© REUTERS/Costas Baltas

Late last week, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Kalamata, the southern city of Greece best known for its olives. He was invited by Greece’s President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, a proud Kalamatan himself; they toured the nearby archeological site of Messene, one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the world, and Steinmeier received Kalamata’s golden key from the mayor.

The city’s left wing parties, however, are strongly against such niceties toward German officials, and they made their voices heard ahead of Steinmeier’s arrival. They are calling for Germany to pay Greece World War II reparations, and it’s a demand the Greek government has taken up as well, again.

On the first day of Steinmeier’s visit to Greece, both Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told the press—in front of Steinmeier—that Germany must pay reparations to Greece for WWII atrocities.

Tsipras said that the differences between the two countries shouldn’t be swept under the rug but resolved, according to international law.

Under the Nazi occupation of Greece, some 300,000 people perished–around 10 percent of the population at the time. Greek Jews were eradicated. The country’s infrastructure was destroyed and archeological treasures stolen. In Kalamata itself, Nazis rounded up some 520 men on February 8, 1944 and killed them, secretly burying their bodies on the outskirts of the city; families only found out about the mass grave days later. The World War was later followed by a civil war and it took decades for the country to recover.

For all these reasons, there has been a long-simmering debate in Greece on whether the country should take Germany to court.

Steinmeier, blinking in front of the press, apologized for the Nazi atrocities but didn’t comment on the reparations. An answer had already been given by Angela Merkel the previous week, when she denied that any discussions would commence.

Old Resentments and Politics

The awkward dance is nothing new for these two governments. In 2015, when Tsipras’ left-wing Syriza was first elected, a reparations committee was set up in parliament. The committee produced a report in 2016 with Greek claims totaling more than 270 billion euros, including reparations for victims’ family members, for the destruction of the country’s infrastructure, and for the 476-million-Reichsmark loan that the Nazi regime forced the Greek Central Bank to hand over.

Since he started the negotiations on the third bailout, Tsipras hadn’t brought up the reparations issue –until now, that is, and for an important reason: Greece exited the eurozone’s final bailout program in August. Yet the country is still crippled after nearly nine years of a debt crisis that saw the economy contract by more than 40 percent.

Athens might also be taking advantage of deep-seated resentment towards Berlin, a chief driver of stringent austerity measures during the crisis; many Greeks believe that policy has prolonged the crisis and sent thousands of people tumbling below the poverty line.

The Germans are fixed in their position, however. Berlin claims that after the Two-plus-Four agreement struck between East and West Germany and co-signed by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, no further war reparations would be made against Berlin. The Greeks, on the other hand, say they never signed such an agreement.

If Greece’s government wanted to push the matter now, however, a decision by the country’s Supreme Court would give Athens a bargaining chip. According to the decision, any German government property in Greece should be confiscated and given to the survivors of the Distomo massacre, where the SS killed more than 214 people in the village of Distomo, in retaliation for an attack by the resistance movement. If the justice minister were to sign the court’s decision, it would become binding. But no minister until now has dared to do so.

Whether the Greek government is earnestly trying to take advantage of the country’s momentum after exiting the bailouts, or if it’s just trying to cash in votes for next year’s national elections, is not yet clear. Europe, and in turn Germany, still holds immense political and economic power over Greece, even post-bailout: Athens is still paying back its massive debt, and whatever the government does has to be approved by its creditors.  If Greece stays on a hardline course to seek reparations, the situation could escalate.

The post The Reparations Debate, Reloaded appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

The 28-year long row between Macedonia and Greece appears to be over. The international community can finally put the five-letter acronym FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) aside and embrace its new moniker.

In a deal reached last Sunday, Macedonia will rename itself the Republic of North Macedonia. The Greek and Macedonian foreign ministers met at Lake Prespa which straddles their common border to sign the agreement, joined by UN mediator Matthew Nimetz and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

The two countries’ young prime ministers, Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev, were also on hand to celebrate the historic rapprochement. In front of the cameras, they spoke of peace, stability, and, of course, music. There were even shows of friendship—Tsipras and Zaev exchanged three kisses, as is tradition in the Balkans region, and Zaev removed his tie to hand it over as a present for the always-tieless Tsipras.

