He has formed a new party (google MeRa25 / DiEm25). His credo: no money from corporations or institutions! That! would also be a solution for the US!
Last Sunday, he too ( no one mentioned..) got voted into the Greek parliament!
2
Might be worth reviewing the impecable far right credentials of the newly elected government before pontificating on its liberalism. Excellent reporting by Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-how-ultranationalists-infiltrated-greece-s-new-ruling-party-1.7485494
"Now all that’s needed for the European Union is a British somersault on Brexit."
And an American somersault on Trump!
I'm amazed that Cohen can discern a coherent American policy toward Greece, considering Trump's efforts to decimate the ranks of career foreign policy professionals in the State Dept. Who is left to make policy?
4
Greece is good news for many interest groups, but not for ordinary Greeks. Their personal prosperity and financial security is ruined, they've lost a quarter of their past household incomes, they are paying more taxes (not the rich, just the ones who lost out) and political corruption continues unchecked back and forth between two corrupt political alliances. But hey, the banks got paid.
69
Greece like Italy has a better than normal record in fighting Nazi barbarism and other forms of fascism, but to tell the truth: neither country, made up largely of humane and civilized people, has a good record of political democracy or political success in general. Both are corrupt, subject to demagoguery, indifferent to normative levels of cooperative behavior, and both need to reform.
11
A strangely distorted view of the events in Greece.
The EU has presided over a massive decrease in living standards, huge increases in poverty, they've forced ever larger loans onto the greeks to the extent that they may well have 180% debt to GDP ration by 2060.
Thanks to the EU's ministrations poverty has spread over the land with Eurostat showing 34% of Greek population at risk of poverty and social exclusion. (2018)
Any improvements is like a crushed people getting to their knees.
Its telling that many Greeks have left their country, often to go to places like Brexit Britain where the economic air much fresher.
The last thing the British people need is a dose of EU economic prescriptions that put the Greeks down where they are now.
9
Through a hard-driving campaign in which he promised to cut corporate taxes...
-----------
Greece's economic problems have not been caused by corporations paying too much in taxes, but by them avoiding taxes altogether. Cutting corporate taxes is the wrong direction for Greece to move in.
4
I find it hard to believe that anyone who has watched repeated US reductions in corporate taxes and has watched what has then been done with the freed-up cash can still have faith in the ridiculous fairy tale that corporate tax reductions will spur growth.
What it WILL do is allow these corporations to buy back their own shares, thus maximizing the value of the remaining outstanding shares. Once again the rich will get richer while the poor and middle class again get next to nothing. The only growth will be in the value of the stock shares, which are primarily owned by the rich.
11
"First into populism, Greece is now first out." I would phrase it differently. Greece was first into the idiocy of a nearly fully state-directed economy. Tsipras was elected on a contradiction: Fix the system, while removing nearly all individual initiative. When that (predictably) failed, Greece turned (as did Trump) to a reliable free market elixir of deregulation, tax cuts and privatization. Efficiency is now the watchword, as it should've been all along. Greece now has a chance for success.
2
Thanks Greece. We needed this.
Absolute nonsense, unfortunately Roger seems to be a hack for remainers and (delusions of) pro Americanism within Greece. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Washington/Berlin axis has created a new generation of anti Americanism with the poisonous Prespes accord that was by and far unconstitutional and criminal and went against the will of the vast majority of Greeks who rallied in the hundreds of thousands in each capital city in Europe, and in Greece against the accords. The radical left Marxist regime of Tsipras was a disaster for Greece, the historic referendum of 2015-where Greece was threatened by the Eurogroup to "Grexit" if the people voted "No" to austerity is another example of the antidemocratic philosophies of the EU assembly. Mitsotakis and the dynasty that included his father, his sister and now his nephew (What meritocracy?) are no strangers to Greek politics. They have done their fair share of damage to the Greek republic. As for Cyprus, no Greek will ever forget that Henry Kissinger twice vetoed help to Cyprus during the invasion by the Turks at the UN Security Council, and now with Erdogan threatening Cyprus and Greece once again, the Americans are only worried about selling their fighter jets to Turkey-not the war that's coming in the Aegean. Mitsotakis will kneel to foreign interests as low as Tsipras did, leadership in Greece is at an all time low...we have not had any leaders since the era of the Junta, and the best economy in our history
6
Greece will adopt an exploitative capitalist model to satisfy American corporations. There will be a swift shift of wealth to the top one or two percent. That capital will then be moved off-shore. Unions will be destroyed. The lower rungs of Greek society will pay off the bank loans. We've seen this movie before. Everybody lives happily ever after.
5
Reading your column, made me feel like you were working for ND press releases. Calling what Greece has gone though a devastating recession is false, it is a depression by any standard. Mitsotakis is the tweedledum to Tsipras' tweedledee, neither is truly in control of Greece, as that poor country no longer has any sovereignty. Decisions are made in Berlin, filtered through Brussels as diktats to be obeyed...or else.
Mitsotakis is a neo-liberal heading a party owned by Greece's oligarchs, and all the nice words in the world won't be allowed to alter their monopolistic and life-sapping control over the country.
Your assessment of Greece's improving fortunes is also colored by your fawning over this man; Greece's deflation is more than its annually shrinking economy giving the false impression of economic growth; the reduction of unemployment an inevitable result of hundreds of thousands of working age Greeks emigrating in search of work and thus not counted in the statistics.
Please in the future try to be more objective, unless of course your bosses are paying for propaganda.
9
this article is inaccurate in so many ways! It is filled with misconceptions about what people think and want from a government, about the "miracle" of new democracy victory, or the "defeat" of the left-leaning, progressive party. So let's wait a little before credits are given to the newly elected government..
4
I take issue with an omission. Democracy stands tall when one administration elegantly hands over its administration after defeat t the polls. The former Prime Minister deserved a mention in this particular story for his grace in defeat and seeming heartfelt support of the winner.
1
Why did the Syriza party lose? Because, much like the ERG and the Brexiters in the UK, they promised to install a progressive agenda that needed the EU to underwrite their program when the EU announced in advance that they would never do it. When the EU did exactly what they said they would Syriza had a choice. Leave the EU and suffer , at least for the short term, brutal economic consequences, or submit to the EU demands. They ran and won because they promised they could change the minds of the EU just like Boris Johnson claims he will get the EU to change the terms of the agreement even though the EU has loudly announced that this idea is a non starter. Magical thinking, or cynical political denial, can appear on both sides of the political spectrum.
1
Seems that most commenting disagree with this opinion piece. However, many do not seem to understand the last 30 years in Greece. Actually, longer.
First, Greece should likely not have been admitted to the Euro currency. Government largesse was built on borrow and spend for decades; they were not economically equal to other European countries, especially the Nordic countries and Germany.
Second, as a result of the first issue, government grew out of control with little oversight and a lot of corruption. To start a business, even a very small smoothie shop, costs an exorbinate amount due to the pay to play schemes at the local level and the bureaucracy driven by a government that employed more than the private sector.
Third, when the bills came due, Greece just borrowed more regardless of the inherent interest rates required when you really do not have sound economic policies or the history of paying your loans off.
Lastly, and maybe more importantly, Tsipras instituted lax laws against criminal behavior. Destroying property and robbery were decriminalized to the point where responsible contributors to the country were not safe.
"McKinsey man.." Years ago I worked for a major transportation company which brought in McKinsey to cut costs. Our department was small (7 people in a company of over 60,000). We handled a niche market which was credited with $400 million in sales the last year I was there. The people assigned to analyze our department received multiple meetings, side-by-side sessions, reams of paper detailing our processes.
It was apparent by their questions and statements they never did understand the market or what we did. Their recommendation was to cut two positions.
Whenever I see "McKinsey" I cringe.
4
New Democracy is the party which caused the crisis that Greece had been through the 2000s, 2010s. Since 2009 we know that the government of the prime minister Karamanlis cooked the books to hide the corruption and protect the economic image of Greece with the help of Goldman Sachs. None of those politicians were ever prosecuted. We will never know the amount of hidden commissions paid to build the infrastructure of the 2004 Olympics Game in Athens. From 2005 to 2009, Greece was the fifth importer of weapons in Europe: 26 F-16, 25 Mirage 2000, missiles MICA and Exocet, armour vehicle VLB,... Did New Democracy wanted to rebuild the Athenian's Empire? or the Alexander the Great's Empire? Mr. Cohen is right the PM "will have to rein in New Democracy's legacy". The question is do he has the power and the will to do it? If not, populism will be back with a vengeance.
1
The only people who benefit by lowering corporate taxes are those who are already among the super rich.
8
We will also need a German (and Northern European) somersault on austerity.
2
Conservatives unending belief that corporate tax cuts and privatization are the answer to all economic woes is truly outstanding. No matter what evidence is compiled, they return to them as if this time will be different.
3
Here is hoping that Trump does nothing to undermine Greek-American relationships now that they have been rebuilt.
2
I hope Cohen’s optimism is well-founded. I also hope that more leftists such as myself get it through their heads that conservatives—not Trumpists, not rightists, conservatives—have a point when they say that you can’t promise everybody everything and deliver, let alone pay for it all without running straight off a cliff in the end.
Example: Tip O’Neill was probably right to cut a deal on Social Security that’s gonna cost me almost $400 a month in retirement. i’d rather have the money, but with my pension and some other stuff I’ll be better off than most—and a lot of folks desperately need SSI to be solvent.
Or example: should the US have universal health coverage? Absolutely. But pure Medicare for All is unaffordable, at least if you set it up like Sanders wants, with EVERYTHING covered, no questions asked. It’s why he doesn’t like to detail how it’d get paid for,mornwhat the plans would look like.
So, here’s hoping Cohen’s correct about Greece.
2
Thanks Roger for being the lone voice of clarity.
Now, for those who talk about Tsipras' accomplishments here's some feedback from the ground.
Economy:
Greece has benefited from an exceptional world wide prosperity during the last 5 years that has brought great benefits for the tourism industry. Despite this and the fact they started from a hugely shrunken base, Syriza has managed to keep the economy from growing as fast as the rest of Europe by undermining all private investment. Unemployment is at 18% and 500,000 people (unfortunately all with valuable and exportable skills) have left the country.
