Ik heb nog niets vernomen van de Belgische politicus Lode Vanoost, die Syriza verdedigt. Heeft hij het te druk of heeft hij geen argumenten?
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Time To Play Hardball Yanis
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This is a catastrophic failure. If a dietician sold you a diet program that promised you a brief increase in weight, followed by a gradual return to the desired thinness, and instead you found yourself 20% fatter than their worst prediction, you would sue.
That was the position with which Syriza entered negotiations with the Troika five months ago. But the Troika simply refused to discuss it: stick with the program was their only message. Every concession from their original anti-austerity position that Syriza made was met with a call to make yet another concession, until the final “take it or leave it” deal would have had Syriza applying the very program it came to power to end.
Syriza came prepared to negotiate, because it was well aware of the weaknesses of the Greek economy, and at all costs it wanted to remain inside the Euro—but it wanted a reformed Euro rather than one that was bound to austerity. Instead it entered an ideological war. And despite the fact that Syriza is in name the “Coalition of the Radical Left”, they were not the ones being ideological: the Troika was. And like all ideologues, they were unbending. They wanted austerity, and if Syriza resisted, they wanted Syriza to be thrown out of office and replaced by a more compliant party.
After Sunday’s vote, that isn’t going to happen. Syriza—and Yanis Varoufakis—aren’t going to go away.
So now it’s time for Syriza to return the hardball tactics that the Troika has thrown at them. Go back to the meeting with a plan for debt restructuring—and a significant one. Include not only the restructuring that the IMF admitted last week is needed, but also a write-off of the 20% of the debt that effectively represents the failure of the Troika’s program. Submit a budget with a 3% deficit as allowed by the Maatricht Treaty (the Treaty also insists on a maximum government debt ratio of 60% of GDP, but even Germany breaches that with a ratio of about 75% of GDP). A 3% primary budget deficit would provide a huge stimulus to the Greek economy, and end the Great Depression the Troika’s failed austerity program has caused.
If the Troika still refuses to negotiate, to compromise on its own failed program, then Syriza should threaten total default—a move that would send shock waves through Europe while simultaneously taking a major burden off the Greek economy. That would then present the Troika with a choice: what are you more committed to? Austerity, or the Euro?