And the agreement was indeed historic. For decades now, political careers in Greece have been built on the mantra that all things Macedonian are Greek. Now, Athens will recognize its neighbor as North Macedonia. Macedonia, meanwhile, will be able to call its language and its citizens Macedonian, but it will cease to make claims on Hellenic history or the ancient Greek King of Macedonia Alexander the Great. In return, Athens has agreed to stop vetoing Macedonia’s EU and NATO membership. In the Balkans—Europe’s traditional powder keg—that’s a lot of compromising.

At home in their respective countries, however, the deal sparked outrage among nationalists; they protested outside both parliaments, chanting: “Down with the traitors. You’re selling our country. Macedonia is ours.” And both governments know the issue is not well and truly resolved. First, they’ll have to convince the people of their countries that the deal is mutually beneficial. Then they have to submit the agreement to their parliaments for ratification.

The FYROM needs to change its name by the end of 2018 and expunge any territorial claims on the northern Greek province of Macedonia from its constitution. After that, it will need to notify all countries as well as international organizations and institutions that its name has been changed to the Republic of North Macedonia.

Within a month from the signing, a joint committee of experts on historic, archaeological, and educational matters must also decide whether school textbooks, maps, historical atlases, and teaching guides in both countries need revising. Another committee will meet to agree on trademarks and commercial names.

Seeking EU Membership

Macedonia will seek admission to NATO and the EU as soon as the agreement comes into effect, and Tsipras will notify the President of the European Council that he supports the opening of accession negotiations. The Greek prime minister hopes his support will boost his negotiating power during upcoming talks on Greece exiting the EU’s bailout program.

After all this, the ball is firmly in the EU’s court. Enlargement has virtual been on hold for more than a decade now, with Croatia being the last country to join in 2013. Even though the latest Commission Staff Working Document on Macedonia’s accession process, published in April, says that Zaev’s government is advancing the EU reform agenda, the absence of a concrete accession date has emboldened nationalists and euroskeptics in the country.

Ethnic passions still run high. Just last year, Zaev, who was then the leader of the opposition, was beaten up by protestors for electing an ethnic Albanian as parliament speaker. In 2001, ethnic violence broke out between the Albanian minority and security forces, spilling into an armed conflict and leading to the death of a thousand people. The violence only ended after the United Nations became involved.

For the EU, moving forward with accession might be the only way to stop Russia’s and Turkey’s expanding influence in the Balkans. But that would then be more of a political decision rather than a genuine consideration of whether the countries in question meet the EU accession criteria.

Perpetual talks with little progress have led to disengagement in the Balkans. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see some parts of former Yugoslavia falling into another world power’s lap. Both Moscow and Ankara—not to mention Beijing—have gained significant footholds in the region while, in the meantime, Brussels has been dragging its feet.

The post What’s In a Name? appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Sergio Perez

The man who outraged the EU in 2015 while trying to negotiate Greece’s debt restructuring officially announced the formation of a new party on March 26. Called, in English translation, the Realistic Disobedience Front, or MERA25, it is a coming-together of leftists, greens, and liberals.

The date of the party’ announcement was no coincidence, coming just one day after Greece’s national independence day. Varoufakis is indeed asking for independence, but this time from the country’s lenders.

It’s been almost three years since Varoufakis last tried to wrest back power from the country’s creditors. During the tumultuous six months he spent in talks with Christine Lagarde of the IMF and then-German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, he refused to sign another loan, instead asking for a debt restructuring. The end of the negotiations and his resignation came after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to go ahead and accept a third bailout in July 2015.

But Varoufakis didn’t stay on the sidelines for long. He turned his experience into a best-selling book, Adults in the Room; in February 2016, along with Croatian writer and activist Srecko Horvat, Varoufakis launched DiEM25, a pan-European political movement with the goal of reforming the EU and its institutions.

