Greek General Election 2019

[finsobruce]

Jul 9, 2019 7:31:55 GMT @priceofdawn said:

The funny thing is it was Varoufakis who wanted to push to continue with the privatisation of Greek ports and it was EU that intervened and stopped China from investing

The spoilsports!

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 8, 2019 23:27:20 GMT Merseymike said:

Jul 8, 2019 23:12:01 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

I would argue that he was hamstrung by the Varoufakis tendency (now gone mainly) and their delusion that Greece was negotiating from a position of strength and basically didn't need to change a thing. The EU, and particularly the Germans and the Baltic states, weren't best pleased.

I'm not so sure. I think Varoufakis had the measure of the EU and their intentions because he grasps what globalisation is all about - unlike you I'm a fan. Tsipras was too trusting. The EU wanted the usual privatise-and-cut-and-liberalise agenda

That was certainly the EU approach, unsurprising since the main paymaster was Germany which at the time had elected a CDU/CSU govt on over 40% vote share.  (It had also been done, quite successfully as it turns out, in Ireland.)

But that's irrelevant to Devil Wincarnate's point - if he'd "had the measure of the EU" he'd have understood that winning an election in Greece doesn't entitle you to raid Germany's coffers and wittering on about democracy is irrelevant since, as the Slovak PM said at the time "I have a democratic mandate too" and it wasn't to make Slovak taxpayers bail out Greece.

I doubt anything he could have said would have shifted the EU position since massive deficits are Germany's childhood trauma, but a bit of realism about who was asking for help and willingness to meet halfway might have got him somewhere instead of just pissing everyone off and essentially lying to Greek voters. Nothing I've read from Varoufakis since indicates he gets any of this.

[Merseymike]

Jul 9, 2019 7:51:02 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Jul 8, 2019 23:27:20 GMT Merseymike said:

I'm not so sure. I think Varoufakis had the measure of the EU and their intentions because he grasps what globalisation is all about - unlike you I'm a fan. Tsipras was too trusting. The EU wanted the usual privatise-and-cut-and-liberalise agenda

That was certainly the EU approach, unsurprising since the main paymaster was Germany which at the time had elected a CDU/CSU govt on over 40% vote share.  (It had also been done, quite successfully as it turns out, in Ireland.)

But that's irrelevant to Devil Wincarnate's point - if he'd "had the measure of the EU" he'd have understood that winning an election in Greece doesn't entitle you to raid Germany's coffers and wittering on about democracy is irrelevant since, as the Slovak PM said at the time "I have a democratic mandate too" and it wasn't to make Slovak taxpayers bail out Greece.

I doubt anything he could have said would have shifted the EU position since massive deficits are Germany's childhood trauma, but a bit of realism about who was asking for help and willingness to meet halfway might have got him somewhere instead of just pissing everyone off and essentially lying to Greek voters. Nothing I've read from Varoufakis since indicates he gets any of this.

I think Greece should have left the Euro, at least- as I say this made me far more sceptical about the EU and it's German dominance - unlike some others on the left I don't admire Germany's way of doing things at all.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jul 9, 2019 8:12:37 GMT Merseymike said:

Jul 9, 2019 7:51:02 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

That was certainly the EU approach, unsurprising since the main paymaster was Germany which at the time had elected a CDU/CSU govt on over 40% vote share.  (It had also been done, quite successfully as it turns out, in Ireland.)

But that's irrelevant to Devil Wincarnate's point - if he'd "had the measure of the EU" he'd have understood that winning an election in Greece doesn't entitle you to raid Germany's coffers and wittering on about democracy is irrelevant since, as the Slovak PM said at the time "I have a democratic mandate too" and it wasn't to make Slovak taxpayers bail out Greece.

.

I think Greece should have left the Euro, at least

You, me and Varoufakis agree on one thing then!

[John Chanin]

I was impressed by Tsipras as a serious politician trying to do his best for his country. The North Macedonia agreement is a good recent example.

The problem was that the Greek difficulties were entirely self-inflicted, and for that reason the EU was never going to help them. Inflicted by New Democracy, not by Syriza, who lied, lied, and lied again in order to get into the Euro, and then instead of retrenching, went on an unsustainable spending spree, until they lost power and Papandreou blew the whistle.

Because of the unsustainable growth in the 2000s, the serious recession hasn’t damaged Greece as much as you might expect. In comparison with 2001, Greece, even now, has done better economically than Italy. But as behavioural economists tell us, losses are felt much more strongly than gains, which are rapidly discounted.

Syriza has tried to do something about the culture of tax avoidance, which is deeply rooted, and of course is strongest among the well off. But dealing with the patronage culture, where public sector jobs are inflated to provide rewards for supporters, and provide large pensions paid early, has proved more difficult. Tsipras has effectively recognised that something has to be done, and presented it as enforced by the EU. Which it was, as the EU isn’t going to pay for Greeks to have more generous pensions than elsewhere, despite often doing non jobs, nor is it going to subsidise Greece because it can’t or won’t collect taxes. Much of the criticism of the EU here is therefore unfair, although obviously a necessity for Greek internal politics.

It will be necessary in due course however to wipe out some of Greece’s debts, as stated by Lagarde on behalf of the IMF. But the EU won’t do this until they are satisfied that the Greek economy is stable, and properly run. Tsipras seemed to me to understand well the constraints, and to do his best to put Greece on an even keel. New Democracy’s promise to go easy on the tax evaders, and to somehow “restore prosperity” won’t go any further this time than it did last time, which led to Syriza’s election in the first place.

