Is Greece the islet of calm it appears to be?
Just a few years after emerging from the financial crisis, Greece looks like an islet of calm in a turbulent Europe where even the countries of Scandinavia are experiencing serious challenges to social democracy and the rule of law. It is not just the performance of its economy or the praise from authoritative international lips contributing to this image. It is also the sense of political stability, stemming, at a first glance, from the exercise of power without any real opposition by a government with a well-disciplined parliamentary majority.
Are appearances deceptive? Or is there, under this almost idyllic facade, a wave of frustration that is ready to be swept up in the tide of anger that has been threatening the foundations of even Europe’s most mature democracies for some time now?
There is no doubt – even among our harshest critics – that Greece weathered the storm of the memorandums quite well. With unbearable sacrifices, certainly, and with the solidarity of our partners, we emerged from the crisis relatively unscathed. As a French colleague said to me some time ago, a cut of 25% in salaries and 30% in pensions would have caused much sharper reactions in his country; most importantly, it would have been an unprecedented boon for the political extremes.
That did not happen here. Despite the “ideal” conditions for anti-systemic parties, Golden Dawn never passed the 7% mark and, at the other end of the political spectrum, the Greek Communist Party (KKE), Yanis Varoufakis and Panagiotis Lafazanis did not really benefit either. And the truth – no matter how distasteful this may seem to some readers – is that Alexis Tsipras played a part in this. Because despite the 62% in the referendum for rejecting the last bailout deal and the many prominent party officials urging him toward a rift with Europe, he did not succumb to such opportunism. Instead, he made a marked pro-European shift in the summer of 2015, not just in the name of realism, but also, I think, because he genuinely believed in it. From then on, New Democracy’s comfortable electoral victories in 2019 and this past summer showed that, after the tempest of austerity, people wanted calm.
But in what kind of Europe was all this happening? As the same French friend said, his country is now where Greece was in 2010. He wasn’t referring to the economic crisis but to the enormous uncertainty caused by the crisis of values in even the most developed Western democracies – a crisis of values, but also a representation crisis. As Giorgia Meloni completes a year in government in Italy, many in France are wondering how to stop Marine Le Pen’s march to power. (Obviously not with Jean-Luc Melenchon’s brand of populism, I’d say.) Hungary’s Viktor Orban has found an ally in Slovakia’s new prime minister and far-right parties are co-governing in countries like Austria, Sweden and Finland, while just last month, the far-right Geert Wilders came first in the Dutch elections. And as for Germany, the rise of the far-right AfD is nothing short of chilling. Poland is an exception in all this doom and gloom, with Donald Tusk emerging as a key European figure. His strategy is worth studying and emulating by European democrats.
If we also add the two wars in the broader vicinity and the unpredictable factor called Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is safe to say that the road is not strewn with rose petals. All the more so given Donald Trump’s possible re-election in the United States next year.
My biggest source of concern for Greece stems from the alarming level of abstention in the last national elections in June, which surpassed 50%. This tells us that a very large number of citizens don’t care about politics. It is their ranks, however, that provide fertile ground for the simplistic messages of sundry demagogues who, following the same path as their European counterparts, will fish for votes using the insecurity and economic hardships faced by so many of our fellow citizens as bait, while banking on expanding inequalities. The danger is that the crisis of representation that is starting to become apparent today will evolve into a crisis of democracy for us too.
Responsibility for averting such a crisis rests first and foremost with the government. I would like to believe that, wary of the political cost, it will not abandon the reforms it has pledged, that it will go forward with consistency, with respect for the Constitution, without smug arrogance, seeking the broadest possible consensus.
Meanwhile, the rising popularity of PASOK, albeit limited so far, opens up new possibilities. SYRIZA’s historic cycle can be considered closed; not now because of the election of its unconscionable new leader, but since 2019, when it failed to adapt its message to the new circumstances. So, as the second biggest party, all PASOK has to do is acknowledge its weaknesses and convey specific positions on the country’s major issues. One would like to believe that, in order to accomplish this, the new generation of party officials will steer clear of the stereotypical anti-conservative rhetoric of their predecessors and open their eyes to the trends of the present, with a commitment to the enduring legacy of European socialism.
Nikos Alivizatos is emeritus professor of law at the Athens University School of Law.