Back To Greece

Over the last few months, however, Varoufakis has shifted his attention back to Greece and started campaigning across the country. For now, it’s a one-man-show: Varoufakis talks, Varoufakis presents the party’s positions, and Varoufakis answers questions.

I watched one of his campaign stops last month in Kalamata in southern Greece. It’s a traditionally right-wing city, but the small theater was full; some came because they were curious to hear what the economist-turned-celebrity had to say, while others were actively searching for a new party to support.

In his usual laid-back style, the eloquent economist called for “constructive disobedience” toward the country’s lenders: Because Greeks can’t stick to the “irrational austerity policies” that have “destroyed” the country, they have to disobey; but because merely disobeying isn’t enough, the government has to offer “realistic and responsible proposals” as well.

These are some of the proposals that make up what Varoufakis calls “urgent policy:” putting an end to home foreclosures until the real estate market picks up and the country is out of the crisis; reducing taxes, specifically VAT and those for small and medium-sized businesses, from 22 percent to 15 to 18 percent; instead of the current, “unrealistic” goal of 3.5 percent primary surplus, aiming for a 1 to 1.5 percent surplus

Other ideas include a public non-bank payments system to allow free transactions between the public and the state. If the banks are closed like in 2015, the state could borrow directly from the public, circumventing the financial markets while offering a much larger interest rate than the banks. Varoufakis also wants to restructure Greece’s public debt, protect wage labor (thousands of Greeks are employed as contractors without job security, and therefore have to pay their own health insurance), and end all fire sales of Greek public property; instead, he proposes to create a development bank that will use public assets as collateral in order to create investment flows into both public assets and the private sector.

Stay or Go?

At the campaign rally, one of the first questions to come from the public was a familiar one: to Grexit or not to Grexit? Varoufakis said he’s in favor of Greece staying in the EU, although Greece should never have entered it. But like in so many other cases, Varoufakis left us trying to parse his words.

“Grexit isn’t the worst thing that could happen, but it’s also not the best development for Greece,” he said, pointing out that the government’s agreement to a surplus of 3.5 percent until 2060 will have an even more devastating result than a Grexit would because it will mean another 40 years of austerity.

On the other hand, he said, a Grexit would deal a severe blow to thousands of Greeks in the short-term, but then the economy would bounce back in a few years. So it would appear he would support a Grexit. But then he added: “But I can’t take that responsibility,” leaving the crowd puzzled.

It won’t be a surprise if Varoufakis’ MERA25 gains Parliament seats in next year’s European elections. The current government has failed to improve conditions, and the promise that the country will leave the bailout program by August 2018 and start borrowing from the international market isn’t really appealing to people suffering from the ongoing crisis. Unemployment is still at 20 percent, and the quarter of the country’s GDP lost since Greece’s troubles began hasn’t been recovered.

What’s more, Varoufakis might be a menace and a champagne-socialist to his opponents, but for his voters he’s still the only Greek politician who refused to sign new austerity measures. Plus, he’s famous—and able to fill a political void that currently exists in Greek politics. Other than the communist party, there’s no other anti-austerity party in parliament. For Greeks the choice next year may look like this: endless austerity—or Varoufakis.

The post He’s Back appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

For a cash-strapped country like Greece, an additional €66 million in the state coffers should be welcome news. The country’s economy has made only faltering progress, still reeling from the 2008 eurozone debt crisis. Unemployment remains above 20 percent – youth unemployment about 50 percent – and the economy has contracted by a quarter since the crisis began. Pensions have been slashed and Greeks are bracing for more austerity, with new, highly unpopular cost-cutting measures set to continue through 2020 at least.

So Greece’s €66 million deal to sell missiles and munitions to Saudi Arabia was considered a much-needed boost for Athens. However, it has sparked a heated political debate and created yet another headache for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government.