Security and lawlessness:
Some of Athens downtown districts as well as most universities have become areas where so called anarchists have driven out the police and are looting and trafficking without consequences. One of the first legislative acts from Syriza was to actually make the law much more lenient towards such crimes.
Running the state:
The sheer level of incompetence Syriza has brought at all levels would be farcical if it didn't also lead to tragedy, Last summer more than 100 people died in a fire that would have largely been manageable if the fire departments had not been rendered impotent by political meddling and the state had a minimal capacity and willingness to deal with urgent crisis.
If you add to that the sorry spectacle of trash twitter-sphere talk by some prominent ministers, you get the sense of disgust most Greek feel.
Tsipras won't be missed
24
@Nicolas
Also from the ground: State coffers were empty when Tsipras came, realised the highest level of investment in Europe, skilled youth already had left, he lowered unemployment from 30% to 18%, the government got more organised altough not enough, Anarchist areas in Athens were already in full swing, the last government slashed the numbers of policeforce, laid off doctors, firemen, teachers and nurses to a point that devastated these areas, illegal building allowed by the former government plus the exceptional weather conditions are the major causes for the tragic deaths in the blaze last year. He gave acces to healthcare to one million uninsured, stopped entrance fee for hospitalcare, the shopclosures came down, no more searching the thrashcans for food, tackled the vast corruption from NewDemocracy/Pasok, In august Greece left the last bailout and time was too short to make the difference.Tsipras's government made mistakes, but it is unfair to call him total failure. Mending vast inequalities created under the former governments a priority. Untruths about the Macedonia issue fed to the people by New Democracy divided the nation and political thrash talk, fed by their news cronies! All this was not enough and the inhuman measures Europe demanded where the final drop for the people to make a different choice in desperation for faster relief. The new government is 'old wine in new sacks' as we say at this end of the world.
Tsipras and Syriza will be back!
9
@Nicolas
My wife and I spend a few weeks in Athens every year. We stay in an immigrant neighborhood that was terrorized by the Golden Dawn until Syriza came to power. We spend a good deal of time in Exarchia, the anarchist stronghold, feel no menace and enjoy the absence of the police — to be found standing around in mysteriously large groups in some other parts of the city.
The commenter no doubt belongs to the 22 percent of the electorate that actually voted for New Democracy, the corrupt, oligarchical party that put Greece into the hole in the first place.
8
@Alexander Scala
It is because of SY.RIZ.A.'s policies that the police in Greece have become as ineffective as one can imagine when it comes to their work in safe-guarding the tough neighborhoods in Athens (like Exarchia and Menidi where most of the Roma live).
SY.RIZ.A with its crazy policies, regarding the judicial system in Greece, effectively neutered the Greek Police. They disbanded the Delta-force of the Greek Police, and underfunded the Dias police group. In addition, they (Tispras's government) often times ordered the MAT to just stay put and not engage the anarchists throwing Molotov cocktail bombs. Can you name even one country where such behavior by the anarchists - especially the "Ruviconas" group - be tolerated? Only in a country ruled by Tsipras's government which allowed convicted murderers like Koufontinas (of the anarchist group 17 of November) to be out on furlough for a weekend or longer.
Many Greeks that were not with New Democracy voted for them, feeling that Tsipras and SY.RIZ.A made way too many mistakes that affected every-day life in a very negative way.
2
"Devastating recession"?
You'd think, reading Roger Cohen, that the mass misery imposed on Greece was an act of god -- when in fact it was the free market capitalism so beloved on this page.
In this sorry instance, ordinary Greeks have been told they'll have to repay French and German banks for the money those bank irresponsibly and in violation of every sound fiscal principle lent Greece, with no reasonable expectation of being repaid -- except through years of impoverishment, reduced wages, taxation, loss of pensions, privatization and abrogation of what's normally considered any country's right of self-determination.
And now that a right-wing government has been elected in an electoral system every bit as dysfunctional and unresponsive as ours, Mr. Cohen celebrates.
No more anti-Americanism!
What a great day!
107
@jrd For all of capitalism's faults, and there are many, the Greek story is a tad more complicated than that. If you read the link below, you will see that from 1981 to 2011, the Greek government ran deficits from a low of -3% of GDP per year to a high of -14%. This was not good budget management, but it was containable so long as they borrowed in their own currency. After the euro replaced the drachma in 2000, they no longer had that 'luxury.' Add in their large un-taxed cash economy, and shenanigans of under reporting their federal budget deficits, due to Goldman Sachs borrowing falsehoods, and it was a bonfire ready to ignite in 2008. That none of the more wealthy northern European nations would lend them money, despite having the same currency (and "Union"), is what forced Greece to turn to the IMF. In truth, all of Southern Europe is still suffering from '08, much like middle America. Debt crisis' are horribly destabilizing, which is why bills like the Republican sponsored Graham-Leach-Bililies in '99, which essentially repealed Glass-Stegall, are the most ruinous form of capitalism, despite folks like Prof. Krugman telling us that debt contraction is ok. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hy9rH_6M6k22owHuAoiXwdoXEmVbivoaFR1mCPKTqgw/edit?hl=en&hl=en#gid=1
43
@jrd
Too bad that the German government has been refusing to pay Greece the reparations for the damage they caused to the country and its people in World War II.
The cost of the reparations is something close to 500 billion dollars. More than enough to pay all of Greece's debts and bring some sort of relief to the Greeks after the last ten years of severe austerity imposed upon them by Germany and the IMF.
34
@Ask Better Questions
So what about the current debt situation in the US? Isn't it that Republicans are largely the culprits? GOP, the party of fiscal responsibility is the fiscally irresponsible party, look at the 2017 Tax Cut for the 1% - adding another two trillion dollars in debt - on top of the unpaid wars.
26
Mr. Cohen writes, "he promised to cut corporate taxes, unblock privatization, deliver a digital transformation of the economy, attract investment and bring efficiency to the public sector."
Sounds like the same old neoliberal nostrums that have been running roughshod over the middle class, the working class and the poor for the past four decades.
I'm sure Mr. Cohen's corporate friends and journalistic cocktail party acquaintances are lifting high the champagne flutes but it is unlikely this will end well.
129
@Hank Hoffman
Not quite. One needs to understand that the "New Democracy" party of Mitsotakis, even though it is characterized as a conservative party, it is more progressive than the Democratic party of the United States.
Tsipras lost the elections mainly due to the terrible agreement he signed with FYROM last year, allowing them to declare themselves as having Macedonian ethnicity and their language being Macedonian. This agreement was viewed as highly unpopular (less than 30% of the Greek population supported it - mainly Tsipras' staunchest supporters), and a blow to the Greeks living in northern Greece, known as Macedonia.
The economy and the high taxation were secondary reasons.
Tsipras did not do more for Greece than the previous government he forced out. Actually he followed more austere policies than his predecessors, despite the fact that he called himself a leftist.
10
@George M.
Are you implying that in contrast to Cohen's neoliberal, globalist view of what caused the results of the recent election, a strong hint of ethnonationalism can be discerned?
N.B. Yes; New Democracy was awarded 158 of the 300 seats. (Trying to figure out its current majority bonus system makes my head hurt). But only 22.6% of the registered voters voted for ND -- not exactly a strong endorsement of democracy or its values.
14
@George M. Yes, there is not correlation between Greek and Slavic, yes Alexander and Ancient Macedonians were not Slavs, but neither they were Greecs. They were Macedonians, Ancient Macedonians. Tsipras god it right.
6
The voices of austerity? Were these the French and German voices who sold, respectively, expensive and unnecessary warplanes and warships to the Greeks? And somewhere in the mix did I not hear the unctuous sound of Goldman- Sachs giving financial advice? No? Must be my tinnitus acting up again.
143
@James F Traynor
good for you! these don't enter into mr. cohen's analysis of contemporary greek history or politics...
4
To visit the Greek countryside is to see what an abstract word like "austerity" has wrought. One sees buildings reduced to concrete shells, the pipes and windows removed and sold.
So pardon me for my skepticism that cutting corporate taxes and privitization will solve anything.
It is easy to forget that it was in fact the American financial crisis that reduced Greece to poverty.
Tsipras tried to speak for a people brought to their knees first by an American Financial crisis born from deregulation and then by a misguided German government. He caved in the end.
Mr. Cohen sees in Tsipras's defeat a victory for democracy. Well Tsipras's shortcomings are easy to categorize.
But I don't see a victory for the Greeks: I see a victory of the forces of austerity over the needs of the people.
146
@Bill Dan
Tsipras was not good for Greece. He was elected promising the Greeks that he would un-do all the austerity agreements that had been signed by the government he toppled (he refused to allow a vote to elect a new president and that forced the existing government to have premature elections) - the previous government was a coalition between the "New Democracy" party (a party viewed in Greece as conservative - but leaning further left than the Democratic party of the United States) and "PASOK" the Socialist party.
Tsipras ran as a Leftist, even further left than the Socialist party making a bunch of false promises, yet he embraced the austerity programs forced onto the Greeks by Shauble, the German minister of economy and the IMF.
Tsipras lost the elections mainly due to the terrible agreement he signed with FYROM last year, allowing them to declare themselves as having Macedonian ethnicity and their language being Macedonian. This agreement was viewed as highly unpopular (less than 30% of the Greek population supported it - mainly Tsipras' staunchest supporters), and a blow to the Greeks living in northern Greece, known as Macedonia.
The economy and the high taxation were secondary reasons.
5
@Bill Dan - The American financial crisis didn’t reduce Greece to poverty; the euro did. The fiscal crisis merely exposed the problem.
Greece never belonged in the euro zone in the first place, and only got in by cooking its books to hide the huge accumulated fiscal and current account deficits that had been accumulated over many years. Greece was the poster child for the illogic of a monetary union without a complementary fiscal union — a problem that Europe has still not solved.
15
@Cinclow20
Excellent and accurate post. I remember researching, years ago, and found that Greece had been living far, far beyond its means for decades.
Yes, the fiscal crisis exposed and exacerbated the problem but it was because the EU did not set up a fiscal union that Greece was
devastated.
Your assessment that Greece never belonged in the zone in the first place is correct, too, but the EU was more interested in creating a power bloc than in getting it right on monetary soundness and compatibility. ...And with Germany calling the shots, they left Greece to sink or swim.
Now, the Greeks, along with everything else, have to endure that they do not even own their famous port, Piraeus, anymore.
