ATHENS — As Friday night became Saturday morning, with sidewalk cafes still bustling in central Athens, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras abruptly appeared on national television.
Mr. Tsipras, only 40, had spent his five months in office locked in increasingly acrimonious negotiations with Greece’s creditors. Belittled by critics, and facing the prospect of default, he was under intense pressure to sign a deal.
Instead, Mr. Tsipras tossed a grenade.
With much of Europe sound asleep, Mr. Tsipras stared into the camera and shattered the careful decorum of European Union
diplomacy. Declaring that creditors were demanding “strict and
humiliating austerity,” Mr. Tsipras announced a national referendum on
July 5, so voters could decide for themselves.
“We should respond to authoritarianism and harsh austerity with democracy, calmly and decisively,” Mr. Tsipras said. “Greece, the birthplace of democracy, should send a resounding democratic message to the European and global community.”
Stunned,
his fellow European leaders shut down negotiations, capped the lifeline
they had been providing Greece’s banks, angrily denounced him as
irresponsible and dishonest with his own people, and not so subtly
suggested that Greece needed a new government if it wanted to continue
drawing economic help.
Now,
with the Greek crisis posing a threat to the global economy, the
sniping started dissipating somewhat on Monday, even as Greece was left
coping with a shuttered banking system and new uncertainties about its
future. But from Berlin to Brussels to Washington to Athens, the same
question permeated discussions about Greece: What kind of game is Mr.
Tsipras playing?
To
some critics, Mr. Tsipras turned to the referendum as a last-ditch play
to retain power by stoking a nationalistic response to Greece’s
standoff with its creditors. To others, he was a study in ideological
conviction, admired by some of his supporters but scoffed at by others,
who predicted potentially disastrous consequences for his own people.
But
there was also a case to be made that, by accident or design, he had
actually succeeded in intensifying the crisis in a way that could
provide him with additional leverage should negotiations get back on
track, as the United States and some European leaders urged on Monday.
Whether
that is possible, given the mistrust on both sides, remains to be seen.
For now, Mr. Tsipras’s tactic remains, if nothing else, an audacious
maneuver, defining him as a rare unpredictable force among European
Union leaders, while also focusing new attention on Europe’s austerity
policies and highlighting the failings in the long-running Greece
negotiations.
Greeks Rally Against Austerity Rules
Thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators
gathered outside the Parliament building in Athens to show their
support to the Greek government in its negotiations with international
creditors.
By Associated Press on Publish Date June 29, 2015.
Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images.
“That’s
really the tragedy of all this,” said Nick Malkoutzis, a political
analyst in Athens, pointing out the shortcomings among all negotiators.
“There has been a massive, collective failure.”
Barely
five months ago, Mr. Tsipras stood in front of Athens University before
thousands of cheering supporters, newly elected as prime minister, as
he vowed to remake the European political order. He was the youthful,
handsome leader of Greece’s radical left Syriza party, having ridden
waves of populist rage against the policies of economic austerity
demanded by creditors in exchange for bailing out the country with 240
billion euros in loans, after the European economic crisis.
In
just a few years, Syriza had risen from the fringes to shatter Greece’s
decades-old political establishment. Leftists across Europe rejoiced
and predicted an electoral backlash against austerity in Spain and
elsewhere. Mr. Tsipras interpreted Syriza’s election victory as a
democratic mandate to roll back austerity and negotiate new terms to the
country’s bailout.
“He
had delusions about how the European creditors would treat him,” said
Stavros Lygeros, a political commentator in Athens, with ties to Mr.
Tsipras. “He thought they would respect the Greek vote and try to reach a
mutually beneficial agreement.”
Any
honeymoon with Europe was short-lived. Greece’s outspoken finance
minister, Yanis Varoufakis, alienated many European officials. The new
Syriza government’s objective was a comprehensive new agreement,
including debt relief, and the flexibility to run the economy as the
government saw fit. The creditors — the 18 other eurozone countries, the
European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — blanched.
