Greece is rapidly regretting that it welcomed Syriza with open arms
WHAT happened in Greece can happen elsewhere — that was the promise of Syriza, to Sinn Féin, at a meeting in the House of Commons in February. It was a boast then. It’s a nightmare now. The unravelling of Syriza in Greece is a salutary lesson for those who advocate that we imitate them.
It is a salutary lesson on the limits of national sovereignty in the globalised economies and multinational political structures of the 21st century. In short, Syriza, this week, has been reduced to sequestering the funds of its own local authorities. Its rhetoric has become cant. Having promised what it could not deliver at home, it is virtually friendless abroad.
I say ‘virtually’, because there is some support: Vladimir Putin, Gerry Adams and Paul Murphy are stalwarts. The extent of Syriza’s isolation, however, will be more accurately mapped in the coming days, as European finance officials prepare for their bosses to convene on Friday in Riga, to discuss Greece again. €1bn is owed, within weeks, to the IMF, by the Greek government.
READ MORE: Greece defiant as creditors pile on the pressure .
It is astonishing now to recall the ‘left’ flocking to Athens to kiss the hem of the Syriza cloak. But they didn’t flock together. What distinguishes the Irish ‘left’ is not their unity, but their bitter rivalry.
The race towards Syriza was a competition for vicarious association with the ‘street cred’ that could deliver similar electoral success here. The competition between Sinn Féin and the Anti-Austerity Alliance was comical. Aside from their own internal audiences, it is hard to imagine the Syriza charisma having any remaining political potency for the wider Irish electorate now.
Syriza insists on Greek national sovereignty. That is its electoral mandate. Yet, it seeks to fullfil that mandate within the EU, a multinational political structure, and the Eurozone, a multinational currency. Both of these have, in critical respects, ever more of the format of a federation, as distinct from a union of sovereign states.
The unresolved and insoluble conundrum, for the Syriza promise, is that it enjoys a mandate to end austerity, but no mandate to leave the Eurozone. Critically, it has no alternative to staying within it, if it can, or if it is allowed.
The chronic weakness of its position was immediately exposed. It wants to either break the rules or challenge the interests of a political association that it cannot afford to leave, because it has nowhere else to go. It rashly promised its own electorate it could change the terms of association, without seeking permission or having support for walking off the pitch, should its demands be rebuffed. In political terms, it is pathetically weak.
There are now only two conditions that can allow Greece under Syriza to remain in the Eurozone.
Firstly, using any language it chooses to cover its embarrassment, that this Greek government does what its predecessor promised to do. That happened in Ireland after the 2011 general election. The efficiency with which pre-election promises were abandoned here was ultimately to the good, if enormously damaging to Labour. But Labour’s electoral haemorrhage was staunched by the decapitation of the political leadership that led to its u-turn. Together with recovery, based on policies that were largely the reverse of those promised in opposition, it has succeeded in restarting a conversation with the electorate, under a new leader. That’s practical politics.
The other condition that may assist Syriza is that the EU political project will not wish to lose a member, not even one as delinquent as Greece. There would be particular German sensitivities about being seen to wear the political jackboot. There is little active political enthusiasm for pushing Greece out of the Eurozone, less still out of the EU.
And there is likely trepidation at the prospect of a failed state in the EU. Greece also has an iconic status within the historic European sensibility. But these meta-political considerations will be tempered by every national government’s concern that in accommodating or appeasing Syriza, they are not feeding the monster of impossible demands in their own backyards.
The IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, has made it clear that she is not for turning on the timing of the Greek repayment, which is only weeks away. As we know from our Irish experience, she has form in helping those who are prepared to help themselves. Clearly, she doesn’t see the Syriza government in that category. The next repayment is only one hurdle for the Greeks to cross. More loom over the summer. So far, no credible plan has been put in place, by the Syriza government, to meet those hurdles.
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The extent of the crisis was evident on Monday, in Athens, when its finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who recently enjoyed rock star status, ordered public bodies to hand over funds, on deposit, to the Bank of Greece. The “regulation is submitted due to extremely urgent and unforeseen needs”, pleaded his department of finance. Unforeseen by who? That’s the equivalent of Michael Noonan taking the bank deposit book off Cork City Council, to feed the meter, to keep the lights on.
Greek municipalities are in uproar. It wasn’t supposed to be like this under Syriza. It would have been like that here, though, if the policies of Syriza’s Celtic surrogates had been adopted.
There have been so many near end-of-time moments in the rolling Eurozone crisis that we are almost immune. But the crisis has not gone away. It is now centred in Athens, on policies and politics of giving the Troika the two fingers, as advocated for us by Sinn Féin and Anti-Austerity Alliance.
That is an exhortation, issued not in unison, but in feverish competition between them, to ignite here the conflagration now engulfing Greece. In fact, it has already spread beyond Greece. The interest payments on Greek bonds, or the cost of borrowing on the open market, have shot up. The contagion over the past days has affected others on the European economic periphery, but not yet Ireland.
If it does, will Sinn Féin, or Anti-Austerity, accept responsibility? I doubt it. Revolution is a responsibility free zone.
Stathis Kouvelakis, a Syriza central committee member, was the man who promised Sinn Féin, at Westminster, that “what happened in Greece can happen elsewhere”. Another potential European crisis is unfolding in the UK, where a new Tory government could hold an in-out referendum on EU membership.
In a hung parliament, David Cameron could be the first British prime minister since 1910 to depend on an Irish party to keep him in power. Disturbingly, that party would be the DUP.
Sinn Féin attends cocktail parties, and takes generous allowances there, but won’t take its seats. That’s responsibility without power. The problem with Greece is it can happen here.
It could come directly from Athens, or it may come via Westminster. From either direction, the outriders are the same.
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