So much for the RAVAGES OF CAPITALISM. It's time, in the US, for Senator Warren and her plan for regulated capitalism before we too become completely hollowed out.
8
Agree with your headline.
Extremists on both sides stir up hysteria ie on the right, our way of left is threatened and on the left anybody that doesn't agree with my identity obsession and social engineering purity is the enemy.
People are starting to get fed with with identity obsession on both sides here and in Europe.
1
This article fails to mention how austerity pushed Greece into the arms of China who was only too delighted to dump bucket loads of money to get a toehold in Europe.
From a previous Times article by by Jason Horowitz and Liz Alderman: "China plans to make the Greek port of Piraeus the “dragon head” of its vast “One Belt, One Road” project, a new Silk Road into Europe." That piece also asserts that China regards Greece as its best friend in Europe.
So, Mr. Cohen, I'm not sure Greece is in a better place especially with all those Chinese workers being brought in to take the jobs at the port and suppressing the wages of the other workers.
1
Mr. Cohen is hip hip hooray for an austerity budget solution in Greece? Good grief! Look how well that Thatcheresque approach has worked out in the U.K. Or here. Hollowing out the middle class is a route to disaster.
4
Such a superficial analysis. If i was the scion kf a political dynasty i would also afford to study in Harvard. That doesn't prove anything of the new Prime Minister's merits.
1
The conservative bias of Cohen is enormous. His look to what is happening in Greece is from far above, where he cannot see what Germany, France and also my country, have done to normal, hardworking people in this country, with austerity. This last word meant that the money that was lent to Greece flowed, without any interruption, back to the German banks. A lot of Greece's problems had, let's finish with that, been caused by amoral banks, in this case Morgan, as vile and detestable as always. Cohen is mistaken, let's call it that, euphemistic..
3
"Greece rejected Alexis Tsipras, the leftist leader who took the country to the brink of ruin in 2015 before discovering a pragmatic streak. " What a re-write of history. The Greek economy was a disaster when Tsipras was elected on a platform of resisting the austerity that especially Germany was imposing. Tsipras eventually knuckled under, but blaming the economic problems on him is simpoly false.
despite being poorly informed about greece, its recent history or its problems, roger cohen feels at liberty to give his blessing to the new right wing scion of an entrenched political dynasty. the feeble minded but harvard trained new pm mitsotakis 'believes deeply in the trans-atlantic bond'...well then, he is 'our' guy, and he must be ok!
well, tourism has 'been surging and is vital to the greek economy' mr cohen tells us. harilaos florakis the chairman of the greek communist party said it best when he warned that the future of the greeks was to become a nation of waiters...this, the accelerated sell-off of state assets and further indebtedness to the chinese are what awaits greece in the coming months and years...
1
A "McKinsey man" ?
Sure great news to the poor in Greece. I have no doubt that a McKinsey man feels a burning duty to do the right thing by the poor.
Universal health care, generous unemployment indemnities, Keynesian investments towards creating a green Greece, of course such things have priority on a McKinsey man's agenda.
3
What's extraordinary about this puff piece on the "Harvard- and Stanford-educated former McKinsey man" is its total lack of analysis about how Greece was slammed into the gutter by the policies of the supposedly "democratic" liberal organizations that Cohen so loves--I'm talking about the "troika" of the EU, the European Central Bank, and the IMF who demanded the most extreme austerity measures for Greece (and, yes, the German govt too, which drove a lot of this extremism behind the scenes). The Tsipras govt deserves its comeuppance, as they betrayed the hopes of the Greek people to get out from under the euro once and for all. But "liberal democracy" is no hero in this story either. Instead the real winners are resignation and apathy, which isn't something to shout about from the rooftops (or the pages of major American newspapers).
1
@Lotzapappa, Well, Greek people have a history of high intelligence ( in their own country or everywhere they have migrated) so this new leader's educational background is not surprising. That said, I think you and I agree that Harvard, Stanford and McKinsey are not exactly ringing endorsements, since the alums of all three are what has brought the USA to its knees in most measurable ways. Now if the guy had gone to any UC campus or U of M and perhaps earned an MBA from UNC or U of Indiana, and then worked for anyone BUT McKinsey, I would feel very different. "Resignation and apathy" aptly also describe the USA national mood and condition, I am sure you agree. Sad times indeed. Merry facebook and Instagram postings aside, it sometimes feels like the world is partying like it's 1929.
1
As a Greek one thing people must understand about the Greek character, they have never and will never be fascists.
They are democratic to the core and value their freedom above all. They abhor oppression in all its forms. This was why they had so much resentment towards the US when it supported the murderous military junta. It was pure opportunistic hypocrisy on the USA’s part. Even when the US chose to support Turkey over the illegal annexation of Cyprus by not forcing them out all these years they still love the US. Let’s face it the USA could have put pressure on Turkey to resolve Cyprus it but it didn’t because the US preferred to get access to the eastern part of Turkey to house their military bases for strategic access to Iraq and Iran. Once again big oil driving US foreign policy. Greeks were tossed under the bus by the US.
Greeks may have also temporarily expressed their anger over German oppression of austerity by giving seats to the Golden Dawn but that sun has set.
But the reality is that Greece has had a huge brain drain as a result of austerity and getting back on their feet may take a generation.
The country has too many refugees and a hollowed out educated professional class. The people left behind are either very rich or very poor.
I firmly believe that it was the Greek Crisis that directly led to Brexit, the English saw how cruelly Germany treated Greece and said, “no thanks”.
The Germans are their own and the EU’s arrogant worse enemies.
5
What a ridiculous column. Greece is trapped in a vice of neoliberalism's making and its lurch back to that dreaded ideology should not be celebrated. Unfortunately, the options it has to get out of the vice are extremely unpalatable: Grexit or at least Euro exit. Neither of these would be pleasant in the short term and so neither will be embraced by politicians.
For Greece to really have a shot, other actors would need to step in: the Germans and other "responsible" Europeans, who hold the reins of finance, would need to implement a true fiscal union via the EU so that the Euro, rather than being a trap for poorer member states, would be a boon. But while such an action would produce none of the real ugliness Grexit or Euro exit by Greece would result in, it would nevertheless require something anathema to folks like Mr. Cohen: abandoning the folly that is neoliberalism and embracing good old fashioned Keyenesianism.
Or, in plain English, helping the poor instead of the rich.
3
Strange comment about the anti americanism of greeks. It is good to remember the implication of the USA in the military dictature of the somber 70's with tortures, kidnapings, jailing and sevices against left wing students, etc.
Well portrayed by the film " Z " of Costa Gavras that today Americans don't know, if they ever saw it. It is certainly not in horribly merchandising Netflix now.
Americans do their work at erasing the memory of history.
Now a right wing banker of Chase ( we know the turpitudes ) seduces the barely recuperating greeks into a false idea of righteous faking again. The ghost of the dictature is not gone even it is forgotten .
1
Here, let me fix this paragraph for you Mr. Cohen:
"Mitsotakis will take office with Turkey and the government of the Republic of Cyprus embroiled in conflict over offshore oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean. In May, the State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by Turkish plans to begin drilling in an area within the internationally-recognized Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus, calling the step “highly provocative” and urging Turkish authorities to “halt these operations.”
There, that's better.
1
The Greeks led by Goldman Sachs took advantage of German banks. These banks were buying debt and securitizing it like the rest of the fools on Wall Street. The Greeks hid their actual debt from their creditors, at Goldman's suggestion, so more credit would roll in. Then the system tanked and the Germans in a rage of anger did everything they could to stick it the Greeks. The Germans lent the Greeks money to pay back German banks. So Greece floundered nearly falling out of the EU.
2
Optimism? Really? Greeks had choices of bad, really bad, worse, etc. Their government - no matter who runs it - will accomplish little for its citizens.
Austerity was extracted from salaried taxpayers and retirees to ensure big banks lost nothing - no "haircut." The IMF and the World Bank saw to it. The bailout was for bankers, not for Greeks: after a decade, the national debt is no smaller than it was at the start.
There was no persecution of big business for decades of tax evasion, because ALL the multinationals - Mercedes Benz, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Siemens, international banks - would have a shocking overdue tax bill which none of them want to pay.
There's no reform of the public sector and the judiciary, no tax reform, no creation of a land registry (important for buying/selling property to developers or foreign retirees.) Patronage serves all the political parties: just different pigs at the troughs.
If the economy in the US contracted 5% year on year for six years running, with 40% cuts in SS benefits, and doubling of property taxes, there'd be blue haired seniors in the streets with pitchforks and torches.
Cut corporate taxes? What a laugh: they aren't collected in the first place. I'll believe it when they prosecute in the EU courts all the companies that avoided taxes for decades. I worked there for 4 years, and saw it firsthand. But Germany, France, the US, et. al., don't want to see their blue chip icons embarrassed publicly for their naked exploitation.
4
Don't underestimate the Greek people. They always find their way out of a rut.
Check your horses. The winner of these elections, Nea Dimokratia, has a strong alt-right wing which absorbed many voters of Golden Dawn. Although Mitsotakis, the incoming premier, may look like a decent man, the number two of his party, Georgiadis, is a plain-out racist and homophobe who would make even Trump blush. As a quacky philologist he published a book called Homosexuality in Ancient Greece: the Myth Collapses. Last week, a few hours before the election, Giannis Antetokounmpo, a Greek basketball player of Nigerian parents playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, won the award of most valuable NBA player. Georgiadis appeared on TV and said he wasn’t really Greek. He has also idealized the murderous years of the military junta rule in the 70s and asked for the Greek government to make life as hard as possible for refugees and immigrants so as to deter further immigration. It is almost as if Mike Pence had been elected president with Trump as his running mate; so long for conservative decency! When many Greeks voted for Mitsotakis, they were actually voting for Georgiadis with a clear conscience. In this way, Golden Dawn has won this election brilliantly. They have become obsolete because their ideas have influenced ‘center-right parties’ to such an extent that they are now mainstream. Looking more closely, one sees a clear trend in all of Europe: the PP and VOX in Spain; Kurz ÖVP and the FPÖ in Austria; and also the Conservative Party and UKIP, to which the author is referring.
6
So the Neoliberal- who represents what went so wrong in the first place - is to be celebrated?
No.
