The details of the Syriza request to the Troika are here, for those who want to read the actual list. The public statement is here.
Kouvelakis makes the case, convincingly to me, that Syriza caved, and got virtually nothing of what it wanted. Here is a summary of what Syriza wanted:
Not consenting to any supervisory or assessment procedures, it requested a four-month transitional “bridge program,” without austerity measures, to secure liquidity and implement at least part of its program within balanced budgets. It also asked that lenders recognize the non-viability of the debt and the need for an immediate new round of across-the-board negotiations.
But the final agreement amounts to a point-by-point rejection of all these demands.
…..
In the Eurogroup’s Friday statement, the existing program is referred to as an “arrangement,” but this changes absolutely nothing essential. The “extension” that the Greek side is now requesting (under the “Master Financial Assistance Facility Agreement”) is to be enacted “in the framework of the existing arrangement” and aims at “successful completion of the review on the basis of the conditions in the current arrangement.”
Kouvelakis goes through the agreement point by point, and backs up his argument. You should read the entire piece. More important than proving the obvious (that Syriza got virtually nothing) is why.
The question that emerges, of course, is how we landed in this quandary. How is it possible that, only a few weeks after the historic result of January 25, we have this countermanding of the popular mandate for the overthrow of the memorandum?
The answer is simple: what collapsed in the last two weeks is a specific strategic option that has underlaid the entire approach of SYRIZA, particularly after 2012: the strategy that excluded “unilateral moves” such as suspension of payments…
Kouvelakis calls part of this the “good euro” strategy—the supposition that anyone in power in the Euro area wanted Syriza and Greece to get real debt relief and exist austerity. This, as I have argued in the past, is delusion:
The key here is psychological. Greeks need to admit that their fellow Europeans do not care how badly they suffer; need to acknowledge that they are not seen as Europeans by their fellow Europeans, and need to look East and South for their survival and future prosperity.
Until Greeks get through their heads, and hearts, that the other European countries are not their friends, they will continue to suffer.
Unilateral is the key word. Greece cannot depend on any other nation in Europe to look after its interests, let alone Germany (the very idea that the German government cares one whit how much Greeks suffer is so laughable as to move beyond fantasy into insanity).
Greece must do what it can it unilaterally. This doesn’t mean no negotiation, but that negotiation will not be with Europe or Germany or the ECB, it will be with other countries who need what Greece has to offer enough to make a deal.
Read the Jacobin article. And understand what just happened, because as Kouvelakis notes the only thing worse than defeat is pretending it was victory.
None of this means that victory is not still possible. But it is only possible if Syriza spends the next few months planning moves which do not require Europe’s approval.
I genuinely hope they do. The sooner they do, the sooner Greeks will be better off (though yes, the transition will be painful), and the sooner the current European and World system, which is causing so much unnecessary suffering, will end.
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Thomas Lord
Alternative take is that:
The agreement can be constructed both more and less favorably to SYRIZA (and less and more favorably to SYRIZA’s adversaries).
The agreement is ambiguous by design which SYRIZA said going into this round of negotiations was the goal.
We are in a new era, to borrow from Zizek just a little, of openly and deliberately cynical ideology.
There is no imminent, obvious situation what will compel disambiguation of the agreement. SYRIZA is free to get busy domestically on the platform it ran on.
Everyone gets a trophy, this round.
Xco
And this furthermore is exactly the “preemptive capitulation” tactic of the congressional Democrats–always rule out in advance as “unsporting” any option that might in reality result in a win, then throw up your hands when things shake out as they predictably do and say “We tried! Whattayagonnado.”
Accompanied by the inevitable proclamations by apologists that this is all brilliantly conceived and executed 11-dimensional chess. (*cough*see above*cough*)
Syd
There is no way that Syriza could have done this in good faith. Its leaders had to know going in that they couldn’t follow PASOK’s policies without suffering its fate. They must have been bought off or blackmailed off.
Tsipras has had YEARS to prepare for this confrontation, and he’s destroyed his party and the Left in 3 weeks.
