Dr Louis Bayman interviews Dr Marina Prentoulis on Greece, Syriza and the unprecedented negotiations that have shaken the Eurozone
On the 25 January 2015, Syriza, a Greek party whose name stands for ‘Coalition of the Radical Left’, shocked the Greek political establishment by being the first far-left European party to come to power in a generation. The party beat the governing centre-right New Democracy and confined the centre-left Pasok party to a near wipe-out. Barely more than a decade old, Syriza’s success was based on promising a steadfast opposition to austerity, upon which the institutions of the ‘troika’ insist: the European Union, International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, who together fund Greece’s bailout terms.
In what has become an unprecedented test of national sovereignty within the EU, Syriza have been in negotiation with the former ever since forming a government to try and secure concessions that the institutions broadly refuse. On July 5, Alexis Tsipras, the charismatic Syriza leader of the Greek government, took the nation into a referendum on the latest EU conditions, in which the Greek people rejected the conditions by 61%.
In the week since, Tsipras has accepted the very measures that he campaigned against. This morning, he conceded to tough conditions which were soon met with claims that the punishment for Greece is set to continue. The agreement came following a night of marathon negotiations that included the unusual threat of ‘Grexit’, or forcing Greece to ‘temporarily exit’ Europe. The concluded deal keeps Greece within the Eurozone, although on compromised terms.
In an interview conducted prior to the final agreement, we spoke to Dr Marina Prentoulis, Syriza member and Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of East Anglia, to find out the background to the crisis.
id="attachment_11620" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-11620" style="width: 199px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">
What did the Greek people say ‘No’ to in the recent referendum?
It is a no to austerity. It is not a no to staying in the Eurozone. The Eurozone has imposed cuts as much as possible from people who already have nothing. Its austerity measures do not attack the rich but those on middle and lower incomes and pensioners. Unemployment is at 27% overall and 60% amongst young people; there is a generation that has studied and has no future. If they do find work, it is slavery at 200 Euros a month for a 50 hour week. Pensioners have to provide for unemployed people while having their pensions cut. There is no growth, no jobs, and there have been 10,000 suicides in recent years. It is a war – a huge catastrophe.
Austerity may hurt, but surely it’s only fair to pay what you owe?
Without restructuring and debt relief, the debt will grow more, to 200% of our economy. It’s a myth that we caused the Eurozone crisis by overspending. Greece is 2% of the European economy. Even if all Greeks had been partying for five years with champagne and caviar, we could not have created this crisis. There are big, structural problems there and 92% of the money borrowed just goes back to the banking system as recapitalisation – taxpayers are giving money to banks that took huge risks and are still unregulated, increasing the wealth of a very small number of people. We say screw you; there should be a system which is for the people and provides for them. The gap between rich and poor is increasing; 5% own 95% of the wealth of the planet.
That’s a world problem.
Yes, it is happening in Britain too. Why should people die for the banks?
Syriza is often described as radical. What is stopping it from taking steps like nationalising banks, defaulting on the debts, or even exiting the EU?
Everybody is disappointed that we are trapped between the demand to stop austerity and the demand to stay in the Eurozone. I do not necessarily think that an exit will be a disaster but we do have to prepare it. It would be very anarchic to do it right now, but given how the negotiations go we should start to think about how to manage it. It will be chaos. But there is already chaos in Greece.
Why haven’t negotiations worked?
The EU institutions will not compromise. The Greek government had a clear mandate to go and negotiate change. It seems like the institutions would like to get rid of the less strong countries to create a closer core.
I believe Syriza is the real European force for change. We are not Eurosceptics. A lot of people say we are naïve in wanting to change a neoliberal, market driven Eurozone. But we see ourselves as part of Europe and would like to stay as part of Europe, with guarantees of democracy and solidarity above the nation state. I think the EU as a whole will fail if they don’t address these problems.
Do you mean fail economically, or politically?
Both, and not only in Greece. Right wing Euroscepticism is increasing in France and the UK, in Spain there is a generation now lost to unemployment. The EU could become more democratic, guaranteeing resistance against national abuses of power and against the effects of globalisation, but if it doesn’t then I don’t see any purpose to it.
How is Syriza a new, or different, kind of party?
It was formed in 2004 as an electoral coalition between different left organisations. It was very small, but progressively, after the crisis, it started gaining electoral power, alongside power in the streets; in 2011 the movement of the Squares demanded change, and Syriza was part of this movement, unlike other left parties, like the Communists, who treated the protestors in a patronising way. We have a lot of comrades who have been in movements all their lives, so that is how we gained power.
Syriza has supplanted Pasok, which was the main centre left party but didn’t oppose austerity. What is the danger of this happening to Syriza?
There is always a danger. Pasok came to power in 1981 as a grassroots movement for change. But in the process of trying to change the system, the system changed them, and this is what we call ‘Pasokification’. The only way to avoid this danger is to have very strong grassroots organisations, which we don’t have right now because of the efforts put into getting elected and now the negotiations. Stronger local groups could push the leaders and not allow them to become too comfortable.
How specific is Syriza to Greece?
It is specific to Greece, because of the left traditions we have. Podemos in Spain has similar aims but does not identify specifically as the left, but as an expression of the movements. Syriza does contain lessons that are relevant internationally though: the first is that the Old Left has died because it is totally unable to articulate anything other than dogma. So we move away from the traditional left and get closer to social movements. The question across Europe is: how do we connect parties to social movements?
How can people in Britain support the Greeks?
Learn more – don’t buy the media stories. And go on holiday to Greece! By going there you express solidarity, meet people and discuss the situation. Join the Greece Solidarity Campaign, which creates delegations to Greece and learns from the social networks there about how people provide food, doctors and social assistance for each other. The biggest thing is to take back control of our future, to demand a very different future, where people can go to university without huge debt, and can do things in life that they enjoy. This is what we want and we have to fight here in Britain for it as well.
Image from: http://www.neurope.eu/article/great-greek-offensive-oligarchs