Today, Antonis Samaras declared in Berlin that “the glass is half full”, that reforms in Greece are proceeding apace. Yannis Stournaras, the Minister of Finances has also declared that the first signs of recovery will appear in the second half of this year.
So is this the cause of hope I am referring to? Well, no… Not at all. How could it be when:
Today’s Eurostat figures show that unemployment in Greece has risen to 26%, just 0.6% lower than Spain and that youth unemployment is the highest in the Eurozone at 57.6%. Stournaras’ own budget was based on a forecast of further recession in 2013 of 4.5%. (And that, as we know all too well, is optimistic.) And the debilitating contraction measures to suck a further 10 billion or so out of the economy this year, that Samaras and Stournaras are so proud of because Wolfgang Schauble and Angela Merkel gave them a pat on the head for them, have not even started to kick in yet.
Christos Yannaras, a revered Professor of Philosophy at the University of Athens, has said (and I paraphrase) that these statements from our politicians are either all nothing but empty tricks and ruses to maintain their grip on power, (a kind of smoke screen or playing with mirrors) or else our politicians are totally cut off from reality, one could say in compete denial, which is a pathological condition. Either way, this is not a sustainable situation.
Coming to Samaras’ boast of reforms. The only “reform” that has been achieved in Greece is the dismantling of labour laws designed to protect the labour force, hand in hand with the necessary slash in wages. What the neo liberals like to call a “flexible” labour market has indeed been achieved. The result? Even greater unemployment, forecast to rise to catastrophic proportions of 30%. (Not taking into account the high number of emigrants.)
Now there may perhaps be something positive in this wanton devastation of the Greek economy and Greek society. And that is that the Greek people are becoming more and more acutely aware of what Greece’s fundamental problem really is. It is not the economy. It is not the debt. It is the corrupt and decaying political structure that has grown like a cancer.
It is a Constitution designed to exempt and exonerate all those wielding power. It is a system designed to provide maximum perks to those in power and their hangers on at a maximum cost to the ordinary, honest, law abiding individual. It is the judicial system which is equally corrupt and known for passing judgement on the basis of kick backs rather than evidence.
In other words the whole structure is rotten. The reform of this rotten structure is not even contemplated by the narcissistic Samaras who can see no further than his image in the mirror. An image that is more in his possibly demented mind, than actually in the mirror, in that it bears absolutely to relation to reality.
I have saved the country! he declares as the bumper tranche of billions of Euro was released. Does he not even realise that the cost of getting this tranche released is the complete and utter devastation of not only the Greek economy but of Greek society as a whole? It would appear not.
And now we have the infamous Papaconstantinou/Venizelos scandal* of how they shielded possible tax dodgers on the Lagarde List while mercilessly imposing impossible taxation on the Greek people. (An act Stournaras has out done them both in.)
Papaconstantinou whines “I will not be scapegoated for all the ills of the post junta period!” That is, all the corruption and rot that has ballooned into a terminal cancerous growth over the past 30 years. To his “credit” he does not dispute this, merely states the obvious. That he is not the only one responsible for this (undisputed) rotten state of affairs.
Venizelos and his coterie are in a blind panic, refusing to address the issue, blaming the opposition for trying to undermine the government and hopelessly, helplessly clinging onto power.
Kouvelis, the leader of what used to be a left wing party has also succumbed to pressure, pressure from Samaras and Venizelos but also pressure from his own young acolytes eager and desperate to cling onto power, and unequivocally supports Venizilos, summarily expelling honest members of his own party for daring to rock the boat and potentially deprive them of power. Power for its own sake. Power to serve the interests of a select few who hope to become Ministers and officials and so on.
I should have my head examined for considering this a positive development. A cause for some hope. But since all we have left to cling on to here in Greece is straws, there is scope for considering that we may be witnessing the beginning of the collapse of this rotten regime oppressing us here. When thieves turn against each other it is when they lose.
*For greater detail and more analysis of the deep corruption of the Greek state see Kosta Vaxevanis’ article in the NYT.