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who inked the deal, is under pressure to resign after revelations that he had allegedly used an illegal intermediary to negotiate the terms of a deal between two governments, breaking Greece’s anti-corruption laws. The Saudi-Greek pact collapsed last week in parliament after the Committee on Military Equipment revoked its original vote allowing the pact to go through. The opposition said it had lost its trust in the defense minister, and would vote against any other arms deal brought to the committee.

Kammenos, who is the leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks party, Tsipras’ junior coalition partner, continues to deny the accusations. He says the middle man in question is an official advisor to the Saudi government. But an anti-corruption prosecutor has opened an investigation into the possible wrongdoing.

Alexis Tsipras was only able to build his frail majority – 153 of 300 seats – with the help of the Independent Greeks, who have nine MPs in parliament. So the left-wing prime minister has been left with little choice but to back Kammenos.

A History of Bribes

Greece is no stranger to multibillion-euro arms deals. It is, after all, one of only five NATO members already spending 2 percent of its GDP on defense. But some of Greece’s biggest bribery scandals have been linked to weapons contracts. Just last month, one of the country’s leading defense ministers in the 1990s was sent to jail for 20 years for receiving bribes tied to big arms deals with Russia and Germany.

Even so, the latest agreement has proven especially controversial. Opposition politicians and critics question the legality and ethics behind selling 300,000 105-millimeter shells to Riyadh as the government their continues its bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, trapping more and more civilians in the ceasefire.

According to a United Nations report, the Yemen war has sparked the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945. The organization’s humanitarian affairs office reports more than 10,000 people have died, half of them civilians.

Greece’s attempt to sell arms to Riyadh came despite the European Parliament’s vote to impose a European embargo against Saudi Arabia. The overwhelming majority of the parliament voted to institute an EU-wide ban on selling arms to the Saudis due to “serious allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.” EU member states are not compelled to adhere to the parliament’s vote, but the pressure on Brussels to pass a binding decree is mounting.

Despite strong condemnation of the humanitarian situation in Yemen, Greece is certainly not the only one trying to score big in weapons deals with Riyadh. Since the war began three years ago, British companies have sold 5.2 billion euros in arms to the Saudis, waved through by the UK government. Germany, one of the world’s largest arms exporters, has also come under fire for selling tanks and heavy military machinery to Saudi Arabia, and for sealing a deal earlier this year with the United Arab Emirates, part of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

An Uncomfortable Situation

In Greece, even if the anti-corruption prosecutor finds no evidence of a misdeed, Alexis Tsipras is facing an uncomfortable situation: after participating in dozens of anti-war rallies in the past, he may well have to abandon the moral high ground to the opposition.

It is not the first time Kammenos has put Tsipras in a difficult position. In a bid to cling to power, the prime minister has been forced to back his government ally through several scandals. Last summer, telephone conversations between Kammenos and a convicted drug dealer were leaked. Kammenos did not deny talking to the convict. The opposition accused Kammenos of meddling in the affairs of the justice system, but the minister said he was trying to convince the man to cooperate with the prosecutors.

Still, Tsipras has stood behind his defense minister. But as support for the government continues to slide and the opposition climbs in the polls, the prime minister’s handling of this latest flare-up could be an important factor in deciding his future.

The post Up in Arms appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

It was an agreement that the European Union, and Germany in particular, hailed as the key to solving the refugee crisis: the EU would give Turkey a total of 6 billion euros and visa-free travel for its citizens, in return for Ankara blocking refugees or migrants attempting to cross into Greece from its territory.

The reality has been different: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the pact as his personal bargaining chip over his EU counterparts. His threats to scrap the deal were originally leverage in securing visa waivers for Turkish citizens traveling in the EU. Now, however, the rhetoric has grown increasingly dramatic and the threats more menacing, after EU countries Germany and the Netherlands, in the run-up to Turkey’s constitutional referendum in April, banned some pro-Erdogan rallies by Turkish ministers on their soil.

In the eyes of EU bureaucrats, the agreement is still a success story. In fact, over the past few months the EU representatives who helped compose the agreement have been touring across Greece, patting themselves on the back over how well their plan has worked. They are still vowing to speed up the asylum decision process significantly.

