailout package should be renegotiated in a way to help the Greek economy out of recession, it will be a massive blow to Samaras’s government that he will not be in Rome, nor will his initial choice for finance minister, nor will the leaders of the two parties that are his coalition partners.

In other news likely to be depressing to Athens, the country with the largest exposure to Greece’s banks has now requested a bailout from the European Union as well — Cyprus needs €1.8 billion this week to shore up Cyprus Popular Bank.  The amount, tiny by EU bailout standards, represents 10% of Cyprus’s GDP.  Although the European Central Bank will want to impose some conditions on the bailout, Cyprus has also been talking to Moscow and Beijing about a cash infusion, making the Cyprus situation not only a financial headache for Athens, but a strategic headache for Berlin and Brussels as well (and it’s not as if the EU doesn’t have one or two problems that make even Greece seem like an afterthought).

Egypt, France, Greece

Big weekend for France, Greece and Egypt

Leave a comment

It’s another big weekend for elections!

Voters in Egypt go to the polls today and tomorrow to choose a president in the final runoff between the Muslim brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force commander and the final prime minister of former president Hosni Mubarak, in what is seen as a Hobson’s choice between Islamism and the military. Since the Supreme Constitutional Court disbanded the parliament, and Egypt hasn’t even written a new constitution, though, we have no idea whether the new president has real power or will be a figurehead!

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Egyptian election here.

Voters in France go to the polls for the second time in two weeks for the second round of parliamentary elections, which are expected to confirm a governing majority for newly elected Parti socialiste president François Hollande.  One open question is whether Hollande’s party (and their allies) will win the 289 seats necessary to govern without forming a coalition with the greens and/or communists.  Controversial individual contests also see Hollande’s former partner Ségolène Royal, far-right Front national leader Marine Le Pen and centrist François Bayrou fighting hard for seats in France’s national assembly.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the French elections here.

Finally, voters return to the polls in Greece after no party emerged in May elections with enough support to form a governing coalition.  Far-left SYRIZA, led by the brash, youthful Alexis Tsipras, is expected to vie with center-right New Democracy for the lead in what will still likely be a fragmented result.  Most of the Hellenic parliament’s seats are awarded on the basis of proportional representation for all parties that receive over 3% of the vote, while the top party receives a ‘bonus’ of 50 seats.  The leading party seems likely to form a governing coalition.

Read Suffragio’s coverage of the Greek elections here.

Greece

Who is Alexis Tsipras?

4 Comments

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

Leave a comment

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.

European Union, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom

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

Leave a comment

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 →

Greece

PASOK gets post-Venizelos polling bounce

2 Comments

In the wake of anointing former Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos as its new leader, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα), or “PASOK” (ΠΑΣΟΚ in Greek) has received a small, but noticeable, bounce in the latest polls in advance of this spring’s legislative elections.

PASOK receives 15.5% to 22.5% for the traditionally center-right New Democracy party (Νέα Δημοκρατία).

Meanwhile, the KKE (Greece’s Communist party) would win 12%, SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left) would win another 12.5%, and the new DIMAR (Democratic Left) would also win 12%.  A new anti-austerity right-wing party, the Independent Greeks, would win 8.5%.

LAOS (the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally) would take just 2%, the neo-fascist Golden Dawn takes 5% and the Ecologist Green party takes 3%.

Both of Venizelos and ND leader Antonis Samaras had nearly identical 30% favorability and 30% unfavorability ratings.  Fotis Kouvelis, the leader of the Democratic Left, remained the most popular of the leaders with just over 50% favorability.

It’s shaping up as an odd election in that the traditional parties of the right (ND) and the left (PASOK) have converged in their positions — ND presided over the initial 2008 global financial crisis and PASOK presided over the onset of the 2010 sovereign debt crisis and subsequent waves of budget cuts, notwithstanding its traditional character as a socialist party.

As such, and especially following the appointment of Lucas Papademos as interim prime minister in November 2011 with the support of both ND and PASOK, both parties are pregnant with supporting the harsh austerity terms that have conditioned Greece’s recent bailouts:

[Translated from the original Greek]: In other words, the two (former) major parties in power have come so close by ideological (neoliberal) view and policy (co-ruling) practice, they now appear as “one flesh.”

Most commentators assume that the ND will win the elections with a minority or in a more formal ‘grand’ coalition with PASOK, thereby making permanent the informal coalition cobbled together to appoint Papademos.  Together, PASOK and the ND — the “bailout” parties — win just 38% of the vote. Continue reading PASOK gets post-Venizelos polling bounce →