1
UK and Greece are apples and oranges.
The analysis of the columnist couldn't be more off the mark.
UK was and still is a vibrant economy , not a corrupt and stagnant economy kept alive by EU aid which was and still is the case with Greece.
The fact that the columnist intentionally ignored this important fact tells you that this is not a piece of sincere analysis done in good faith but rather a lame piece of pro-EU propaganda.
This is likely the last column I will read by Roger Cohen. This is pure unadulterated neo-liberal propaganda. “Greece is a good news story.” Indeed it is for for those who crushed Greece under the heel of austerity imposed by the European troika’s debt collectors for the large European banks. Even better when we hear the new prime minister plans to “cut corporate taxes and unblock privatization.” The neo-liberal shock doctrine at its best. If the Greeks thought they had been pauperized before, they ain’t seen nothing yet.
I can’t imagine a line that would strike more terror in the hearts of Greek working class citizens that Cohen’s cheerful description of its new prime minister: “Mitsotakis is a Harvard- and Stanford-educated former McKinsey man from one of Greece’s pre-eminent political families.”
Whenever you think things can’t get worse, think again.
2
It's a new day in Greece, back to the 70s or wast it the 80s when the oligarchs ruled.
Your paeans to the New Democrats, were they influenced and advised by our very own New Democrats, The Third Way?
"That somersault is now completed. Mitsotakis is a Harvard- and Stanford-educated former McKinsey man from one of Greece’s pre-eminent political families."
Wall Street will be happy, not so much the poor and working classes in Greece. Opa!
1
Dear Mr. Cohen, I think you should wait for 6 months, better one year, to watch what Mr. Mitsotakis will do before singing songs of praise.
1
I am trying to understand the logic of this article. The "normal" scenario goes as follows. A leftist government plunges a country into economic chaos, until the military or a conservative government come to the rescue. However, Greece's crisis was never the consequence of a leftist rule, but rather of a number of bad economic choices by the center right coalitions. We are then told that Greece has tightened its belt, survived the crisis, come out of the bailout, reduced unemployment, increased tourism, etc. etc. All of this, presumably, under the leadership of the "populist" leftist party, which took over AFTER the country was already in a deep crisis. So, now we salute as a great victory the arrival of the new Misotakis government, which promises to do the same thing that led Greece into the abyss in the first place? Something in this picture does not look quite right.
1
Ummm you sure are setting this guy up for unrealistic expectations a week after his election
"...huge bailouts to save it from bankruptcy..."
Mr. Cohen, you should do more homework. Read Yannis Varoufakis's account of these 'bailouts'. He was the finance minister for the first months of the Syriza governmenet under Tsipras. He resigned after Tsipras reneged on his own followers vote and cut a horrible austerity deal which leaves Greece to this day in dire straights.
Oh, great: another representative of global-big finance (McKinsey alum) is voted in, basically because all else has already failed in a system created and run by people just like him.
This guy is going to be Emmanuel Macron's new best friend.
2
Mitsotakis is a disaster. Like sheep, the Greeks voted for the butcher. It is ND which caused the Greek crisis in the first place and now he’ll cut taxes on the rich and corporations to bring back the tax-dodging Greeks who left home to go to London. What a farce. Nothing to celebrate.
3
Harvard, Stanford, McKinsey... Let’s hope this means something very different from Goldman Sachs, who helped the Greeks cheat their way into the Euro.
2
It may be too soon to heap blame on Tsipras and laud the arrival of Mitsotakis. Time will tell. The people of Greece will tell. The dream of social justice will not die with a turn in an election.
@Marvin Raps I am not sure exactly what is blamed on Tsipras, other than having to impose a very harsh medicine to get the country out of the bailout, reduced unemployment, etc. etc. Obviously, promising to the population that we can now relax things is a very popular statement. I would say that if there is a populist movement around, it is likely to be the new government.
In Tsipras, Brussels found a compliant vassal implementing directives to a "t" except for the bribes he dolled out just prior to the election in the hope reducing the magnitude of the defeat. Unfortunately Mitsotakis will soon find out that Germany, and by inference Brussels, is not about to give on austerity and he will have to resort to a sense of patriotic duty of the billionaires who, after raping and pillaging the country over the past thirty years, would have to repatriate some of the stolen money and put some lucky folks to work. And maybe he can put an end to the "Rubiconers", leftist vigilantes, and the anarchists of Exarhia, the area in downtown Athens not even cops venture to. By now Greeks are numb and only a huge commitment to hard work will save them.
1
I have no clue what the author is talking about. I am a greek immigrant, and I tend to vote fiscally conservative. The the new PM is a dynast with no real world experience other than a consultant and I will state that consultants like McKinsey live in a fantasy world of unicorns and Enron, both myths.
His family is wealthy with no visible source. Tell me how his family is rich and ill by into this premise
4
This is exactly the kind of articles that have distorted Americans' understanding of foreign realities for many decades. History is limited to what happened yesterday, without any mention of the days, weeks and years before yesterday. Good and bad are evaluated only with respect to pro- or anti-American sentiments. Labels are used to blur rather than explain, "populism" being the latest fad, where radical left and neo-nazis are presented as one and the same... Etc., etc.
Why did the Greek Left come to power in the first place? Mr. Cohen does not care to say, presenting the chaos, the 30% unemployment, the austerity, etc. as a result of the Left's policies. Which makes one wonder: how come the unemployment rate has come down to 18%? Where does the modest growth come from? Oh, that's because "Greece has stabilized itself." Nothing to do with the Leftist government.
The Left is out, so "it's a new day in Greece." What a relief! And of course, it's thanks to the election of a "Harvard- and Stanford-educated former McKinsey man from one of Greece’s pre-eminent political families."
Some new days feel astonishingly similar to days from way, way back.
3
"...in violent flux, torn between liberal democratic and nativist currents."
'Nativist currents' presumably means people who oppose being overrun with throngs of culturally incompatible migrants who violate borders as if they did not exist.
“kolotoumpa”... what a cool word.
Lets hope Americans are the next to reject the incompetent corporate loving totally fake populism of Mr Trump.
I like reading “opinion” pieces but this reads like a column written by and for the Greek Tourism Board.
I was there a few months ago, and though people have regained some sense of equilibrium, things are still very dire for the average Greek citizen. My tour guide was in debt from years required to get a “tour license;” so much so, he could not afford to get married.
My driver had been unemployed for ten years. His son, twenty eight, was unemployed and living with his father and grandmother with little hope for a future.
Everywhere, buildings were covered in graffiti and the landscape strewn with the shells of half-built houses and hotels sitting in stasis because no one could afford to pay the back taxes.
Lesbos is so overcrowded with refugees, it is worse than our own border. Athens is also struggling. What WAS uplifting, is that charities were driving a truck to a lot in Athens with a washer and dryer for both refugees and the poor to use. The rich are still rich. The average person must try to juggle multiple jobs in order to eat.
Mr. Cohen might benefit from talking to an average Joe or Jill next time he writes a travel blog.
2
I like reading “opinion” pieces but this reads like a column written by and for the Greek Tourism Board.
I was there a few months ago, and though people have regained some sense of equilibrium, things are still very dire for the average Greek citizen. My tour guide was in debt from years required to get a “tour license;” so much so, he could not afford to get married.
My driver had been unemployed for ten years. His son, twenty eight, was unemployed and living with his father and grandmother with little hope for a future.
Everywhere, buildings were covered in graffiti and the landscape strewn with the shells of half-built houses and hotels sitting in stasis because no one could afford to pay the back taxes.
Lesbos is so overcrowded with refugees, it is worse than our own border. Athens is also struggling. What WAS uplifting, is that charities were driving a truck to a lot in Athens with a washer and dryer for both refugees and the poor to use. The rich are still rich. The average person must try to juggle multiple jobs in order to eat.
Mr. Cohen might benefit from talking to an average Joe or Jill next time he writes a travel blog.
“Mitsotakis is a Harvard- and Stanford-educated former McKinsey man from one of Greece’s pre-eminent political families.” What could possibly go wrong?
4
"Anti-Americanism defunct" is good news for Europe? Mr Cohen seems to believe he still lives in a democracy, what a joke.
2
The USA needs a somersault in 2020.
2
Greece saved for another round of neo-liberal economics? Good luck on that one.
2
Americans should see the brilliant film by Costa Gavras " Z " about the military dictature reigning over Greece from 1967 to 1974 .
Another coup organized by the USA that is partly responsible for the misery of Greece today. Of course ignored by Americans .
The money of the Greeks is all in London with the shipping companies all registered there under fake pavillions and never paying taxes or sharing the revenue of the work of greek people...with greek people.
And all the serious money of tourism , big hotels, restaurants is all hidden in well protected secrecy of swiss bank vaults.
Ah those socialist greeks with more luxury cars than in the USA !
Lazy taking naps every afternoon and waiting for retirement at 50.
2
The title "Greece is the good news story in Europe" is far too pollyannaish. Keep in mind that Mitsotakis in many ways stood at the birth of the Greek crisis in the first place. Only if (a very important "if") he does not fall back into the old "habits" that are the cause of the miserie, will it be a good story!!!!!!
Reading this paen to neo-liberalism and austerity, it’s easy to see the appeal of “populism.”
2
"unemployment has fallen to about 18 percent and modest growth has been achieved, Greece is still bound by the fiscal constraints imposed by Germany and other creditors that oblige it to produce a primary budget surplus."
But wasn't this achieved under Tsipras? He lost the election because he wasn't ready to offer the crap-shoot of lower taxes.
2
The EU commission has already reaffirmed that the contract of 3.5 % of PIB in growth will not be negotiated again : an argument that made the new right wing prime minister elected .
The election was not some great victory for democracy. Quite the opposite. Mr. Mitsotakis' election exposed the failure of democratic governance in the face of the global corporate state.
Mr. Tsipras and his party were defeated precisely because they couldn't deliver on the "will of the people" expressed in a democratic election. But how could they? The electorate wanted EU membership without the neoliberal austerity imposed as a condition. That was simply impossible. Mr. Tsipras tried everything, including a brief - and laughable - flirtation with Putin and WWII-shaming Merkel, to goad the EU into a 'better deal,' but to no avail. The only option would have been leaving the EU resulting in an economic free fall and austerity of a very different and permanent sort as the Brits are fixin' to find out.