They do indeed have some reason to be satisfied. Only around 30 people a day have been arriving on the Greek islands so far this year, a significant drop from 2015, where an average of 2,200 people arrived on a daily basis. Turkey has also agreed that migrants who make it to the Greek islands but whose asylum applications had been rejected would be readmitted back into Turkey.

But because of the agreement, some 14,000 unlucky refugees who have arrived in Greece since the deal went into effect have been stuck in a seemingly eternal limbo: They are essentially kept as prisoners on the Greek islands until their asylum cases are processed. And despite the 600 million euros the EU earmarked for the UNHCR, NGOs, and the Greek government to rectify the situation, hundreds of people are still living in summer tents.

Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have called the migration agreement illegal and inhumane, violating both EU and Greek laws. Doctors Without Borders psychologists in Lesbos saw the number of patients with symptoms of anxiety and depression more than double, and they also witnessed more cases of self-harm and attempted suicide.

Three refugees in the Moria camp burned coal in their tents in an effort to warm up last January; it had been snowing and raining non-stop for days. They were poisoned by the carbon monoxide.

Official reports also conclude that some asylum-seekers have been sent back to Turkey without a chance to apply for asylum in Greece. The Greek authorities were under immense pressure to implement the terms of the agreement successfully, and these reports indicate that many people were deported without due process.

Even Syrian refugees have found themselves in jail and awaiting deportation to Turkey, despite appeals. The country’s highest court will soon hear the case of a 21-year-old Syrian man held in the Lesbos jail, and much is at stake. If the man is returned to Turkey, it is quite likely that he would then be deported back to Syria.

A Safe Country?

In addition to these issues, the EU has failed to answer a question central to the deal: Is Turkey really a safe third country? After all, last year was one of Turkey’s most turbulent: 30 terror attacks, an attempted coup by parts of the military, a crackdown on Kurds, and active participation in the Syria war.

Until now, some 1,000 migrants and refugees have been deported back to Turkey, and that number is considered too low for EU bureaucrats – they are looking for ways to increase it. They found the solution: those waiting for a decision on appeals will be held in detention centers, and another 200 Greek police officers will be transferred to the islands. The goal is to limit the number of asylum-seekers fleeing to the mainland to continue their journey. In addition, more EU border officers will be stationed in the Macedonian and the Albanian borders, to prevent smuggling across the Western route.

Greece’s next move will be to change the law to recognize Turkey as a “safe” country also for vulnerable groups; the Ministry of Migration is preparing corresponding legislation. If it passes, even families with children, religious minorities, disabled, LGBT, and torture victims, won’t be protected by the Greek law anymore and will be deported to Turkey.

There is a wildcard that the EU appeared to have misjudged: Erdogan’s penchant for power and his geopolitical strategies were not taken into consideration when the deal was signed. Turkey’s deteriorating relations with European countries have put the EU in a seemingly untenable position, and critics argue the balance of power rests clearly with Ankara. Yet Erdogan’s government has been threatening to abandon the agreement and open the floodgates for a year and has not followed through – despite several ultimatums, and the fact that Turkish citizens still don’t have visa-free travel within Europe. It seems Ankara has a stake in seeing the agreement succeed, as well.

Still, if Turkey makes good on its threats, Greece will once again find itself with thousands of new arrivals, only they will not be allowed to continue on to Western Europe and will be stuck in Greece. And if this scenario plays out, Brussels will likely hastily throw more millions to cash-strapped, crisis-ridden Greece and conveniently believe they have solved the issue once more. But more money will not help.

As of last December, the EU had only resettled some 6,200 of the over 62,000 refugees stuck in Greece. That has weakened European officials’ credibility and raised anger in Athens.

