- Joined
- Oct 17, 2007
- Messages
- 11,862
- Reaction score
- 10,300
- Location
- New York
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on bailout demands from foreign creditors on Saturday, rejecting an "ultimatum" from lenders and putting a deal that could determine Greece's future in Europe to a risky popular vote.
After a week of acrimonious talks in Brussels, where Tsipras dismissed proposals from the lenders as "blackmail", the 40-year-old prime minister said parliament would meet on Saturday to approve holding a referendum on July 5.
The ECB in particular has been working to sabotage the government of Greece, who were elected on a manifesto of renegotiating the impossible debt burden. There have been poorly concealed approaches to the defeated rightwing Greek parties on forming a government when the present one falls. Tsipras threatened to call a referendum 2 weeks ago, but now it's crunch time. Twice in the last week hopes have been raised and dashed of a resolution. The Greek people are well aware of what the catastrophic results of the austerity conditions they've already suffered, as imposed by the lenders have been, before another 8billion Euros of further cuts in this deal arrive, and will vote accordingly.
Paul Mason has been calling it fairly accurately so far.
Greece: a deal nobody believes in | Paul Mason | Paul Mason
I think the concept of holding a referendum on the issue is just. The people who are impacted the most by this are the Greeks, and it's only fair that they should have a say in their fate, rather than have the EU continue to push austerity on them.
Given that SYRIZA is polling even better now than in January, and that with the support of other anti-austerity parties, they have about 60% of the vote, I'd expect a no on the referendum at this point.
Well of-course you do.
If Syrzia says jump, Socialist say how high. The Greek people already voted, they elected or they thought they elected a leader. Not someone who's looking for a way to pass off his responsibility by holding a referendum.
He's looking to cover his ass Politically.
But then again, this was the same guy who tried to extort his way out of this mess by claiming Germany owed Greece 300 Million euro's in " Nazi war crime " fines unpaid.
From Reuters:
Greece's Tsipras calls referendum to break bailout deadlock | Reuters
Leadership requires difficult choices at times. Unfortunately, the Greek Prime Minister decided to punt on his leadership responsibilities by delegating what is a grave decision to the general public, who almost surely lack the details related to Greece's fiscal situation, the EU/ECB/IMF offer, and understanding of the consequences involved. At the same time, he has shown little urgency with the scheduling, as the Greek Parliament would meet to discuss a referendum to be held on July 5, which is after the June 30 deadline for Greece's IMF payment.
Even if the Greek Prime Minister believes his punt will give him absolution from the consequences should Greece wind up in arrears to the IMF, it won't. His inability to lead lends further explanation to the chaotic path he has taken over the past several months, which has eroded Greece's small leverage, undermined the good faith others had, and imposed the Greek people to a deepening economic contraction and banking system risks. At a time when Greece needs a leader, it has a Prime Minister who lacks leadership capacity. This only compounds Greece's already terrible situation.
Had a more flexible leader been in office, I suspect that not only would more generous terms have been agreed than what are now available (as some of the economic contraction might have been headed off), but a serious negotiation leading to the kind of debt relief envisioned by the IMF would also have been well underway.
But unless Tsipras's party enacts major reforms (such as downsizing government spending and reforming tax collections to increase revenue) and so far it seems to have no intention of doing so, then this new government really is no better than the government it replaced.
It's rather ironic that the use of a referendum on a single, albeit major, issue is being portrayed as a lack of leadership when everyone on the right has been applauding the UK Tories' EU-exit referendum plans, the consequences of which are considerably more complicated, difficult to explain and debate than the Greek government's negotiating position. That's a red herring if ever I saw one!
That's not at all what he's doing. What he's doing is to show the Troika, and the world in general, that the Greek government's position is precisely the reflection of the will of the Greek nation. He's already drawn very stiff opposition to the extent to which he has compromised towards the Troika's position. Were he to agree to their entire position then he might well have to resign, which would have the same effect as defaulting, since there would be a period of leaderless government until a new election could take place.There's a big difference between a party's holding a referendum on an issue when there is time for clear, reasoned-debate, and one's calling a referendum when a crisis is unfolding to evade making tough decisions. The Greek Prime Minister took the latter course.