Mr. Mitsotakis got elected by promising tax cuts. He lied. He can no more deliver tax cuts than Syriza. If democracy is supposed to empower people to chart their own destiny, then Mitsotakis' election was democracy's funeral. It was founded on his bogus pandering and the electorate's disgust with Syriza for not delivering the impossible. So in a few years the electorate will circle back around, again, after the Greek Milton Friedman clone proves just as pitiful as Tsipras and Karamanlis. Whatever is left of democracy in Greece, as is probably the case in most of the West, is limited to municipalities where the great issues are limited to pets and trash.
13
@Gary FS
If Tsipras represented such a "democratic" government, why then did he refuse to have a referendum vote on the agreement he signed last year with FYROM - essentially selling Macedonian ethnicity to Slavs and undermining Greeks from Macedonia. Over 70% of the Greek population opposed that horrendously myopic agreement. He did it because he knew that he would had never been able to get it ratified.
I don’t know, Roger, but it seems to me that Mr. Mitsotakis has taken a page out of the Trump playbook to enliven Greece’s sagging economy. Germany is the culprit here. If it hadn’t been so insistent on austerity, the Greek economy might have emerged from the morass a lot earlier. Let Britain exit from the union and see what happens. It may be a lesson for everyone.
9
Translation: Socialism was tried "again"--with the usual outcome. The New Green Deal shelved in favor of Democracy to allow Democracy to replenish the coffers in order to try "the Program" yet once again. Comic.
1
@shreir - What nonsense, socialism was not tried in Greece. Tsipras and Syriza's attempts to rescue Greece from the economic disaster that prior Greek governments, German export surplus economy, and the straightjacket of EU neoliberalism created was doomed to failure due to German insistance on an "austerity" cure, and ultimately the weakness of Tsipras.
9
@shreir Have you ever been to Greece ?
How would this NATO thing work in a spat between Greece and Turkey? They are, after all, now both NATO members. AFAIK, the function of NATO is external defence. If Russia decided to attack NATO member countries in the Baltic area, for example.
But, NATO, AFAIK again, doesn't have any internal policing role. No examples from the past (the Greece/Turkey conflict over Cyprus occurred BEFORE either country joined NATO). So, surely, we're not talking NATO involvement here but a role for the United Nations - and the UN does do military interventions as for example in Somalia and, less successfully, in the 1990s Balkan conflict.
And. 'American support' for Greece against Turkey. How would that work? Not militarily, surely?
At least the people of Greece have shown, they know the meaning of Democracy. The election results in Greece is a show of hope for the rest of Europe.
Perhaps, Greece can show the people in Great Britain, that they are rushing for a Brexit for the wrong reasons.
4
@citizen - Contrary to Roger Cohen and this comment the Greek election is not a sign of hope, but simply a prolongation of the disaster. The economic (and therefore also social) problems cannot be solved in the EU's current policy framework that the dominant Germany insists upon.
3
Perhaps the celebratory tone of this piece is a little premature. Greece is by no means out of the crisis that it has been engulfed in for the past ten years.
When Mitsotakis' promises "...to cut corporate taxes, unblock privatization, deliver a digital transformation of the economy, attract investment and bring efficiency to the public sector..." are even partially realized then it really would be a time to celebrate. However the last two of these might prove to be difficult to accomplish..
3
To me, the new Prime Minister looks like a man in the mold of Trump. Like Trump, the new PM also went "through a hard-driving campaign in which he promised to cut corporate taxes, unblock privatization, deliver a digital transformation of the economy, attract investment and bring efficiency to the public sector". This is the end of hard ideology of the left who promoted welfare state rooted in socialism, too many regulations, high taxes, large scale immigration, and anti-Americanism. Adios! Those will be replaced with policies rooted in pragmatism, common sense and national pride like Trump has been doing.
3
@Alex E Let's review tRump's record as you tout it; "Pragmatism," military parades and "very fine people on both sides, to say nothing of "the wall," "Common sense," again, "the wall," and tax cuts for the wealthy, and "common sense," children in cages, family separation, reducing aid to central america, antagonizing longtime allies....
13
As with people with some sort of incurable disease who desperately seek anything new that might, on some outside chance, help their condition, Mitsotakis may simply be the Greek response of similar kind to Greek experience of Tsipras. Time will tell; and hopefully there really is something to the promises of Mitsotakis. But more to the point of American concern: Dismissing Trump is, in my view, critical for the sake of democracy; but choosing the right person to replace him ought to be even more critical. At some point Dems have to focus their energies on the issue of what is best for this nation, which includes non-Dems.
2
Cutting corporate taxes in Greece? From what I understand, connected corporations in Greece rarely pay much in the way of taxes. Maybe that changed during the crisis. If not, reform should start by actually collecting the taxes that are owed.
17
@Durhamite
Excellent point.
2
The column is spot on. Most people who didn't have to live through the decade of toxic populism in Greece don't realize that Tsipras was a leader very similar to Trump in many ways. They also don't realize the level of incompetence of the syriza goverment and most importantly how dysfunctional the greek public administration really is.
I suggest everyone checks a ranking of countries by economic freedom. Greece is currently roughly on the same level as China. A big shot of neoliberalism is exactly what my country needs right now and my worry is that Mitsotakis will not go far enough, because his party is full of traditional populists - the same people who bankrupt the country by running huge deficits.
5
@Kyriakos Bechrakis
" Tsipras was a leader very similar to Trump in many ways."
I haven't heard that, but living there, you should know. But, Trump is, in no way shape or form, a populist. Toxic, yes, populist, no.
@Thucydides
Trump is a fairly typical right wing populist - at least at the level of rhetoric. Tsipras is a left wing populist. The parallels are quite obvious:
1. Us against them, "them" being the elites. Syriza rose to power using (literally) the slogans "us or them" and "we'll end them or they'll end us".
2. Nationalism: Blame everything on the foreigners. The eurozone countries were presented as predators. The Germans were supposedly building the 4th Reich and the greeks who supported the stabilization program were branded "nazi collaborators".
3. Disregard for democratic institutions. Government members conspired with friendly judges to build a corruption case against political opponents, based entirely on anonymous witness testimony. The cases did not hold up in court, due to the complete lack of evidence.
4. The media are the enemy of the people. The "oligarchs" that supposedly controlled the media were blamed for every bit of criticism against the government. In fact in the beginning of it's term the government tried to control the media by limiting the number of available permits and having media owners bid for them, effectively forcing some of the existing TV channels to shut down as the number of permits was smaller than number of channels. The constitutional court blocked the process.
I could go on. We were lucky that we got out of this ordeal with our democracy still in place. In fact I believe it's their incompetence that saved us.
The return of nepotism in Greece. The rich right wing few families that caused the bankrupcy of the nation back in power . Good news ? Best news in Europe ? Really ?
The father was prime minister in the 90's.The sister foreign minister. The nephew is the mayor of Athens.
That is really sad for those who really know Greece.
No good news at all.
22
Greece may hold the record for wide political swings, not wise to read too much into them. Now Mitsotakis will need to deliver on his promises to hold on. The EU was never an exit thought for the Greeks, the cost too high, but elitistism in Brussels and the central bank apparatus was and still is viewed as a threat.
Is that populism?
6
The Greek people and their government spent beyond their income. Greeks own more luxury cars per capita than the U.S. Greeks did what they could to avoid paying taxes. The EU bailed out Greece to the tune of 300 billion euros. Curse the banks and the IMF for making bad loans? The Euro raised the standard of living for the Greeks (and for the Italians). Message for Italy--remember what life was like in 1983 when a dollar cost 1,800 lire, trains were hot and slow, meat was served in slices so thin that two ounces was a portion, and ;poor refrigeration let food spoil.
5
@an observer - "The EU bailed out Greece to the tune of 300 billion euros." False, almost all of the 300 billion went to German and other European banks that had made imprudent loans.
1
@an observer More luxury cars than in the USA ?
Sure you have never been to Greece .
@Joan Unterweger
So the borrower has no responsibility for requesting or accepting"imprudent" loans?
I’m sorry but Tsipras wasn’t the one who “took his country to the brink of ruin”. That would be - you guessed it - ND, which is responsible for driving Greece into bankruptcy in the first place, and - in a conspiracy with Goldman-Sachs and enabled by the EU’s refusal to look closely - cheated to enable Greece to enter the Euro, a historically bad decision on par with Brexit.
24
Once I read Harvard and Stanford educated, my alarm bells went off. The next paragraph, which described his neoliberal plan to unblock privatization, lower corporate taxes, and make the country a tech haven, told me all I needed to know.
If any recover happens under Mitsotakis it will be built on the backs of the poor, watch inequality skyrocket.
33
Prime Minister Mitsotakis has quite the job ahead of him. The sclerotic Greek economy and public sector were only partially reformed under his predecessor Tsipras. While likely risky to his long term political career, Mitsotakis needs to use his majority in Parliament to enact fundamental reforms to open up the country to investment, strangle corruption (which remains endemic), and bring hope to Greeks that austerity has an ending.
As a Greek American I wish him luck, and hope Greece can again be a shining light for Europe and the world.
7
"Greece is still bound by the fiscal constraints imposed by Germany and other creditors that oblige it to produce a primary budget surplus."
A mandatory budget surplus is a huge drag on growth. It's like a man trying to hang wallpaper with one hand; not much progress, if any, will be made. The problem is baked-in with such an economic structuring.
Odd as it seems, debt is a good thing for national economies, not so much, of course, for individuals. Many right-wing economists think that there is no difference between a citizen's and a government's budget. National debt allows an economy to grow; personal debt often crushes an individual.
Thus, Greece may survive, but it will be a stunted survival.
(I can understand Germany's insistence that Greece pay Germany and others back. That's good for Germany, at least in the short run: They want their money back. Hard to blame anyone for that feeling; we all have need of cash flow.)
3
@Jim Muncy It is interesting to note that Germany did let Ireland and Spain write down their debts after imposing crippling payback condition on Greece.
12
@Jim Muncy your view is misleading, that Greece and actually all members of the EU have to have not a surplus but meet a 3% debt ruling was and is a crucial bonding that the EU economy will not run in high debt like the USA. Greece had before meddled with his books, also lied at the application to the EU. The EU gave them unlimited credits to meet the goal, which then led to the disaster when the recession arrived in the EU. Greek had an overblown government with millions of workers paid by the government and their retirement age was around 50, the pensions of this workers strangled the economy on top of all this.
