Since Greece and the rest of the Euro zone gave each other the finger the other day, a few things need to be said before things go syrizaously wrong in this neck of the woods. What was expected to be the day of another euro-compromise, brokered in the wee hours of the morning, the whole thing fell apart, seemingly with Greece and its new government on one side and he rest of the Eurozone on the other.
But in reality, what we have here is not a game of playing chicken, with Greece and the Eurozone counting on each other to blink first. Rather, what we are witnessing is a Mexican stand-off of gigantic proportions where almost every member of the Eurozone is holding a gun to the head of most other members and at the same time virtually all Eurozone governments are held at gunpoint by their electorate, something they’ve only themselves to blame. Namely, by bailing out German and French banks with their taxpayers’ money and now trying to make the Greeks foot the bill, they’ve found themselves in exact opposite of Greek Syriza: while Tsipras and Varoufakis promised to end the vicious cycle of more cuts for more money, leading to less growth which creates the need for even more cuts and the need for even more money (and so on ad nauseam), the governments of Germany, The Netherlands and even Slovenia (to name but a few) are under increasing pressure to make sure the taxpayers get their money back.
Thus, a clustefuck of gigantic proportions was created, where legitimate positions of all governments involved preclude one another and are starting to resemble the old joke about an irresistible force and the immovable object. There rarely was a greater need for the (black) art of the European compromise.
The position of Slovenian government is especially interesting in this case. Apparently, finance minister Dušan Mramor more or lees told his Greek colleague Yanis to go Varoufakimself with his ideas of increasing public sector employment and expenditure while everyone else – including Slovenia – is slashing costs to make ends meet. Not that the ends are anywhere near each other – Slovenia will have to raise 1.5 billion, 15% of the budget, in loans in 2015 alone.
Reassuring Mramor
Mramor was apparently indignant over the fact that in per capita terms Slovenia is among the most exposed member states in the Greece omnishambles but was having no say in the matter as Tsipras and Varoufakis were negotiating with the big boys (and girl) only. As if Mramor way trying primarily to reassure himself by lashing out at Greece rather than trying to find some middle ground or even support Greece in its, well, “need for more time“.
But reassuring himself or the Slovenian taxpayer Mramor is not. It is more than obvious that most (if not all) money loaned to Greece will never get repaid and that Franci Križanič, FinMin in the Borut Pahor government (2008-2011) was talking bullshit when he said Slovenia will make money with the loan.
Mramor’s going after Greece suspiciously coincides with feces coming dangerously close to a mechanical air ventilator in the case of 3-billion-heavy bailout of Slovenian banks in late 2013.
Junior bonds extinction
Namely, accusations were made by Tadej Kotnik (curiously, a biophisycist and vicedean of faculty of Electrical Engineering) that recapitalisation of the banks and especially the accompanying extinction of subordinated bank bonds (in effect, complete nationalisation of Slovenian banks) was illegal, pre-arranged and non-transparent. But the gist of it, it seems, lies in the allegation that the Bank of Slovenia (this country’s central bank, aptly shortened to BS) back-dated a key measure to cover up the fact that eradication of junior bonds was agreed-upon in advance with the European Commission and was not some sort of a last-ditch measure to save the banks.
Now, Kotnik, a private individual and a member of the Association of Small Shareholders, apparently invested heavily in subordinates and thus lost quite a substantial amount of money. He also challenged the bond extinction at the Constitutional Court but the court deferred to the European Court of Justice as the bailout measures were coordinated with the European Commission and under EU law directly.
Anyhoo, the thing is that the Bank of Slovenia, specifically Governor Boštjan Jazbec fucked up their initial response, hiding behind legal clauses and non-disclosure of financial information, thus giving credence to Kotnik’s accusations which are, it seems, mostly based on one or two sources within the BS.
obviously all hell broke loose, with MPs screaming for a parliamentary investigation, various political parties scrambling for cheap political points and Jazbec, after a press conference was finally held, fucking up further with a seriously distorted view of (non)accountability of the institution he heads and the office he holds.
Namely, Jazbec, after explaining that everything is OK and within the bounds of the law and that two wildly different appraisals of the state of the largest bank NLB are not all that unexpected decided to explain the matter further to… the government. As if it wasn’t the parliament who appointed him to the position and as if it wasn’t the parliament who represents the sovereign of this country, the people. Or, as they are more commonly known these days, the taxpayers.
