What's happening in Greece right now

[Paul Rigby]

GREECE IN THE MINCER

By Alexander Mercouris

12 July 2015

https://www.facebook.com/alexander.merco...5654249680

Having capitulated yet again despite his referendum "victory", Tsipras now finds himself in exactly the same position he was in when he capitulated before just a few weeks ago when he accepted the IMF-EU's demands only to be faced with new demands, which caused him to call the referendum.

With the Germans and the French now quarrelling, they are looking for compromise with each other at the expense of the Greeks.
Another way of putting it would be to say what I have said previously - Tsipras finds himself in the same position as someone being blackmailed. The moment he submits to the blackmailer, the blackmailer steps up his demands.

To be clear the demands now being made of Greeks even by the so-called "moderates" who want to keep it in the Eurozone (France, Italy and the EU Commission) go far beyond what was being asked of Greece when Tsipras and Syriza were elected.

Moreover what I am hearing is that this time Tsipras and Tsakalotos are meekly conceding everything that is being demanded of them. Since they have made no preparations for a Plan B (i.e. a Grexit) they presumably feel they have no choice.

Lost in any of this is any understanding within the EU - except possibly on the part of Wolfgang Schauble - that what has failed repeatedly over the last 5 years is hardly going to succeed now.

I remember when Syriza came to power Varoufakis said that it made absolutely no sense to lend more money to a bankrupt country and that doing so would make the situation still worse. Yet that is exactly what the government of which until a week ago he was a member is now doing by asking for another 50-80 billion euros (!) as part of a third bailout package.

Is there anyone who seriously believes that Greece will ever be able to pay back this money? Is there anyone who honestly thinks Greece will be able to run a primary budget surplus of 3.5% from 2018, which is what is now being demanded? Does anyone honestly think that trying to run a primary budget surplus of that scale will not push Greece into even deeper recession?

Yet this is the lunacy we are now looking at - all because the leadership of the "revolutionary" Syriza party cannot bring itself to take the step of seriously contemplating a Grexit.

Meanwhile claims that Tsipras had at least secured a debt write-off, which I can now reveal I was given in a furious telephone conversation I had with someone in Athens a few days ago, have as I said in that call proved to be so much hot air.

Schauble has emphatically ruled the idea out saying (falsely) that it is incompatible with membership of the Eurozone.

Anyone anyway who seriously thinks that the Europeans would simultaneously lend Greece the 50-80 billion euros the Greeks are now asking for and write-off a large part of Greece's debt is living in the land of the fairies.

As it happens the proposal for a write-off appears nowhere in any of the proposals the Greeks have made (which were drawn up for them by the French because they were incapable of doing it themselves) and apparently the issue is not even a subject for discussion.

The referendum was Tsipras's last chance. Once it was clear the Greek people - and the overwhelming majority of those under 35 - could stand austerity no longer, his only proper course was to negotiate a Grexit as soon as it became clear that the Europeans were not going to budge.

Instead - because he never planned to win the referendum in the first place - he did the diametric opposite with the unfolding disaster we are seeing now.

In the midst of all the madness I note with relief that there is one island of sanity left.

Reports coming out of Russia confirm that the government there is preparing plans to supply energy directly to Greece and that this will start "shortly".

http://tass.ru/en/economy/807949

I interpret this to mean that the Russians are in their quiet and practical way preparing plans for the emergency supply of energy to Greece in the event of a chaotic Grexit - a contingency that no one else shows any sign of preparing for.

I am constantly asked why I take such an interest in Russian affairs. I have never be able to come up with a fully satisfactory answer even for myself.

This news - combining a tough minded practical realism with a basic humanity refreshingly free of sermonising and posturing - perhaps provides the answer