Now Greece is getting billions to keep the refugees from going to the center countries of Europe, like Britain, France, Germany and others. At the moment its their life line. I'm not convinced that the new very pro business and former Kinsey man is the right person to help the Greece as a nation. Corruption and long dependency on government subsidaries is a hard habit to over come.
5
@Karen as other comments have pointed out, the recent history of ineptitude and corruption in Greece is very much tied up to the history of ND and even the Mitsotakis family. WE can hope for change but don't count on it yet. Syriza did not paint a pretty picture but given the constraints they were under, they did a credible job of running the country.
7
The only accomplishment has been a peaceful transfer of power. Otherwise, the Greeks are saddled with another disastrous political family who, like the Harvard and Stanford educated Papandreou politicians, will spend the Greeks right back to where they started four years ago. Good politicians no matter where they are, know that if they roll up the sleeves of their blue Oxford shirts, lie long and hard enough, and with enough manufactured empathy, voters will believe it. There is rarely logic in politics. The Greeks' pain, suffering and sacrifices these last four years; for what?
9
Yes, despite all evidence, cutting corporate income tax will automatically produce prosperity. Prosperity for the already wealthy, that is.
19
The "good news-story" may not last long. The greek economy was hollowed by the upper 10%, and Syriza has had a few years to work on that. Now there is a president who wants to do a Trump, and spread some tax relief to the people who least need it, to bolster their savings accounts and hedgefunds.
We will see where that goes.
6
@Bjarte Rundereim You could not be further form the truth. The new government clearly and loudly supports the middle class, tax reductions to ease small businesses and reforms to assist those more affected by the crisis. You are right that we will see where it goes, but one usually projects based on biased information.
3
@Charis Sure. We believe you.
1
Juxtaposed with the recent EU parliamentary elections the election outcome in Greece certainly suggests a positive story for Europe yet to carry it forward much will depend on the fact whether the Brussels politico-economic elite too is prepared to get along Greece as an equal partner in building the larger project of the European unity.
1
Greece is a good news story for the Greeks. They have survived despite the EU's punitive restrictions and a currency (the Euro) that nearly strangled them and continues to trap them in. Having recently been to Greece is pretty difficult to find anyone, left or right that has a good word for the EU. Good on the Greeks themselves.
6
@Niall
The Greeks joined the EU eyes wide open, agreeing to adhere to its rules and regulations. It then proceeded to recklessly borrow and flaunt nearly all measures of sound economic management, run up debt and run its economy into the ground. It is and was a badge of honor to pay no taxes to the central government by all sectors and classes of the economy. A recipe for disaster. The economy resembled a third world developing nation and bailing it out cost other countries billions of dollars in loans during the last financial crisis. Money that could have been spent on their own recoveries but wasn't.
It may well be that Greeks have nothing good to say about the EU but the EU may, with the clearest of consciences call the Greek people and government reckless deadbeats. Greek oligarchs and conservatives have absolutely played a role retarding equality but the crux of Greece's economic woes are elementary--a refusal to live relatively within ones means and a refusal to pay taxes to fund social service and government. The "dastardly bankers" and "hard-hearted Germans" trope may salve some nationalist pride or deflect blame, but the real source of Greek disfunction and mismanagement has always been Greece.
It is a relief it is finally getting its house in order and taking responsibility but it is also long overdue. Something that should have been done decades ago.
4
This is a political history from a parallel universe.
This is a victory of the party of Greek oligarchs, whose arrogance, corruption and profligacy put Greece in a horrible situation whereby it was able to be brought to its knees by the Troika as an example to discourage recalcitrance in larger EU states, by the Troika. Syriza's responsibility was NOT in causing the crisis, but in folding under pressure and doing nothing to bail its country our other than to take the orthodox medicince.
Mr. Cohen may see the 'optimism' in the new government of an American trained, for McKinsey employee. But this election result is hardly that of the population 'coming to its senses', but rather a repudiation of a 'radical left' government that governed like a government of the right for the past 4 years. These seemingly halcyon days have everything to do with Syriza leaving Greece locked into a long-term usurious bondage in return for short term relief. Tsipras deserved to be thrashed. Greece is once again in thrall to its historic rulers. The election means little other than that.
25
@M K Bernard,
I agree whole-heartedly!
Roger's essay is surreal, a completely inverted version of reality.
Who else could the Greeks have voted for?
13
@M K Bernard Someone who knows Greece .
Some people can spend 20 years in a country and still do not understand anything past the luggage they bring.
1
Cutting taxes always works, wink, wink, the problem in Greece was all the taxes NOT paid by the wealthy as they stashed money in Swiss bank accounts and reaped huge breaks from government policy. A normal person paid taxes on property, the rich got an exemption based on the size of their home/property the bigger it was the bigger the break. Seriously!! Corruption also has been a problem. As usual the average person pays welfare for the rich. The EU austerity plans were torture. IF the EU were like the U.S. Greece would be a red state taking more than it paid in taxes BUT not in debt per se to California paying usurious interest rates.
5
We should be reassured about democracy because “the left” who Cohen blames for Greece’s financial collapse has been defeated?
No doubt Cohen is only concerned for the type of democracy that privileges banks, corporations, and billionaires at the expense of working people, consumers, families, communities, and the environment.
26
@Joseph F. Panzica
Er...Cohen didn't blame the left for Greece's financial collapse. He acknowledged their role in pulling Greece back from the brink. In fact the Greek financial crisis was caused by a previous right wing government who lied about the state of its public finances for years and used the access to cheap borrowing made available by Euro membership to finance huge budget deficits. The truth was revealed when a left wing government took power in late 2009.
Many of my colleagues knock Greece, describing it as a third world country with low quality of life. I defend Greece, having lived there for a year. They value life differently than most westerners. They just aren't as caught up in modern day trappings. They value family, friends and culture over the rest. They're happiness ratio and longevity surpasses our own by miles.
13
Greece is not a good news story at all. It still has crippling debt that was used to keep itself afloat not for investment and it remains in the Euro which means they cannot let their currency fall and encourage both tourists and make their exports more competitive. Greece will struggle along as best it can until either the Euro is reformed and becomes a true currency with a EU budget that can reallocate resources or until Greece has had enough and leaves the Euro.
4
@Jason It has been decades that the money of the greeks is stolen by the shipping companies all hiding in London, never paying taxes nor sharing the benefits of the work of greek people.
8
David Adler's piece in the Guardian provides a much sounder analysis of the fall of Tsipras and Syriza. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/08/syriza-demise-greece-alexis-tsipras
Also, while one can disagree with the left-wing rethoric of Tsipras in 15, there is no basis for considering it a threat to democracy along the lines of Golden Dawn.
While you may disagree with both far-right and radical left, to claim them as equally damaging to democracy is absurd in this context. Syriza was always committed to democracy, what they once challenged was neoliberal economics.
28
Every country should have their own currency. The EU should be abolished and each country should be independent, not tied financially to a giant web. Why is it that Britain got to keep its pound and Greece had to give up its drachma?
2
At the height of their problems, the Greek people were pulling out as many Euros as they could from ATMs, and saving the Euros.
Governments having control of their currencies, it is another way for governments to steal from ordinary people.
1
@Selena Coul -- Countries CHOSE to use the Euro. I lived there for 15 years and was there at the transition in a ski area in Austria. The cash drawer in the lodge had at least four different currencies, Swiss francs, Deutschmarks, Italian Lire and Austrian Schillings. The day it converted people gladly switched to Euros to avoid the cost of constantly converting so many currencies. Most Europeans had boxes or drawers full of left over unused currency. The euro made trade and travel easier. The European Union has stabilized a region racked by wars every thirty years or so going back centuries. It has some faults like NOT relequishing sovereignty and truly uniting but is better than the unending cycle of wars every time there was enough healthy male bodies available to throw into the fray.
5
@Selena Coul
The problem is not "the Euro" but piling up excessively high debts and having not enough money to pay back.
It does not depend on the domestic currency to get bankrupt.
If Greece had "the Drachma" they wouldn´t have had enough drachmas, if they had "the Dollar" they wouldn´t have had enough Dollars and even if they had "the Rhinestone" they wouldn´t have had enough Rhinestones either.
UK hat "the Pound" as you have said. But after financial crisis they had not enough pounds also any more so that they put a cap on national debt to keep it below 90 % of GDP (US is 105,77 % at present) by taking a set of actions on a voluntary basis the Greeks had to take by pressure from outside when national dept had been on 180 % (183 % at present).
So again: It does not depend on currency. It´s a matter of budgetarian policy only.
It isn´t more enjoyable to be absolutely bankrupt in a world of Drachmas and no country is able to get rid of all of its debts by hyperinflating it´s own currency no matter what the name is.
3
The author did not mention the fact that Tsipras did the hard and dirty work to save his country. He turned Greece around and the country is on the upslope. The next chapter in Greece's future will be far easier by comparison. Tourism by definition cannot carry the economy. I am sure the new PM will restore the social services with his proposed corporate tax cuts, create more jobs especially for the youth, and bring in even more German investment to speed up the recovery.
9
"Although unemployment has fallen to about 18 percent...."
Really, the fact that 18 percent unemployment can be viewed as an improvement is stunning.
Also, though I can't provide specifics here, I have my doubts that the wealthy, non-working class of Greece are finally being compelled to contribute their fair share to the general welfare.
5
Well Paul I'm glad the Greeks, and you, have come to their senses. We should all realise that the educated people in Frankfurt and Brussels know whats best for us. Tispras' idea that Greece should have increased spending during a recession rather than enforced horrific austerity was clearly extemist socialism. Thank god the ECB threated to destroy the Greek banking system if they didnt give in to their demands. It all turned out great.
19
This is an extraordinary column of delusion and wishful thinking. Greece did not lose ‘a quarter of its economy’.
The Troika of Evil – the IMF, EU and ECB imposed vicious economic sanctions on the Greek people against an austerity budget designed to get the Greek people to pay for the mismanagement of the European Banking Sector by the ECB.
The Austerity caused a collapse of the Greek Economy, the IMF made errors its estimates of the impact of the austerity package. The IMF has since apologised for its errors.
