Idiot Leftism (07/05/15)
The Times published an excellent editorial on the 'idiot leftism' of what passes these days for government in Greece.
'Tieless, Cut Clueless' as the Greek-born economist Vicky Pryce said recently.
Greek Guilelessness
Tsipras is culpably naive in making an approach to the Putin regime in Russia
Since its election in January, the Syriza government of Greece has striven heroically to depict the laws of arithmetic as a capitalist snare. To sustain that delusion, Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, is meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow today.
That is an absurd piece of pantomime that will achieve exactly nothing to ease Greece’s economic malaise. Its purpose is to convey to Mr Tsipras’s left-wing supporters that he is pursuing a viable alternative to the economics of austerity. Its effect will instead be to extend moral support to a revanchist regime that seeks to alter the map of Europe by threat, force and bluster.
That is unprincipled and myopic. Mr Tsipras is engaged in poor leadership that works against the interests and economic welfare of Greece’s people. And his efforts should be countered robustly by the European Union’s member states.
When Mr Tsipras took office, he and his colleagues demonstrably had little idea how to pursue their call for radical change in policy. It is unsurprising that they have belatedly recognised the need for agreement with the Brussels group (the new name for what was previously called the troika, comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
Yet the rhetoric advanced from Athens, especially by the mercurial finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has sustained the impression that the government believes it has other options. Since the election, there has consequently been a sharp capital outflow from Greek banks. The Brussels group can afford to be relaxed about this, as there is no evidence of contagion to European financial markets. The damage is being done to Greece, and Greece alone, by an unserious government.
Greece is scheduled to pay back €450 million (£330 million) to the IMF by tomorrow. The government has pledged that it will meet this dead-line for debt repayment. So it should. It cannot reform its sclerotic economy without support from the Brussels group, and it has to rely on the ECB’s stimulative monetary policy to support demand.
What conceivable gain Greece will get from Mr Tsipras adopting a pro-Putin stance is hence anyone’s guess. Yet that has not deterred him. Mr Tsipras has this week attacked EU sanctions on Russia and hinted that Greece might play a mediating role in the dispute. This is a policy that will have no financial benefits for Greece, for Russia is undergoing serious economic dislocation. The collapse in oil and gas prices is plunging Russia into a bitter recession and financial sanctions are choking off investment.
Mr Tsipras has already asked Russia for some relief from its counter-sanctions. That is not a constructive way to proceed. Greece cannot afford to breach the EU’s solidarity. If, miraculously, Mr Putin were to offer to bankroll Greece, it would be a catastrophic misjudgment for Mr Tsipras to entertain such a proposal. To be at the mercy of the financing whims of a repressive regime, rather than an integrated member of western institutions bound by treaty, would be to make Greece a supplicant, if not a satellite, state.
Meanwhile, the EU is too reticent about Mr Tsipras’s grandstanding. Mr Putin’s irredentist policies towards the sovereign territory of Ukraine are an outrage. They violate European standards of justice and constitutionalism. Mr Tsipras should acknowledge this, and then be silent.