And what’s more, the EU cannot seem to see the forest through the trees: Brussels has failed to address the problem of migration at its very root. War, conflict, and extreme poverty still face millions in Turkey and their home countries, and the reasons to flee are not subsiding. The European dream is still a shining beacon for many, and it should not come as a  surprise that at any moment, the number of people looking for a better life will increase. It’s time Europe stops buying into the far-right’s fear-mongering ways and bowing to populist pressure. Building an iron curtain around the continent isn’t a solution, and history shows that migration ends up being a benefit, not a burden.

The post Hanging in the Balance appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Giorgos Moutafis

Burns cover the face and body of nine-year-old Amina. They’re from when a bomb fell on her house in Aleppo, Syria. Leila, 10, still has nightmares of Islamic State fighters entering her Yazidi village in Sinjar in Northern Iraq. Busra, 16, has tried to commit suicide twice already. She can’t stand living in a camp on this Greek island anymore. She misses her brother back in Syria.

The three girls don’t know each other, but they have something in common – they live in fear of being deported. And they are living in limbo.

Along with their families, the girls are among the more than 21,000 people that arrived to Lesbos after March 2015, when the European Union and Ankara sealed a deal to send migrants back to Turkey, preventing them from traveling onward to the mainland or Western Europe.

According to the conditions of the EU-Turkey deal, the European Union will have to give Turkey another 3 billion euros on top of the 3 billion originally agreed – money to be spent on improving refugees’ living conditions in the country. The pact also involved a complex exchange agreement: For every Syrian refugee sent back to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian refugee will be resettled directly from Turkey to an EU country. In return, the EU would liberalize visa requirements for Turkish nationals.

Nine months later, both sides have struggled to stick to the deal.

The influx of migrants has indeed slowed considerably compared to 2015. Last month, 2,000 migrants arrived on all of the Greek islands, around a third less than the previous two months. In November 2015, around 100,000 people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa and elsewhere arrived.

But thousands keep arriving in Greece. Most didn’t have a choice, as half of their families were already in Europe. And others were so destitute that they took the chance anyway. In the camps, many – like Amina, the nine-year-old burn victim – need serious medical attention. According to the UNHCR’s latest data, only a small fraction of the refugees living in Turkey has actually been relocated to Europe – just 4,000 so far.

Is Turkey “Safe”?

It’s difficult to consider Turkey a “safe country,” either. Its asylum-system is barely three years old, and its infrastructure cannot serve three million refugees. Turkey still denies full refugee status to non-Europeans. And the failed coup six months ago has led to a sweeping crackdown and a purge, with thousands arrested, fired and persecuted. The EU Parliament recently voted to freeze Turkey’s EU accession talks “due to concerns about the human rights violations.” The vote was non-binding, but it sent a clear signal to Ankara.

It’s another sign that discourse between the EU and Turkey has turned sour. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to threaten to tear up the deal and send three million migrants streaming toward the Greek islands if the EU doesn’t pay the rest of the 6 billion euros it promised, and if visa-free travel isn’t granted soon.

But even with the six billion euros, refugees’ living conditions in Turkey are still difficult. Those who make it out of camps face discrimination, high rents, and low-paid jobs. For them, Europe still seems like the only viable choice on the horizon.

Meanwhile, the number of asylum-seekers in the region keeps increasing. Turkey is already hosting more than three million refugees. With the help of Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been destroying the rebel stronghold of East Aleppo. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban’s power has been growing. Libya is in chaos. Egypt’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse, too, raising the possibility of the Arab world’s most populous state becoming a new source of refugees.

Stricter controls in the Balkans have shut down the main route for migrants. But the number of those now trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean and Italy, a much deadlier route, has been rising. Conditions in various African countries are deteriorating quickly, spurring a new wave of migrants.

So far, only 754 asylum-seekers have been deported to Turkey. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International and UNHCR interviewed deportees after they arrived to Turkey and found that many weren’t even allowed by the Greek authorities to apply for asylum. The media recently highlighted the cases of two men, a homosexual Syrian and a Christian Syrian likely to face persecution in the Middle East, who were scheduled for deportation to Turkey.