While the government of course needs to be in the loop, Jazbec would do well to address the parliament first, since it was the people’s euros he spent on propping up the banks. But as things stand now, he is making one small(ish) mistake after the other and if he doesn’t stop digging soon, he may find himself in a hole too deep to climb out of. Especially since political parties are scrambling to put a daylight betweeen them and anything that might make them look responsible for the disastrous state of the banking sector. Which is why the Social Democrats are all of a sudden deeply worried about the situation. As if it wasn’t them who ran the financial portfolio in the ill-fated Pahor government (when things started going south for real) and who were junior partners in the Bratušek government which engineered the bailout. Almost the same goes for the SDS, which led the government during the pre-2008 spending spree and which performed a couple of smaller recapitalisations of the NLB (couple a hundred million a pop) and is now screaming bloody murder and demanding a parliamentary investigation.
The sad reality
The reality, of course, is much more prosaic. After Greece and Cyprus, Slovenia was to be next in line for the Troika Treatment. And since the political mantra in the Eurozone at the time was that individual stakeholders, not just the state as such must bear the cost of the bailout, it was more or less obvious that erasing junior debt was unavoidable. Even more. If there is one point where Tadej Kotnik is correct is that the whole process was most likely pre-arranged and coordinated with Brussels. You see, at the time Slovenia for all intents and purposes was under administration, with the European Commission pouring over every aspect of economic and/or fiscal policy, confirming some, rejecting others. And so it seems plausible that the bailout of the banks, the extent and the mechanics of it were approved by the EC before they were enacted by the Bratušek-Čufer-Jazbec trio. That the Commission formally approved the measures taken fairly soon thereafter only goes to strengthen the point.
The above seems to suggest that the problem was not so much in the execution of the bailout but in the definition of the problem. You see, at the time the fate of Slovenia was in the hands of a budget specialist (Bratušek), a higher-level bank manager (Čufer) and a macroeconomist (Jazbec). None of them were in office for a particularly long time, while the country as such was held at gunpoint, not to mention the political turmoil on the home front. For them to understand that the problem was one of policy concept and not (only) of numbers would demand an extraordinary insight. Even more – even if they had the insight (it seems plausible that at least some people advising them did manage a wider outlook), it remains doubtful if they had the room to manoeuver.
Which, not surprisingly, brings us back to the current Greco-German spat. Unlike the Slovenian government of Alenka Bratušek, the new Greek PM Tsipras and his FinMin Varoufakis fully understand the problem is political, even ideological. But they, too, have precious little wiggle room. Because just like Syriza is acting on a mandate by the people, so, too, are the Germans and the rest of the Eurozone. At some point they will have to explain to their voters why they used their money to prop up mostly German and French banks, overexposed in Greece. I’m sure it seemed a good idea at the time and in the panic that gripped the EU when Greece all but defaulted, the last thing anyone wanted was a bank run. But to bailout its banks, the Eurozone took out an even bigger loan with their voters and not being entirely candid on what the money was being spent on.
Extend and pretend
With this in mind, it is not only Greece that is – in the words of Yanis Varoufakis – resembling a drug addict. The (rest of the) Eurozone, too, is asking their voters trust and understanding they may not be ready to give anymore. Which makes the ruling centrist(ish) parties in Europe nervous which, by extent, leads to some uneasy moments of disturbing clarity, such as German FinMin Schäuble apparently saying the Tsipras government is acting irresponsibly. Patronising, even smacking of colonialism. But in reality most likely nothing more than a show of frustration at the realisation that even if the new Greek government does decide to play ball and continue with the established sparprogram, the game is more or less up and “extend and pretend” is from now on a two-way street.
And that no one knows how long the voters are going to continue buying it.
Well, Greece does get some love from Germany, too … You know, there’s this Europe’s Next Superminister moment AKA Oh, Is He Sexy (the guy with the (fake?) Burberry scarf) gaining quite a momentum in the North, there’s well-declared sympathy from Günther Verheugen and then there are some serious journalistic attempts at stating a few things that might be near to facts. Like, that around 77 % of the Greece-bound money ended up in financial institutions (Der Spiegel). Which have by now pushed away their stacks of Greek bonds and are Not afraid. Anymore. Der Spiegel has dealt quite a lot with Varoufakis and other members of the Greek government, trying to sieve useful decisions, positive personal data and thinking from … rhetoric. They also asked some other Greeks about life and stuff (to my knowledge, Spiegel readership is quite huge).