Greece has not ‘turned the corner’; an arithmetical anomaly causes measured economic activity to falsely show a recovery in economic activity.
Greek democracy has always been intact; the Greek people voted in a referendum to reject the Austerity Ideology promoted by the Troika of Evil. Even though the ECB broke the law by trying to break the Greek resistance by turning off liquidity to the Greek Economy causing some old age pensioners to collapse whilst they waited to withdraw their money from Cash Machines.
By Greek ‘extremist temptations’ I suppose Mr Cohen means the Greek peoples democratic decision to stand up against Austerity. They lost and the Troika of Evil imposed vicious economic sanctions on the Greek State including the demand to privatize much of its commonwealth. Lufthansa was one of the early beneficiaries.
‘Anti-Americanism’? Austerity is an American Capitalist invention used to bring non-compliant Countries to heel.
61
Remember when the republicans were clamoring that if we didn’t cut spending we would be Greece? Well come to find out it wasn’t the spending that was their only problem. It was the fact that nobody was paying their taxes, especially not the rich. Now that Greece has their taxing system more under control than before and they are finally meeting their obligations I’d like to know where the republicans are now?
9
Well, Alexis Tsipras was moving politically from Left towards the Center forced by realpolitik and he was gaining good points for the country. In this elections in Greece we see the new PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, from Right wing also moving towards the Center and following Tsipras plan, so why Greece has to be the Good News Story of Europe just now? Syriza would be doing fine with the experience accumulated and sensitivity for the working class and the elder. The hope is thus Greece can continue adjusting to European values which includes better managed inequality among citizens and decent life for everyone.
6
Greece will stay under international "supervision" for decades. It is no longer a democracy. It is something very similar to Hongkong.
9
Well... sure. Another way to put it is that Greek voters chose to give the reins of government back to the party that just a few years ago, by overspending and cheating on the accounting, caused all the disasters they have been enduring.
33
@PGH The notion in this essay that "cut corporate taxes [and] unblock privatization" is a good thing is appalling.
9
@MLChadwick The thing is: it's even worse than that. Because even by strictly "neo-liberal" standards the party that won the election is not good anyway, since they were the one who run up deficit and debt, and lied about that for years before the crisis finally hit.
1
Europe was doing fine too, before World War I.
I don’t think there will be that sort of trouble again.
2
@David Martin
No there won't. You're right.
Americans persistently see WW1 as a war between European countries, when it was, in fact, a war between European empires. A time when America was not a superpower, when the centre of the world was Europe or more particularly Great Britain and the British Empire.
Europe is a continent of countries now. Not empires. And, having fought more than two millennia of near continuous destructive war, happy to be peaceful, effete, gutless and democratic.
Other, younger, continents have picked up the baton of continuous military conflict now.
1
Why o why does Roger Cohen believe that Britain should remain in the EU ? Successive British governments have amply proved that Britain does not want a unified Europe, a single currency, a single president or anything like a union of states. Britain only ever wanted an extended common market. The British, as a rule, speak of "Europe" as something they are still not mentally a part of, and I believe never will be. What's more a good part of the establishment (to which Boris Johnson emphatically belongs), still have an anti-Napoleonic view of Europe: keep the Europeans divided and squabbling among each other precisely to avoid any kind of united power on "the Continent". I say: let the British go, or better let the English go, as this a peculiarly English attitude not shared by the Scots or even the Irish of the North. The rest of Europe will do fine without the drag. And as for England, she can revel in being forever "this sceptr'd isle... this blessed plot" and the rest of us will go visit that quaint land of milk before tea. Though a visa may be required.
37
@Luca Romano
yes. bravo! so much hand wringing in nyt comments about whither the UK...let them go! they only had one foot in the european community anyway - and everything with them was a special agreement. the english are better off on their rainy island!
@Luca Romano
That's a gross misrepresentation. Support for the EU has been strong in the UK since our joining the EC in 1972. It remained undiminished after the Maastricht Treaty 1991. It's only after the Lisbon Treaty 2007 that a concerted right-wing media campaign, funded dubiously, finally undermined British support for the European project.
I'm British. I voted to join in 1975. I, along with pretty much everyone I know, voted to Remain in 2016 and strongly support the European Union, integrationist and federalising agendas included. Kindly don't tar me with the brush of your Anglophobic prejudices.
2
"Yes, Britain, democracies do change their minds from time to time when they make disastrous decisions."
Oof. The government is elected on a promise of ending bailouts, holds a referendum months later overwhelmingly confirming that result, and then immediately signs an even worse bailout agreement... and you see it as proof that 'democracies' change their minds. It's really just proof of how little sovereignty Greek voters have.
14
The Irony here... isn't what you have stated.. you have missed it. The West endured nothing compared to what Greece went through, Westerners have the MOST PROSPEROUS and secure nations in human history, their economies are good to perfect, and in total they have received a fraction of what Greece and Turkey received in refugees. Despite that fascism (what you & others call popular nationalists) is on the rise.
When fascist rose to power in the in 1930s worldwide, frankly I can understand it but I can't justify it. What is happening now... is very disturbing and points to a bad sign... because there is no reason for fear mongering fascists to rise to power.
I have seen no political scientists or pundits address this disturbing issue. It is being ignored. I feel as if we are reliving early 1930s Roger: Rise of Popular Nationalism, Rise of Trade wars, protectionism and tariffs Political Polarization on all front, Demagogues and fear mongers are controlling the debate, Sound and logical debates are being marginalized.
21
....from one of Greece’s pre-eminent political families. ..
That is precisely the problem. Greece has been ran by a hand full of oligarchical families - mingling politics and money.
I was in Athen's wen Friedman wrote a article about how Greece would turn to the corner in 2010 after getting a EU bailout of $ 1 Trillion.
"But Papandreou, whose official car is a Prius hybrid.."
Proceeding to the comments
MSKAP Athens, Greece May 12, 2010
George Papandreou's "official" car may be a Prius Hybrid but his "unofficial" car is a snazzy Bentley convertible which I saw he and his wife get out of last week as they arrived for dinner at the same restaurant I was at. So much for the "revolution" of the Greek way of thought..."
Greece's 2018 corruption rating is 45 out of 100.
For comparison Germany , and the UK's rating is 80/100.
Sweden 85/100
It central problem that the election will not cure is corruption
31
I believe you do not give enough credit to the leaving government for their accomplishments. Alexis Tsipras created the conditions for a center-right party to be able to win, and for populism to crumble. This is a huge deal, and nothing no other leader on the left or right has been able to do. They are labelled as far left, but their actions make them pro-democracy and pragmatic (not that these are mutually exclusive from being far left, but that term is usually used to demonize).
My wish is that the center-right party can create conditions for a center-left government to come in the near future, and a positive stable balance can be created. I have less faith in the center-right maintaining democratic balance than I do of the "far-left", whom in my opinion saved the day.
62
Hmmm, "cut corporate taxes, unblock privatization, deliver a digital transformation of the economy, attract investment and..." wait for it..."bring efficiency to the public sector" which is a lovely way of saying austerity. So, in other words, the exact 'reforms' that were imposed by the Troika. I'm sure they'll work this time.
43
Mr. Cohen is wrote that "The landslide election on Sunday of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the dynamic leader of the center-right New Democracy party, marked the end of a chapter.
I am so glad that this beautiful country and first cradle of democracy has survived the worst crisis it faced in modern times.
Unfortunately, on this side of the pond, European center-right parties, not only the one of Greece but those of other European nations would be called center-left, if not even full blown left in the US, while in Europe the present Republican party is considered to be so far right that it has already arrived at the abyss of fascism.
At the same time, the formerly center-right Tories of the UK with probably Brexit-Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister, might follow the course of the Trump/Republican party on their way to the arch-right.
24
The assumption that the European Union (and Germany in particular) imposed the austerity program followed by the successive Greek governments is WRONG.
The Greek governments (under both center-right and extreme-left leaders) refused to reign in Government expenditures but chose instead to increase taxes to balance the budget.
The rest of the article is fine.
8
@nnicolaidis
Increasing tax rates has not increased revenue. Greece tax revenues are lower now than the were ten years ago, even without adjusting for inflation.
2
@John Huppenthal
It has as a share of GDP. Keep in mind that greek GDP now is more than 20% lower than 2008. Tax revenue now is close to 27% of gdp, in 2008 it was lower than 20%.
Yes. Failed strategy.
Lower corporate taxes could lure companies to Greece. Unfortunately many highly educated individuals who might work for these companies have already left to find work elsewhere. There would have to be capital expenditures to support these companies and there is little money for that. The richer nations of Europe seem unwilling to help more than they are already doing. It is a sad thought but Greece seems destined to be a poor country whether governed from the left or right or whether they leave or stay in the EU.
8
@ejpisko
With a gdp per capita of $20,000 and a similar household income, down 35% from eleven years ago, they no longer have a "rich" group of taxpayers to support their welfare state. All of their taxation falls upon what we consider our middle and lower classes.
Consider the contrast, our group of "rich", really a huge small business class, paid a record $900 billion in taxes in 2018, up from $47 billion in 1980.
We have grown a huge class of taxpayers. Greece has anihilated them with oppressive taxation.
Hard to map a possible path for them except one to increasing economic irrelevance as a tourism site (visited them myself recently).
"...McKinsey man...". Given McKinsey's well-known enabling role in the Enron debacle and in several other corporate and financial debacles since then, it is sad to see Cohen citing work there as something particularly meritorious. Management consultancies like McKinsey and Bain, employing many very bright and talented people, have been handmaidens to corporate and private equity/hedge fund America in devising, creating, and implementing policies that have led to the hollowing out of middle-class America.
77
"Greece is still bound by the fiscal constraints imposed by Germany and other creditors that oblige it to produce a primary budget surplus. Mitsotakis will need to perform a delicate balancing act to deliver on his promise of spurring growth and investment by slashing corporate taxes.
"He will have to rein in New Democracy’s legacy forces of cronyism and prioritize entrepreneurship and innovation."
Another neo-liberal savior of the global capitalist order has arisen, replacing a vague leftist with neither a clear program nor the courage to challenge the status quo. Mitsotakis is the scion of an old dynasty, properly educated at Harvard, Stanford and McKinsey, and the candidate of a traditionally corrupt political party newly scrubbed clean for the occasion.
