Last Thursday, the new Greek Parliament issued by the elections of 6 May gathered for its inaugural session. Usually, such gatherings are cheerful and full of hope; but this one wasn’t. Quite the contrary: a strange mood was in the air, partly due to the fact that this would be the shortest parliamentary season of all times—one day. In fact, the following day the parliament was dissolved and new elections were set.
Greek economy is crashing at over 6% a year under the austerity measures imposed by the creditors; unemployment is skyrocketing especially for young people, and thousands are crossing the threshold of poverty each day. Under these conditions, it’s not surprising to see part of the population turning to political parties with extreme or simplistic views, such as the leftist “Syriza,” which promises to invalidate the loan agreement to Greece and to hire a hundred thousand new civil servants.
It’s tempting to ask who is responsible for this whole situation. The popular answer to this question points at the “political system,” a notion that is vague enough to suit everyone. Although it may be convenient to put the blame on all politicians, an objective analyst would stress the very attitude of precisely those leftist parties that did whatever was possible to sabotage any attempt of development and reform over the last 20 years. A prominent example is the Double Regeneration project in Athens, the largest urban regeneration plan ever, which would upgrade a vast run-down area in the centre of the city, and would provide employment to 5,000 people. Unfortunately, once the works started, after three years of intense efforts to deal with red tape, Syriza and its political friends managed to freeze it by evoking “environmental” concerns.
Apart from the internal actors, one can also reasonably wonder about the role and involvement of the EU organs, especially the European Commission. It is clear that Greece didn’t build up all of its €360 billion debt in one day; neither its public companies, like Greek Railways’ procurement and construction subsidiary ERGOSE, which runs a 10 billion accumulated loss, destroyed their financial situation overnight. Didn’t all this public procurement happen under the “supervision” of EU Commission, theoretically under Directives 17 and 18? Why didn’t the services of the Commission, which were supposed to follow and to supervise compliance of Greek state entities with internal market and competition practices ever issue a strong warning? What exactly was the contribution of the dozens of EU experts travelling back and forth between Brussels and Athens, during the last 10 years?
It is certain that the Greek problem is mainly an issue of the Greek political and administrative elite. However, it seems hard to deny the failure of the European Commission in its role as a supervisor of proper use of EU funds. One also can’t help but wonder about the utility of such an expensive EU bureaucracy, if it is not even able to prevent such an upcoming catastrophe of a member state, one that can potentially develop into a major threat to the entire European construction.
In this context of multiple errors and responsibilities, it seems difficult to deny Greece the possibility of renegotiating the austerity package in order to bring it to a more realistic and sustainable basis.
Nikitas Kaklamanis
Member of the Greek Parliament (New Democracy), Former Mayor of Athens
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