And then there are countries like Estonia and Slovakia, right, where people are (supposed to be) even worse off and they are paying for the Greek tragedy, too, so they are obviously Not amused.
On the other hand, quite a few of us in the North really work hard. As in: a lot. While (paying) the living/minimum wage has become obligatory this year, it will often simply mean more unpaid work will be done to “earn” the pay rise. And in our sparse spare time, most of us simply pay taxes and bring our money to the nearest financial instistution, hoping it won’t get lost somewhere over the rainbow. So we deserve to feel unhappy, too, IMHO. Especially since Burberry scarves don’t give you that elated feeling in the colonial North: such adornments are often not the thing.
I’m not saying Greece is without fault. Far from it. The weak link in the new Greek approach (which I did not point out) is that they seem to be thinking their problems started in 2010, when the bailout was imposed on them.
But what I am trying to say is that there’s a whole lot that should be said but is not because (almost) everyone involved is afraid of the fallout. Greece is perhaps in a slightly better position because they’ve precious little to lose. But that is about the extent of it.
The problem is also cultural. The initial German (half-jesting) responses about Greeks giving an island or two to Germany did not help, just as comparing the current German government to the Nazis do not help. And yet both seem to be an integral part of the rhetoric meant for the home crowd.Ž
For example, I listened to exctracts of Schäuble’s interview for DeutschlandFunk and it gave me the willies. But that was because it was meant for German consumption, where (I guess) values are just about different enough for the two sides to misunderstand each other.
No, of course you are not (!), many people aren’t actually saying Greece is peopled by angels.
It is also exactly as you said: CDU (and with it Schäuble) needs to present a firm stance on Greece because of its voters. Concretely, because of AfD, Pegida and similar right-wing Gesocks (riff-raff) stealing their votes AND saying dangerous things many people have thought about (and even more important: felt), too. And since simple thinking is obviously gaining momentum in Germany (and in Europe), it is a lesser evil for Schäuble to say strong things and keep up the image the government is able to deal with the stuff, the alternative being nice to Greece (and other groups perceived as dangerous) publicly and losing votes to Nazis (Especially those spoiled Dresdeners who feel VERY entitled to things others don’t. You know: there’s less than 1 % of Muslims in your neck of the woods but you flood your country with the most Muslim haters :-()
What I set out to say in my first comment: apart from politics, there’s also a lot of … research being done, people putting pros and cons of Greece issues in the same sentence or paragrap or text publicly … You know. Whoever wishes (and has time 🙁 ) to try to approach these issues from at least two points of view, even if only on the surface, can.
Which is why my opinion is Give Greece A Chance 🙂 (e.g. I’d love for the new government to get the chance to abolish the worst things the previous government has done and I think we should pay attention to those aims and help them)
And: I just read the interview with Schäuble. He repeats other European countries have it worse than Greece and are still paying, he thinks the new government is irresponsible and playing a game.
I don’t know why this should sound colonial – maybe because he is behaving/talking like a responsible parent and such communication is not acceptable nowadays? (It will be in the future, when laisses faire is officially dead, because things have tendency to return).
Anyway: the first time I read about Varoufakis & Co. playing games with Europe was in Guardian. Turns out Varoufakis special field of knowledge (or one of them) is game theory. One of his friends, a Mr. Galbraith, said for the Guardian he was hoping Varoufakis wasn’t only trying to see whether one of his favourite game theories would work in practice.
Another thing is, it is not only Schäuble whose speech sounds too much like that of a strict parent. Germans generally simply add fact to fact when speaking and leave out the cuddly bits, under the assumption the listener has enough cojones to survive the onslaught of what is perceived as hard facts.
So while saying the same thing, that Greece is trying to play a game, the Guardian article has enveloped it all into a more personal style (including a description of Varoufakis’ looks and the impact thereof, if I remember correctly) and Schäuble is simply repeating statements that pass as facts in this country. Angie’s style is not different, usually. I am not sure this should be taken as a pretext for plastering that infamous moustache onto their faces, really (let me just confess that I DO NOT vote CDU).
In short, Schäuble’s interview is probably considered boring here and nowhere strict enough to deter AfD and similar Gesocks, I am afraid.