Politically, I can’t see how it’s not over. This was the one real chance Syriza had, and they’ve betrayed their voters so badly and so quickly that the party won’t speak for anyone in a year’s time — just another Quisling government.
V. Arnold
This might be worth a listen;
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13280
Hudson usually knows what he’s talking about.
S Brennan
I certainly was taken in by these traitors of the Greek peoples: SYRIZA = Quisling.
Amazing how history repeats itself:
“A collaborationist Greek government was established immediately after the country fell tot he Nazis…over 40,000 civilians died in Athens alone from starvation, tens of thousands more died because of reprisals by Nazis and collaborators…liberation in October 1944, led to civil war and gave the opportunity to many prominent Nazi collaborators not only to escape punishment (because of their anti-communism), but to eventually become the ruling class of postwar Greece, after the communist defeat.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece
cripes
To digress a moment, I am despairing to learn about the near-capitulation of Syriza to the banker cabal, although I hope they’re playing for time. But I think I agree with Michael Hudson: more than a contest between Germany and Greece, it is at it’s root, another instance of vicious class war being waged across the planet by the oligarch class against everyone else. But especially, and deliberately, against those who have the least and suffer the most. It is a eugenicist, totalitarian genocide on a class basis that, after a few decades of relative prosperity in the western working classes, has been reversed and prosecuted vigorously and relentlessly.
And much of the damage is directly attributable to the successful campaign to marshal every class–including the poor–to join the ideological jihad of class hatred of the exploited classes, depicting them as lazy, indolent and deserving of death.
As Ian has discussed in prior posts, much of this has to do with deeply rooted belief systems that drive the actions of individuals, organizations and states.
A short perusal of various “news” on the internet confirmed for me just how ugly and pervasive the urge to destroy and kill the poor is–among the oligarchs and the middle classers and even the working poor, who are encouraged to hate recipients of food stamps. News from Illinois Governor Rauner includes barbaric plans to slash Medicaid, and other services that would, among other things, cut dialysis, HIV medications and homeless housing.
We’re talking about killing people.
Even a random look at the site city-data led me to a shocking forum exchange where affluent hipsters railed against the miserly funding that goes to HIV homeless people in NYC to keep them housed. The sheer viciousness of their hatred and willingness to let their fellow citizens die in the street is breathtaking:
“The majority of subsidized AIDS patients are not going to be hard-working, deserving, normal people who acquired the disease through no fault of their own. They’re going to junkies, like the beneficiaries of most other entitlement programs.”
Really. These are people we all know.
Anyway, I think we have here the same brutality of the privileged classes throughout history evidenced in Greece, in NYC or anywhere a poor, hungry or homeless person is criminalized.
And they will pursue it until the end of the species.
V. Arnold
@ cripes
February 24, 2015
Nice post.
The American mantra of freedom and democracy is pure maya.
American’s believe they are free because most have never tested or found the true boundaries of their existence. Americans are property. The is no place on this earth one can escape the control of the government so long as one remains a citizen.
I think Syriza knows full well what they’re up against; we’ll see, this isn’t over…
markfromireland
Yes and No. Syriza is a coalition between a variety of factions ranging from PASOK lookalikes to people with genuinely socialist principles. I’ll be interested to see how Alekos Flambouraris for example will react, will he help “sell” this within the Syriza coalition?
If the currently dominant faction (who have always wanted to work within the Euro framework and are very pro-EU) are to succeed in getting Syriza to accept this capitulation they’re going to have to override internal resistance. From whom? My guess would be that the resistance will centre around Panagiotis Lafazanis and the “Left Current/Left platform” grouping. The “Left Current/Left platform” are, I believe, fairly well organised and they do have a consistent critique not only the current state of affairs but also of capitalism per se. Lafazanis and his comrades can truthfully say that in attacking the capitulation to the troika that they are merely defending the platform upon which Syriza stood and that anybody who wants to vary or overturn that platform has to provide cogent and compelling reasons as to why. But the problem that Lafazanis and his comrades face is both one of policy and of internal organisational strenght. Principles are all very well but if you don’t control the party structure you’re going to lose every time. I said above that they’re “fairly well organised” but are they as well organised as Tsipras and his supporters?