The judgement as to whether Greece should have left the Euro when the shit hit the fan was in my view a fine one. There were arguments both ways, but it would certainly have been worse in the short term if they had done so. The government decided not to, probably only making the decision very late, which is how I interpret events. I’m certainly not in a position to double guess this, and as always no-one knows or can know what would have happened if the opposite decision had been taken. But you can be sure the government would have fallen.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jul 9, 2019 7:35:58 GMT edgbaston said:

Jul 9, 2019 7:31:55 GMT @priceofdawn said:

The funny thing is it was Varoufakis who wanted to push to continue with the privatisation of Greek ports and it was EU that intervened and stopped China from investing

The more one learns about YV after reading his book, the less one thinks of him.

Especially the boasting about being big mates with Samaras. He's such a name-dropper than he can't help it. And of course his ties to the Papandreous...

[Devil Wincarnate]

I like that post very much John Chanin, and I agree that some of the Greek debt should be forgiven once the country shows it has got its act fully together. To have done so before Tsipras's reforms would have been a reward for business as usual.

I notice that Greece's ludicrous military budget appears to be fairly intact. Madness.

[Georg Ebner]

Jul 8, 2019 22:39:26 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

a weird racist grudge against a small group of Slavs

Different language-families: yes; different races: no (generally).

[Deleted]

Jul 9, 2019 10:04:50 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Jul 8, 2019 22:39:26 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

a weird racist grudge against a small group of Slavs

Different language-families: yes; different races: no (generally).

The Greeks, like the eastern Germans, are far more Slav in terms of their ancestry than they care to admit.

I've discussed the Greek paranoia about Macedonia before. Let's just say that Greece's territorial acquisitions in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were not necessary a liberation for all of the people living living in Macedonia and Thrace.

As others have said, full marks to the Tsipras government for trying to make amends to Greece's surviving minorities.

[Deleted]

Jul 9, 2019 10:13:00 GMT @goodoldcause2 said:

Jul 9, 2019 10:04:50 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Different language-families: yes; different races: no (generally).

The Greeks, like the eastern Germans, are far more Slav in terms of their ancestry than they care to admit.

I've discussed the Greek paranoia about Macedonia before. Let's just say that Greece's territorial acquisitions in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were not necessary a liberation for all of the people living living in Macedonia and Thrace.

As others have said, full marks to the Tsipras government for trying to make amends to Greece's surviving minorities.

And here's a map of Y-DNA distribution in Greece, showing those haplogroups most characteristic of Slavic ancestry.

Incidentally, the area of mainland Greece - Epirus - where there is least Slavic admixture is not an island of pure Hellenic blood, but inhabited by people who have a high Albanian input instead.

[Georg Ebner]

Is it just me, who has the strange impression, that the way NewGreek is spoken is similar to - Spanish(!)?

[Andrew_S]

Jul 9, 2019 12:01:52 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Is it just me, who has the strange impression, that the way NewGreek is spoken is similar to - Spanish(!)?

I've never been to Greece. Keep meaning to go but never get round to it.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Jul 9, 2019 12:01:52 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Is it just me, who has the strange impression, that the way NewGreek is spoken is similar to - Spanish(!)?

Funnily enough, I heard Mitsotakis the other day and thought the same. There's no connection between the two of course. Although it's all Greek to me.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Who over that end of Europe has the weirdest national myth of racial superiority- Greece, Hungary or Romania? Greece narrowly wins, I think.

[Devil Wincarnate]

I saw somewhere that Tsipras was the first politician to mention in parliament that the Slavophones even existed. Incredible.

[greenhert]

My analysis: alansgreenthoughts.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-greek-parliamentary-election-of.html

[John Chanin]

Jul 9, 2019 12:01:52 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Is it just me, who has the strange impression, that the way NewGreek is spoken is similar to - Spanish(!)?

On thinking about it there is a rhythmic similarity, but the phonemes are very different.

[Deleted]

Jul 9, 2019 13:18:23 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Who over that end of Europe has the weirdest national myth of racial superiority- Greece, Hungary or Romania? Greece narrowly wins, I think.

The Romanian national foundation myth, the "Dacian continuity thesis" is increasingly at variance with the evidence of archaeology. This suggests that successive waves of invaders left most of modern Romania virtually uninhabited by the sixth century, and the present inhabitants are the descendents of later Slav settlers and Vlach-speaking pastoralists who migrated from south of the Danube (once the chances of being massacred had diminished). The latter eventually became culturally dominant (though about half of Romanian vocabulary is of Slav origin). Hungarian historians claim that the Romanian majority in Transylvania may descend from people whom Hungarian lords invited to settle there from Wallachia. This may even be true. Perhaps DNA analysis will one day make all clearer, though Romanians would not accept anything which didn't tell them what they wanted to hear.

Mainstream Hungarian history is less fanciful than that of Romania, though coloured by a strong sense of (1) historic victimhood (the Hungarian National Anthem being essentially one long moan addressed to God, though it has a beautiful melody) and (2) superiority to their neighbours. The lunatic nationalist fringe is somewhat sinister, though, despite comically eccentric elements (such as neo-paganism and love of runes). Support for territorial irredentism is quite unexceptional.

Greeks and Serbs both share "frustrated master-race syndrome". They were historic allies against the Bulgarians, whose territory they carved up during the Balkan Wars. One Greek academic at the time opined that the Bulgarian/Macedonian language (unlike Greek and Serbian) was incapable of expressing complex ideas, and this illustrated the inferiority of the people, who would benefit by being civilised and absorbed by their more cultured neighbours. 

[Andrew_S]

[Foggy]

Jul 9, 2019 12:01:52 GMT Georg Ebner said:

Is it just me, who has the strange impression, that the way NewGreek is spoken is similar to - Spanish(!)?

It's not just you.

The Greek superiority myth seems to be more of an intellectual and cultural one, based on the achievements of the people who inhabited the area thousands of years ago. I still find the Romanian one, which does have a stronger ethnic dimension, weirder.