The
compromise was an interim agreement on Feb. 20 that extended the
bailout program until June 30. Mr. Varoufakis and other Syriza officials
described the agreement’s language as “creative ambiguity,” suggesting
that it gave the government license to begin putting its own policies
into effect. But creditors had included a poison pill, withholding a
delayed loan of 7.2 billion euros, or about $8.1 billion, in the bailout
program. Unlocking that money became the focus of negotiations going
forward, especially as Greece was rapidly going broke and staring at
debt payments on the horizon.
In Brussels, technocratic negotiations stalled, as European officials blamed the Greeks for not presenting serious proposals.
By
late April, Mr. Tsipras stepped in. As a high school student, Mr.
Tsipras had been a leader in a nationwide sit-in movement against
cutbacks in free books and housing. In college, he was involved in
negotiating with administrators on behalf of other students. Even then,
Mr. Tsipras was unflappable, contemporaries recalled.
“We
were embarrassed,” said Andreas Karitzis, laughing, a college friend
during that era who is now a member of Syriza’s central committee. “He
was so polite and diplomatic. We were young and our blood was boiling.”
But,
he added, Mr. Tsipras’s equanimity should not be confused with
obeisance or lack of fervor. What separated him from others was his
coolness under pressure, Mr. Karitzis said. “He is a guy who has cold
blood,” he said, meaning that Mr. Tsipras is someone who does not panic.
“He doesn’t tremble. He is able to handle it, putting aside the
emotional side, the fear.”
European
leaders and negotiators in Brussels bore their own pressures, as they
faced voter anger over shipping billions of euros in loans to Greece. As
Mr. Tsipras made regular trips to Brussels, rumors circulated that
European officials saw him as a moderate and hoped he might shed some of
the more radical elements of Syriza and form a new governing coalition
with more centrist parties.
“Cutting
a bad deal is not an option for him,” said one senior Syriza government
official last week, speaking only on condition of anonymity. “One
problem with the negotiations was that their negotiators read him wrong.
They thought he was willing to do whatever that was needed to stay in
power.”
For
weeks, speculation has circulated in Athens that the mounting pressure
might have taken a toll on Mr. Tsipras’s health, including talk of
anxiety attacks. The senior government officials scoffed at such an idea
but noted that Mr. Tsipras has long had high blood pressure. On one or
two occasions in recent weeks, a doctor has come to check his pressure.
“He
was feeling dizzy, and very tired,” the senior official said, adding
that he had been placed on a healthier diet and is fine.
Even
with his outsized place inside Syriza, Mr. Tsipras has long been
criticized for failing to discipline the more radical members in his
coalition, which is more anti-euro than the Greek public at large. Many
Syriza members are loath to sign any agreement that would break their
strict anti-austerity election pledge and believe European leaders are
trying to force them to succumb to break them politically.
“What
they want is to engulf the left wing in these policies,” said Despoina
Charalampidou, a Syriza lawmaker. “This is something we will not allow.”
But
on June 21, Mr. Tsipras seemed to finally push past recalcitrant
members of his party and propose a new deal. He forwarded a proposal
that included pensions changes, increases in value-added taxes and other
measures intended to raise revenues.
In Brussels, creditors were pleased and suggested that the basis of a deal might finally be at hand.
But then the creditors sent a counterproposal, with red ink indicating changes, including pension cuts and more taxes.
“When
the Greek government got this, they were horrified,” said Mr.
Malkoutzis, the political consultant. “It quickly became apparent to
Tsipras that he had little chance of convincing his party to support
this.”
Some
analysts speculate that Mr. Tsipras called the referendum to save his
party, since putting the matter to voters absolves Syriza of its
campaign promise not to sign such a deal. Others argue that the prime
minister, like others in Syriza, are actually trying to steer Greece out
of the eurozone. Mr. Lygeros, the political commentator who has known
the prime minister for years, is critical of how he has handled the
negotiations. But in an interview conducted last week, when it looked as
if the Greek side would relent to creditor demands, Mr. Lygeros also
noted that Mr. Tsipras could be pushed only so far.
“For
better or worse, the things he was saying when he got elected were
things he genuinely believed in,” Mr. Lygeros said. “If he is cornered
too tightly, he is unpredictable. He might even go to a referendum.”
Two days later, Mr. Tsipras did just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment