The new Greek government, led by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), won power on 25 January. Theofanis Exadaktylos assesses the government’s first month in office. He notes that while Syriza won the election with a commitment to renegotiate the country’s bailout agreement, the subsequent negotiations have proven even more challenging than might have been expected, not least due to internal opposition within the party itself

Exadaktylos, Theofanis

LSE Research Online

03/03/2015Assessing Syriza’s ﬁrst month in oﬃce: why Greece remains along way from a break with austerityblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/03/03/assessing-syrizas-ﬁrst-month-in-oﬃce-why-greece-remains-a-long-way-from-a-break-with-austerity/The new Greek government, led by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), won power on 25January. Theofanis Exadaktylos assesses the government’s ﬁrst month in oﬃce. He notes thatwhile Syriza won the election with a commitment to renegotiate the country’s bailout agreement, thesubsequent negotiations have proven even more challenging than might have been expected, notleast due to internal opposition within the party itself.It is already over a month since the new Greek government took oﬃce amid high expectationsamong the electorate: namely that it would renegotiate the terms of the bailout agreement with theEU and no more constraints would come about as a result of the memorandum of understanding with the Troika – infact, the promise was that there would be no Troika at all. Led by Syriza and accompanied by the right-wingIndependent Greeks, the new government brought forward proposals to the country’s European partners to amendthe agreements, move away from a policy of austerity and focus more on moving towards development and growth.The state of play in Greece on the day after the election was the following: the electoral campaign period hadpostponed a number of reforms that were under way; it had halted tax payments by people hoping to receive taxrelief; it had given hopes to a number of public sector workers who had been made redundant that they would beable to return to their positions; and an overall sentiment of optimism for the capacity to renegotiate with Europe wasprevalent. While that sentiment had given Syriza a boost on Election Day, it had created a largely scepticalEuropean and international climate, as well as fret and irritation amongst its lenders.Assessing Syriza’s performance so farSyriza commenced its term in oﬃce on a populist programme and set out its ﬁnancial plan. It placed a highly visibleacademic, Yanis Varoufakis, in charge of the Ministry of Finance and at the driver’s seat of the negotiations with theEU. From the outset, Varoufakis was certain that the propositions of the government to the country’s Europeanpartners would be so good that they would not be able to deny Greece a chance. In the ﬁrst round of meetings,Syriza ‘killed’ the Troika and argued that from now on it would be speaking only to institutional representatives.During the second phase of negotiations, discussions were held with European partners without reaching aconclusion and with the Greek government providing a highly vague narrative as to how it proposed to settle thematter. The government also refused to sign oﬀ on the extension of the Greek programme, which was seen as theextension of the memorandum. Given that Syriza was elected under an anti-memorandum platform, there was aconsiderable political cost to pay if it accepted an extension without a ﬁght.Finally, after dramatic meetings, battles over the wording, signiﬁcant anxiety for the future of Greece, nervousmarket responses and a few staged protests of support for the new government, the ministers of the Eurozoneagreed to extend the programme for another four months. The memorandum was still alive and kicking, although itnow had a diﬀerent name: a bridging agreement until a new deal could be struck with Europe.On the day after the new agreement was reached, the government in Greece therefore found itself ﬁghting on threefronts: one internal to the party in oﬃce, a domestic struggle to maintain support, and the external dimension tochange the government’s image in Europe.The internal front1/4Yanis Varoufakis, Credit: EU Council Eurozone (CC-BY-SA-3.0)In a previous EUROPP article, I had ﬂagged up the potential U-turn that Syriza would eﬀectively be making inseveral of its pledges to the electorate. To that extent,I argued that given the radical factions that existwithin the party, Syriza would have a hard timetailoring its policies and messages to its ownmembers and MPs. The party is a conglomerate of anumber of diﬀerent left-wing factions who had cometogether under a unitary organisation for electoralpurposes. While Syriza represented the radical left interms of its position in the ideological spectrum, itselectoral victory had turned it into a typicalmainstream party of the centre-left, eﬀectivelyreplacing Pasok as the alternative pole for oﬃce.The exhilaration of the ﬁrst few days following theelectoral victory has now turned into restlessness forsome of the more radical key members of the party,who, since the agreement was reached with thecountry’s European partners, have started to becomemore vocal, expressing stark opposition to the way the negotiation process has been handled by the government.There is already a group of 30 or so Syriza MPs (including the president of the parliament) who have declaredthemselves to be against the new agreement with the Eurozone, creating a sense of friction among the party’sranks.In addition, an important historical ﬁgure of the party and MEP, Manolis Glezos, was quick to apologise to theelectorate for the new agreement, criticising it on the basis that it was nothing more than giving a diﬀerent name tothe old one. This internal opposition is not likely to fade out – especially among those hardliners who wish to remainloyal to their ideological principles. This may lead Syriza to try to bypass a vote in Parliament to suppress thevisibility of this internal opposition in the media.The domestic frontSyriza is still searching for a way to manage the articulation of the party’s political messages to the Greek people. Asit stands, the new agreement will be the roadmap for cooperation with the EU institutions until June. Citizens areexpecting to see Syriza maintaining its promises; however, it now seems highly unlikely that any substantialalternative measures can or will be taken prior to that deadline. Syriza claims that its programmatic platform was ona four-year horizon rather than immediate and that is likely to cause some further friction.As with any party in government, there is an expectation that Syriza’s popularity will drop and support for the partywill go down. The case in Greece however, is that the opposition is so highly fragmented and voters are sodisillusioned with the previous parties in government that it may take a while for a signiﬁcant rhetorical resistance toappear and for support to start declining.The good intentions of the government are not being questioned in this sense; what is doubtful is whether Syrizahas enough prior experience of handling diﬃcult messages without failures emerging in its communication strategy.When the government could not reach an agreement a few weeks ago, it was still shifting the blame on to inﬂexibleEuropean positions, while at the same time articulating a vague message at home as to the actual position of thegovernment or the result of the negotiations process.With the new agreement in place – which eﬀectively replaces the old one but continues on the same path in terms ofthe associated measures – Syriza’s task of tweaking its message to keep the electorate on side will be extremelychallenging. This is particularly true given the internal opposition within the party, as the burden of the political cost2/4will begin to weigh heavily on some of the more hard-line radical left MPs.The external frontWhat now for the future of Greece within the Eurozone and the EU? Certainly, relations remain tense. There are anumber of domestic political games taking place across EU member states – small or large, old or new. Britain isconsidering its own future in light of this agreement and the inability of a government to easily renegotiate terms inEurope. The Spanish government, fearing the potential victory of Podemos in elections later this year, is holding itsbreath until the issue is resolved. Alongside Portugal and Ireland, Spain has a stake in the easing of the rules forGreece, given that these countries have been able to push reforms forward and manage their debt better.In some of the new member states, the negotiation process has also been closely followed, particularly in thosecountries which have just entered the Eurozone following certain rules of the game in terms of ﬁscal discipline.France, on the other hand, not wanting to disturb its relations with Germany and challenge the Franco-Germannexus within European integration, did voice some concerns that led to a more favourable wording (if not morefavourable measures) in the agreement document.Finally, Germany has its own domestic political issues to contend with. Angela Merkel is currently tied into a coalitiongovernment with the SPD, but must also ameliorate the domestic populist rhetoric that has introducedEuroscepticism into the country. Alternatively, in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has become the latestvictim of populist narratives surrounding the Greek crisis, with Jeroen Dijsselbloem now playing a central role as thePresident of the Eurogroup, which requires maintaining a hard line in negotiations.This external front is therefore far from straightforward for Greece: what has been portrayed as a struggle for dignityat home has less charitably been regarded as begging for favours at the European level. This has deﬁnitely placedthe country in an onerous position, where European political leaders have to defend their choices both at home totheir own electorates and to their counterparts in Europe. For the time being, things seem to have quelled down, butthey are likely to pick up again as we head towards June. Syriza had its moment following its electoral victory, butwhen reality hits home, it will undoubtedly be consumed by mainstream politics.The emperor’s new clothesThe Syriza government has already back-tracked on several fronts and continues to reshuﬄe its agenda andpriorities in light of the political realities it now faces. There is undoubtedly a steep learning curve for thegovernment, and the inexperienced party leadership deserves some time to adjust their style as they acquire thetricks of the trade. However, the pressure is immense not only because of the domestic front, but due to the globalscrutiny under which Greece is being placed.For all the carefully constructed messages articulated by Syriza, the ‘new agreement’ is indeed still a memorandumin disguise, the discussions with the institutions are still being led by a form of ‘troika’, and Greece has not managedto unhook itself from its obligations and commitment to austerity. The emperor simply has new clothes.Syriza should keep in mind its commitment that the people of Greece should no longer suﬀer from the crisis. Insteadof playing political games, it should concentrate on the areas where it can make a genuine diﬀerence in people’slives. Failure to do so will consign the party to playing yet another role in the wider domestic and European politicaltheatre that continues to play out around the Eurozone.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1aJie2v3/4 _________________________________About the authorTheofanis Exadaktylos – University of SurreyTheofanis Exadaktylos is Lecturer in European Politics at the University of Surrey. His latestpublication can be found here. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter. His doctoralthesis was on the Europeanization of national foreign policies of the member states with particularfocus on Greece and Germany. He holds an MSc. in European Political Economy: Integration fromthe London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics and International Relations (Europe andthe former USSR) from Tufts University. He tweets @EUforeignpolicy4/4

Assessing Syriza’s first month in office: why Greece remains a long way from a break with austerity

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online