More EU Help Needed

Greece is struggling under the weight of a massive backlog of asylum cases, and also under EU pressure to increase deportations. Asylum cases are taking far too long to process. Greek immigration agencies are understaffed and overworked: Only 700 people are working on asylum applications that require days of interviews, investigations and paperwork. The cash-strapped Greek government can’t hire more asylum application processors, either, due to the conditions on the international loans that are keeping the country afloat.

The backlog has now reached around 60,000 applications, not including the appeals of asylums seekers whose applications are rejected. The Greek Ministry of Immigration has asked for EU help, and Brussels promised 400 staffers. But only 36 have arrived so far. The Belgian staff left two weeks ago, fearing for their safety after shots were fired in one of the refugee camps.

Amid the turmoil, refugees are growing increasingly restive. Around 40,000 are living in tents as the rainy days and cold nights of the Greek winter approach. Last week on Lesbos, an Iraqi woman and a child from Iraq died after their gas canister used for cooking and heat exploded.

People on Lesbos often cite a Greek proverb when they hear their leaders claiming the EU’s deal with Turkey is solving the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War: it’s like hiding the dust under the carpet.

The post Near Breaking Point appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

When Alexis Tsipras burst into the spotlight in early 2015, he was seen by most in Europe as too young, too radical, and too left. At just 40, he was fresh-faced and irreverent, and already head of Greece’s Syriza party – a motley crew of radical left-wing groups, from ecologists to Trotskyists.

Across Europe, the prospect of a Tsipras win raised the specter of chaos in Athens and a Grexit, with a domino effect in Spain, Portugal, and Italy looming on the horizon. An earlier article in Germany’s Der Spiegel had included Tsipras in a list of the twenty most dangerous politicians for Europe’s unity, along with France’s far-right Marine Le Pen and Italy’s flamboyant Silvio Berlusconi.

But most Greek voters didn’t agree. They saw Tsipras as the only hope to bring Greece out of its deep misery. He vowed to end austerity, stop further budget cuts, and lift the economy back on its feet. So they gave Tsipras the mandate he needed and Syriza swept to power in January 2015.

Nearly two years later, Tsipras hasn’t delivered on those promises. Instead, he and his government (including his coalition partners, the far-right Independent Greeks, or ANEL) are considered German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s darlings. It’s certainly been an abrupt about-face from the prime minister’s “Go back, Mrs. Merkel” speech on the campaign path to his cozy ties with Berlin today.

A Disappointing Record

Once in office, Tsipras compromised with Greece’s lenders and expanded upon the previous governments’ austerity policies. He privatized public assets, slashed pensions for the sixteenth time, and lifted a state-imposed ban on foreclosing family homes.

But those measures haven’t seemed to have much impact on the ailing economy. Unemployment is gradually falling, but almost a quarter of the population is still out of work. Highly-skilled young Greeks are migrating to Western Europe to find jobs, while businesses are either shutting down or fleeing to nearby Balkan countries with more attractive tax rates. State debt is at a record 179 percent of Greece’s GDP.

Tsipras never managed to win consensus for his austerity plans either. Greeks haven’t taken to the streets en masse, but disillusionment with the government is growing and Tsipras’ popularity plummeting.

According to an October poll by the Athens-based survey group Greek Public Issue, only 14 percent of Greeks would vote for the current union government. Less than a quarter of voters see Tsipras as the best possible prime minister among the country’s leading lawmakers.

Tsipras was dealt yet another blow in late October when Greece’s highest court struck down a new television licensing law. The government had championed the legislation as a way to crack down on Greek oligarchs owning television stations and broadcasting without licenses for nearly thirty years. Syriza claimed these media moguls were influencing elections. But critics argued the law was merely Syriza’s attempt to create its own group of media moguls.

And the prime minister’s cabinet reshuffle in early November has come under heavy criticism as well – his newly appointed ministers will only have three weeks to negotiate with the country’s lenders on important issues like privatizations, a new minimum wage, and collective redundancies.