Tsipras’ opponents to the left face a very real problem and one which reminds me in a way of the problem faced by the British Labour left when confronted with Tony Blair. Like Blair Tsipras has a substantial personal mandate and like Blair he’s got a record of going over the heads of his critics to party congress (he’s already successfully done this over candidate lists) and also like Blair he’s got a record of successfully campaigning alone – of very pointedly not campaigning alongside the left-wingers. Just like Blair he can say that Syriza’s victory is a personal victory brought about by him. (He’s also tried Blair’s strategy of giving difficult posts to left-wingers* how that will work out is something that will tell us a lot. Blair successfully marginalised his internal opposition using it whether Tsipras can do the same I just don’t know as the Blair/Tsipras analogy can only go so far).
So the question in a way isn’t so much one of whether or not Syriza got owned as one of whether Syriza is a coherent and viable movement without Tsipras and his followers. I have my doubts.
I hope that Greece manages to resist but I doubt they’ll resist if Tsipras remains at the helm as he never wanted to resist in the first place.
mfi
*What for purposes of shorthand I’ll call the Bennite and Militant tendencies
Greg T
Excellent article by Kouvelakis. Syriza’s delay tactic has to make clear to Greeks that prosperity and remaining in the Euro system, as presently constituted, are contradictory . SYRIZA hasn’t much time to get this right. They bought themselves a few months of ” lesser evilism” but it won’t sustain. The party’s coalition will fracture quickly. Kouvelakis warns that a SYRIZA collapse augurs ill for leftist prospects throughout Europe.
Then we get…..the pivot rightward.
Mandos
Ian,
I agree that the “good Euro” strategy won’t work, especially not in this environment. Maybe if there were actually other Southern European governments who were not immediate “owners” of their own austerity crises, it might have had a better chance. But they don’t presently exist.
But I disagree, in general, with this part of Kouvelakis (and your) analysis:
Unlike a military battle, a component of the austerity negotiation was one of image and appearance. If you believe that presenting this as a defeat will necessary lead Greeks and other southern Europeans to accept more drastic solutions (such as scrapping the whole Euro project), you are more optimistic than my interlocutors on the other thread. There is an equal danger of the kind of hopelessness that leads to inaction here. So no, I don’t buy the strategic thinking that the only thing worth evaluating is the thing you got, right away.
Of course, it’s entirely possible — perhaps even likely — that Syriza will have to own austerity so thoroughly that it will be impossible to disentangle it. However, after having come to power and immediately brought to face threats from hostile Euro “partner” governments, to immediately declare it failed is to make the mistake that a certain class of progressive keeps making — that victories must be immediately declarable as such or failure is assured.
Mandos
Here is another perspective on it. The OP is too optimistic, I think, but some of the comments underneath it are interesting perspectives, particularly Bruce Wilder’s, who I think sometimes comments here.
http://crookedtimber.org/2015/02/24/who-blinked/
I imagine, though, that people looking for courageous catalysts of the inevitable revolution will probably want to skip all of it.
Mandos
But for me, the very fact that Syriza was elected is an enormous gift that has value in itself, if used properly, to some extent regardless of how Syriza actually performs. Likely, progressives of all sorts will squander that, it would fit a depressing behavioural pattern.
Xco
Being right?
mike
I have watched the Major League Baseball channel since the World Series to follow the moves, trades, injuries, and such of various teams, including my own favorite, which finished 90 ft. from continuing Game 7 last year. Every day all kinds of experts and insiders and pontificators condemn and extol, predict and prevaricate over what this meant here and that meant there, how this General Manager’s trade meant the team was sure to be a loser next year or win it all, how some teams, including my own, were statistically proven to be guaranteed 79.5 wins, ties apparently now being acceptable although I missed that show. Everybody knows everything and no one agrees completely with anyone. Reading the commentaries here and at Naked Capitalism, Automatic Earth, and elsewhere, I get the same sensations, of pre-season pronouncements of certain outcomes with the Series/fate of Greece far down the road. It’s fun and makes us feel smart(er), but in the end no one knows objectively how this is going even right now with all the factors and flux in play and more than a few are going to end up looking the same as Yves Smith looked when she told Elizabeth Warren not to run for Senate because it would neuter her, not that that’s not stopping Smith from her usual hectoring of commenters who don’t buy her wisdom in this case now. Last year no one had my favorite team even making playoffs, much less finishing 90 ft. short of the big enchilada (for those of you who don’t know baseball, there’s really not a big enchilada). No one knows who’s going to win this year and guesses, even educated ones by certified smart people, are still just guesses which, even if proven right, will in the end still have just been guesses. As for me, I enjoy (most of) the speculation in places like this, like I do MLB.com (most of), but let’s get together again around October, okay? After the Series is over and I’ve stopped celebrating.
Xco
Getting paid by the word…though obviously not by the carriage return.
Wells Fargo Must Die
Give them credit for trying. They made the case. But they did not have the mandate from the people to take the Troika on and take control of Greece. Given their own unwillingness to make dramatic changes and the Greek people’s commitment to the Euro, there was little available to them. They tried to bluff with a weak hand and had to fold.
Perhaps they will now wait to gain more power from the people and make another run, but it is doubtful.
Mandos
Butbut they’re supposed to lead with leadership!
Mandos
Keep Talking Greece gives us the mood among Greeks with some on the ground interviews (via NC):
http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/02/24/ktg-talks-to-syriza-voters-about-eurogroup-agreement-syrizas-elections-promises-expectations-hope/
Stirling Newberry
Interesting piece on your blog, wells fargo must die.
Russ
Resident troll says:
“Unlike a military battle, a component of the austerity negotiation was one of image and appearance. If you believe that presenting this as a defeat will necessary lead Greeks and other southern Europeans to accept more drastic solutions (such as scrapping the whole Euro project), you are more optimistic than my interlocutors on the other thread. There is an equal danger of the kind of hopelessness that leads to inaction here.”
Exactly the hopelessness and inaction you want, which is why you recommend here that the liars continue lying. Repeat with as many phony “alternative parties” as necessary. Hopefully permanently, in all countries.
Needless to say, the kinds of people who actually fight and win don’t do so by deluding themselves that obvious whippings are anything other than that.
Russ
Plus the misdirection of pretending the austerity assault is anything other than war by other means, and therefore exactly like a “military battle”.
Syd
Give them credit for trying…. But they did not have the mandate from the people to take the Troika on and take control of Greece. — Wells Fargo Must Die
How big a percentage would they need to get a mandate? You’re not going to get a majority in multiparty elections — even Bill Clinton only got a plurality in a 3 party contest.
Whatever path Syriza chose, they should have been honest with the voters. If they didn’t think anything could be done in electoral politics at this time, then they should have stayed out of the 2015 race altogether and just done organizational and educational work. They should have explained to the Greek people that their real government is in Berlin and the Greek Prime Minister is a figurehead position, not worth wasting the Left’s precious time and resources on.
So no, I don’t give them credit for being dishonest with their supporters. They’re discrediting the Left. A vote for Syriza is a vote for Golden Dawn.
Tsigantes
Again I’m with Mandos all the way.
The fact that SYRIZA was voted in at all is a huge victory.
Further, the fact that all commentators are focussed on the Eurogroup meeting and arbitrary deadline of 28 Feb put in place deliberately by the outgoing quisling government to bring maximum pain (and hopefully failure) to SYRIZA…shows a certain naivete about the EU / Institutions. For Greeks in Greece none of this was a huge surprise.
IMO as a SYRIZA voter Tsipras and Varoufakis made the best fist of it they could in the prevailing EU conditions. And given they have no mandate for default or Grexit. Yet. Maybe never. Not because Greeks love the euro [not!] but because they are fully aware of what both will entail, which after 6 years of depression nobody could cope with. Therefore Tsipras / Varoufakis bought time and shifted some of the goals : HUGE.