It's not the government's position that's causing the run on the banks; it's the threats from the Troika that are doing that.Not surprisingly, the Greek people have not gained any confidence in the wake of Prime Minister Tsipras' abdication of leadership responsibility. Instead, he appears to have touched off an all-out bank run.
No. You'd only draw that conclusion if you had a political agenda to refuse any condition that you didn't come up with. I don't believe there was any package of proposals that the Greeks could come up with that the Troika would have accepted. They've decided some time ago that Grexit is their preferred option.For what it's worth, here is where things stood:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/062415Greek.pdf
One big issue was pension reform (see p.3). Its early retirement concept was based on disincentives and a phase-in by 2022. However, it was not clear that the proposal was near universal. There was troubling language concerning an exemption for "other special categories" which was undefined and rejected by the EU/ECB/IMF. The creditors accepted the proposal that those in "arduous professions" and mothers with disabled children could retire early as was appropriate.
What were those "other special categories?" No definition was given. No number of persons was introduced. Was Greece really proposing to reduce early retirement for only a small fraction of its workforce? The actual extent of what Greece was providing was not known and not knowable from the language of the Greek proposal.
What a intensely cowardice thing to do.
He's leaving it up to the Greek people so he doesn't have to take responsibility when this blows up in his face.
He can tell the Greek people " hey guys, dont look at me, this is what you voted for ".
Unbelievable.
No. You'd only draw that conclusion if you had a political agenda to refuse any condition that you didn't come up with. I don't believe there was any package of proposals that the Greeks could come up with that the Troika would have accepted. They've decided some time ago that Grexit is their preferred option.
If I was him I would demand Germany pay reparations for World War II. Problem solved.
Why did the Greek Government propose exempting "other special categories" and not define them? There's reasonable understanding what constitutes "arduous professions" and the population of mothers with disabled children. One can estimate the impact of pension reforms from exempting those two groups, which is reasonable. But one can't estimate the impact from an undefined "other special categories." That was a key pension-related sticking point that the creditors rejected. A mature Greek leader would have then countered with specificity and then the parties would be able to evaluate the pension reform proposal. No such specificity was forthcoming. Days later, the Greek leadership would punt to try to evade its responsibilities.
If anything, Grexit might well be the Tsipiras' government's preferred option. It made unsustainable campaign promises. It tried to extort reparations from Germany. It vilified the IMF, which is the party who has gone farthest on debt relief e.g., restructuring.
It has now punted at the moment where decision is needed. It has shown little regard that the consequences of its punt could be effectively the same as if it had rejected the EU/ECB/IMF proposal.
That the situation in most of the southern European nations. Here the government suspended all welfare benefit payments for 3 months last year. they said that they would be repaid, but that hasn't happened yet. Those who blame government debt in southern Europe on a bloated welfare state really don't know what they're talking about.There is no welfare state a la Germany or Sweden in Greece. If you are out of a job for more than a year (or maybe 9 months) apparently you do not receive anything, not even foodstamps.
It would be a serious miscalculation to assume that Grexit will persuade southern European voters that they need to stick with the austerity policies that are killing economies and blaming it on the poor. Or to assume that people are so stupid as to believe that the Grexit wasn't as much the fault of the Eurozone economic imperialists as it was their domestic stooges who built up the debts in the first place.The idiot politicians like Merkel do not enjoy the suffering of the poorer half of the Greek population. They simply do not care about them. What they cannot admit is that the austerity measures have utterly failed (they have rather worked as the worked everytime and everywhere and exactly as predicted by some economists, i.e. they made the situation worse) and they want to avoid a similar development in Portugal (or God forbid, Spain). So Greece might be thrown to the dogs to avoid a leftist development in e.g. Spain at all costs.
That issue was settled in a 1990 treaty. Germany owes no further money to Greece from World War II.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?