Now, pressure is mounting and the prospect of early elections or a reshuffling of the government is looking ever more likely. Tsipras, however, continues to bat down the possibility. “We’ll have elections in autumn 2019. The people will judge [us] then, freely and unaffected,” he told a group of European reporters last month.

Voters seem to have a different opinion. An overwhelming majority – 85 percent in Public Issue’s latest poll – doesn’t agree with the government’s economic policies and 45 percent believe that neither of the two largest parties can lead the country out of crisis.

An Uphill Battle

From any angle, Tsipras is facing an uphill battle and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to turn around his fortunes. What’s more, a new round of taxes will go into effect in 2017. Everything from landlines and cellphones to heating oil will carry an additional tax. The effect on industry has already been startling. Tens of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses either shut down or moved to Bulgaria, where the corporate tax rate is a stable ten percent. That is a far cry from the sixty percent in taxes and social security contributions they face in Greece.

The country’s international lenders haven’t lightened the load, refusing to even discuss a debt write-off. The IMF has now acknowledged it made mistakes in its handling of the eurozone crisis, particularly in pushing Greece to follow certain austerity policies. According to an IMF report published last summer, the fund says it should have recognized the Greek economy’s deep dysfunction and pushed for debt restructuring far earlier.

In fact, Greece had been building an inflated economy on shaky foundations over four decades. The two ruling parties, PASOK and New Democracy, allowed a system of patronage to flourish in public and private sectors. Politicians promised jobs to their constituents in exchange for votes. Bribes were the norm for doing business with the government, and they often came from abroad. German companies were also involved.

Meanwhile, Athens kept borrowing to fund its growth while globalization was crippling the country’s manufacturing sector. When the housing bubble burst in the United States in 2008, it was as if a tsunami swept over Greece, drowning the country in its own debt. The sociopolitical landscape in Greece changed swiftly. Systematic cronyism fell apart: As part of the EU-IMF bailout agreement, hiring in the public sector was frozen.

A Blessing in Disguise?

With hindsight, Syriza might have been a blessing in disguise to Greece’s pro-austerity camp. The party can be credited with implementing tough austerity measures that previous governments couldn’t manage – the very same measures that spurred hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in 2010 and continue protesting all the way through 2015.
During those demonstrations, Syriza ended up absorbing most of Greece’s union leaders, grassroots movements, and historic left-wing figures. Along came dozens of former PASOK members who were scrambling to save their political future.

As prime minister, Tsipras has managed to tame his party and close ranks. He swept out Syriza’s far-left elements and kept only those that were true to him and his close circle of influence. Those who were forced out now hold Tsipras responsible for ruining the Greek left’s only real chance to steer the country’s politics. Historically, Greece’s left has only had limited political influence, if any.
Meanwhile, Tsipras and the party have undergone significant change, as was evident at the Syriza party convention last October. Athens was covered in banners proudly featuring Tsipras’ face. Some 2800 loyal party members showed up at the convention and clapped throughout the prime minister’s speech, backing all his policies with almost religious fervor.

Praying for an Obama Miracle

With Greek debt ballooning, Tsipras is desperately looking for EU partners to ensure his political survival. But he still hasn’t managed to build a coalition with Italy, Spain, and Portugal to oppose German-driven austerity in Europe.

So the government is now banking on US President Barack Obama’s visit in mid-November to help convince Greece’s lenders to write off some of the country’s colossal debt. Greek media are buzzing with hopes of a miracle from Obama – he has been the only Western leader speaking out against austerity. The US president will push the IMF and EU leaders to ease Greece’s debt load, they daydream. That would certainly help the prime minister pick up some points with his electorate.

Still, it might be too little too late for Tsipras. In a press conference back in 2015, he declared he would only start putting on a tie if he managed to come to an agreement with the country’s creditors and secure a debt write-off. He has stuck to the promise and never worn a tie.

But even if he does succeed in relieving Greece’s debt burden, he should be careful not to get too comfortable in his new clothes. Because the tie may come to symbolize just how much he has compromised – and that could spell political doom.

The post No Tie, No Support appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.