Meanwhile what most of you miss here is that SYRIZA is a party and a project that is equally about a truly major shift in political will. And that is free. I don’t have the link (sorry) but go to Greg Maniatis recent article on what Greeks want is Justice. The political will to provide the impoverished with free travel passes, electricity & water; to take on the Oligarchs; to continue with – for example – the oil smuggling case currently stuck in the Greek courts (since 2013, mind) of Aegean oil [Oligarch Melissanides]/Hellas Oil [government owned] because the government lawyer has not showed up 4 times so far; institute an inquiry as to how Greece’s debt was formed and how we entered the Memorandum (yes, a mystery as to details); and there is plenty to question with privatisations simply by applying the law. Ellinikon, for which there is a contract, but not a penny has been paid and will not be paid until year 4 can be questioned on:
– breaking the Athens / Attica planning code
– breaking the EU shoreline and Attica shoreline laws
– the contract specifies that Latsis (buyer) will pay no taxes on his investments there in perpetuity, thus turning Ellinikon into an offshore, since other Greek oligarchs can relocate there, after putting Latsis on their boards and receiving 1€ of investment.
– post-contract demands from Latsis, on which he declared he’d tank the deal if he didn’t get his way, include a casino on the site: casinos are highly regulated in Greece and demand parliamentary permission (majority vote).
IMO that’s plenty of meat to continue with.
And SYRIZA is well organised to proceed in all these areas and many others, on the basis of law and constitution.
THIS is the type of thing we expect from SYRIZA foremost; our expectations are not at EU / institutions level until pushback starts spreading across Europe.
Meanwhile even the markets take (& US gov) has been that the Eurogroup are wankers buying time for themselves on an issue that is unjust, stupid, and doomed to failure. See Bloomberg Greece vs Europe Win or Lose? and comments in NYT. The Eurogroup are the isolated here, the incompetents, not Greece.
Meanwhile we Greeks notice that left or progressive sites have been focussed on grabbing failure out of the jaws of victory. Be my guest. As with Costas Lapavitas, Lafazanis, Glezos and others the choice is simple: fold now and save Draghi the work of doing it himself, or gather some backbone and continue the fight. Get some perspective. This is not just about Europe; the fight is first and foremost in Greece.
ps there is also the added bonus that if EU/ institutions resist any of the above, after calling for them but doing the opposite, the egg will be on their face not ours.
V. Arnold
@ Tsigantes
February 26, 2015
Agreeing with you once again, which also means I’ve mis-read Mandos. In that you so agree with his posts; my bad.
Ian Welsh
“We Greeks?”
No, not all Greeks. Definitely not all Greeks.
However, agreed, what will matter is actions and results. Who is right will be determined by the future.
I do hope those who think this is victory are right.
I just doubt it.
(I am uninterested in symbolic victories. I’ve seen too many people mistake rhetoric and symbolism for on the ground results. Nor do I care whether someone I don’t know thinks I’m supportive or not. This site does not exist to cheerlead.)
Mandos
The progressive left in English-speaking industrialized countries has been farther from power than pretty much everywhere else for quite some time now, so when it appears somewhere else that a left group has achieved a little bit of power, they immediately expect them to pull down the cathedral. That to me best explains this chronic tendency to take the little bit of gold one finds and immediately spin it into straw. Syriza’s first real challenge was always going to be clinging to the toehold of power.
I also do not assume that they will succeed (duh) or that they won’t ever be co-opted by the system. The system is designed to co-opt (looks pointedly at corpse of PASOK). It would be a pretty unstable system indeed if it weren’t.
Ian,
But to discount symbolism entirely is in my opinion an error. When “they” control the “institutions” so completely, and when most people still feel that there is value in existing institutions (and most do), then symbolism is often all you’ve got.
markfromireland
This is the article by In Greece, Focus on Justice – NYTimes.com referred to by Tsigantes above.
mfi
Mandos
From that NYT article:
One can only wonder what masses of dirt are lying about, available for uncovering and use. I suggest the alacrity with which Syriza tries to do that is one of the real tests of the situation.