Cohen is surely entitled to celebrate that the Greeks didn't double-down on some local form of populist madness. But that's about it. Even if Mitsotakis is honest and capable, he is likely to fail to radically improve the fate of the Greek economy, hamstrung as it is by a German menu of strict financial austerity that would make the IMF blush with embarrassment.
And the answer is: cut corporate taxes. No doubt the operating assumption is that the poor Greek masses will benefit from the much lauded and always reliable trickle-down effect. If the trickle fails to flow, at least Mitsotakis and his friends should be a little better off.
It's always good to be hopeful, but success in this scenario remains a long shot.
52
Did this column go nearly deeply enough? When you total up Greece taxation: 42% above $54,000 plus 20% Social Security + 7% health plus a VAT of 24% on everything left, you get a total tax rate of 76%.
By comparison, in 2018 we reduced total federal personal income taxes on all families of four to zero. Giving them a 26% total Social Security, Medicare and State taxation.
76% versus 26%.
Peter Diamond and Piketty, authors of Ocasio's 70% tax rate say that we will continue to prosper all the way up to 80% taxation.
Evidently, they haven't looked at Greece, Italy, Japan, Brazil, and Subsaharan Africa and Latin America in the 60s through 90s.
You list a 25% Great Depression for Greece, but their nominal dollar collapse has been from $354 billion to $200 billion, a 40% collapse to an economy now smaller than Kentucky's. A nation that once ruled the world has been reduced to an economic joke.
Doesn't Greece give us a clue as to what it might be like to live in a country ruled by Ocasio's policies?
2
@John Huppenthal
If you want to pick a man's fight with social democracy, try to pick a fight with the Nordic countries, with Switzerland, or any country in Northern Europe, or even New Zealand or Australia. These are countries that have applied great social-democratic ideas well.
Most of these countries, in most ways, beat the US on most metrics of human well-being most of the time.
155
@John Huppenthal Please do not compare Greek, or for that matter, European Jnion, average tax rates to U.S. rates. It is a comparison that makes no sense for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: Greece being in a deep debt crisis and the tax rates reflecting this (you may want to ask what tax rates the Greeks paid, or rather did not pay, pre-crisis), and Europeans being generally willing to pay for what in the US is often dismissively called "socialised healthcare" (in other words, healthcare for everyone) with more generous coverage (meaning less out-of-pocket costs) than equivalent systems in say Canada or Australia.
24
@Natalie
The Nordic countries have strict work rules, much stricter than U.S. rules, that have enabled them to avoid socialist outcomes.
They also have a much more homogeneous population.
Finland and Norway have populations almost identical to Minnesota with a comparable population. Minnesota has a much lower cancer death rate.
Despite their advantages, they lag well behind in GDP per capita and median household income of the U.S. One exception being Norway with their small size and enormous oil revenues the other being Switzerland which doesn't have the population of Las Vegas.
Sweden's gdp per capita has fallen by 10%. Not quite our boom.
Now, the true test has begun. As a group, these northern European countries have been stagnating. We are booming. If Trump gets reelected, our experiment will continue. If we grow at 3 to 4% per year for the next 6 years, we will totally eclipse all of these countries.
Just from scale, Sweden is the largest of these countries and has only added 200,000 employees over the last two years while we have added 5.5 million full-time jobs.
Only the U.S. can be a savior to the world, lighting the way forward.
2
Mr Cohen,
Your statement "new tensions with Turkey that have reminded Greece of the importance of American support" is quite inaccurate. Where is the American support to Greece in its daily struggle to keep the Turks at bay?
Are you aware that armed Turkish fighter planes violate Greek air-space on a daily basis (at least a dozen times per day) causing the Greek air force to scramble their air planes to force them out?
Are you aware that Turkish navy ships often times violate the Greek part of the Aegean sea near the Greek islands? - a few months ago a Turkish navy ship tried to ram a Greek navy ship patrolling the Greek waters.
What did the US do? Nothing but suggest to the Greek government to stay calm and not get into any conflict.
Would the US be acting the same way if it was American air-space that is being violated, of if American national waters were violated, or American ships endangered? I don't believe so.
Turkey's behavior towards another NATO country is unacceptable, and in violation of NATO rules. Why isn't the US imposing sanctions on the rogue regime of Tayip Erdogan, the Turkish sultan?
22
@George M.
US support? selling weapons systems to both greece and turkey? what a money maker that has been since the 1960s...
and come to think about it, where is EU support to clearly define and protect Europe's borders (the Aegean islands) from daily turkish overflights and violations?
4
It is hard to imagine that Cyprus will once again threaten peace in the world. Mr. Cohen's remark about the intent of the northern Turkish 'state' (unrecognized of course) to explore for oil in the Mediterranean is ominous.
Turkey has long supported the "Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus", the subsidy estimated (long ago) at $200 million. Far worse than that, no Turkish politician can face the infamy if he were to preside over peace talks on the island (leading one hopes, toward an uneasy confederation).
Although this article was about a positive change in the world order, it brought back into view a very scary, and dangerous place. Cyprus, for infinite reasons, is a festering abscess in the back tooth of a world that would prefer a cheerful grin.
6
@eric williams
Largely because the US is refusing to force Turkey out of Northern Cyprus which they have occupied illegally since 1973.
7
@George M
Why illegally,we have a right to be there! Why this unfairness when it is Turkey, get rid of your crusader complex ,please!
Good news?
Tsipras was voted in to avoid unnecessary austerity, submission from the bank overlords and self determination. He cave in, thanks to a Biden-led pragmatic move to the neoliberal center. That didn't work.
Now there's a leader that ran on a harder neoliberal platform, mainly as a backlash to Tsipras, who didn't following through.
There was no real choice, that's not great news for the greeks.
On the other side the rising DIEM25 are the good news really.
6
@Jorge Berny
Varoufakis (the leader of the new party DIEM25) goofed big-time when he tried to negotiate with the troika in 2015 and it cost the Greeks another painful loan, and then he quit. That's not a good sign, so the "rising DIEM25" is not as good as one may think.
@George M.
I've following this since that time and I remember Yanis being straight forward and didn't cave in, especially after the popular vote that supported not caving in to the troika.
He recently explained that:
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2019/07/how-syriza-s-capitulations-allowed-greek-right-escape-dustbin-history#amp
What would be the way to go then?
1
I'm half Greek and just got back from my mother's village a few days ago. Things are so markedly different when I lived there 20 years ago. Then, the cafes were teeming with young people dancing through the night in the summer time. Now, there are refugee trailers and campgrounds throughout the country, people have no sense of long term security, young people have fled to Athens or another country, food is incredibly expensive from what it used to be, and the coastline is plagued with jellyfish from climate change (my cousins said this was the first summer in years they didn't see them in the bay close to us). Greeks are incredibly resilient and positive people. Granted, they could have more business hours like the states (instead of a 5 hour siesta every day at 1pm), but then adopting an American workaholic lifestyle would destroy so many things that make Greece special. In addition, the lack of workaholism probably is why Greece has one of the highest longevity rates in the world. It's a catch-22. Even if they could work more hours, business regulations strangle the average small business owner there. I am really hoping this works out for them.
29
@Diana
Even with the 5-hour siesta, they still work at least 40 hours per week. Unfortunately, here in the US the 40-hour work-week is a thing of the past, a thing of the "good-old-days".
Many of us started working at least 45-50 hours per week to satisfy our greedy employers. And as if that would not be enough, some times we would go to the office on weekends too.
17
@Diana
5 hour siesta? in small villages perhaps, (which are for the most part depopulated, with only old people left). go to athens and thessaloniki and see how many working people take 5 hour siestas! the 'siesta' hasn't been seen in decades...
9
@cossak. Yes, the major shops are open in Athens but virtually every village follows that model. I lived there and vacation on the regular. Not pulling this out of my hat. And what does that say that all the villages have old people and are depopulated? That's my point. Greece in general also has a very different idea of work than Americans. And that's not exactly a bad thing. Greece is also mostly small villages. Citing two major cities with regular business hours doesn't negate the fact that half of daylight hours are used for resting and family time for the rest of the country. I literally just got back days ago and experienced a 5 hour siesta every day there (in a village next to Thiva), so please don't tell my it hasn't been experienced in decades. Maybe for you. Thank you.
1
"It could have crumpled, like the Weimar Republic. If Greece did not, it was because of European institutions built to resist nationalism and avert catastrophe."
I wish the new prime minister well--he sounds a tad like a Greek version of French leader Macron, minus the US education. I confess I had lost track of Greece in the tumult over our new government, thinking the country's debt was unsurmoutable and most likely to drive it into the Russian fold.
Of course good news is just that, until real result occur. And if Roger Cohen gets his wish about Brexit (unlikely I fear) doing a second somersault, well, I'd like to see one occur in about 16 months quite a bit closer to home.
11
I’ve never been to Greece, but I’ve worked with people from Greece. And, my favorite food is Greek. That means whenever we travel we go to authentic Greek restaurants, owned by immigrants. They are everywhere, if you look. A very warm, welcoming and life affirming culture, I admire them greatly.
This is good news, and I thank you.
10
Good to hear there is life in a Greek rebound.
I never was a fan of practicing austerity when the populace is already under extreme economic pressure.
It's a gamble to push forward when many indicators indicate cut-backs are the answer.
In the end, cut-backs are always a step backward.
3
The article holds that it is ultimately a success for (Greek) democracy that Tsipras rejected the referendum results, with the obvious comparison to Brexit. The problem I have with this false equivalence is that the Syriza government had no mandate to leave the EU from the referendum, which would have been the result of adhering to the vote against the suggested bailout with the troika. A referendum asking Greece in 2015 if they wanted to remain in the EU would have resoundingly been a Yes, unlike the Brexit vote. I am fully against Brexit, but I don't think it would be a success for "democracy" to reject the popular mandate. Ultimately, the EU's draconian economic policies for Greece make self-determination impossible -- so no success for democracy there either, for my money.
18
@Katzman
Actually there was a vote in September of 2015 and the Greeks voted to stay in the EU despite the terrible austerity measures imposed upon them by Germany and the IMF.
Greece will be paying back for the next 50-100 years.
It will be very difficult for any Greek government to bring back the standard of living they had prior to 2009.
5