Is Tsipras pulling strings, or being strung along?
Time will tell if Greek prime minister’s strategy in dealing with European leaders is brilliant or hapless
Is Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras a mad leader, steering his country off an economic cliff, or a brilliant political mastermind, manipulating European Union leaders into giving him what he wants?
The answer to that question may become apparent over the next few days as Greece lurches through the most devastating crisis the country has faced since its civil war ended in 1949.
This Sunday, Greeks will vote in a nationwide referendum concerning an international debt bailout package that technically no longer exists.
Last week, Tsipras walked away from negotiations with the troika of lenders — the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
That move took his country of 11 million a step closer to bankruptcy by cutting off access to any increases in European emergency funding. On Thursday, the IMF reported that because of recent turmoil in Greece, the country requires new European money of at least $50 billion over the three-year period.
Tsipras and his anti-austerity Syriza Party have said Greek negotiators left talks, mere days before their $340-billion bailout package expired because they do not have the authority to make a decision of accepting or declining what was offered to them by the troika without taking it to the Greek people.
European Union leaders are quick to point out Tsipras had five months to take the new bailout proposals to the people, but he waited until the last minute to pull the referendum card.
His actions left Greece without the liquidity to make a $2.2-billion payment to the IMF on June 30. It also forced banks to shut, transactions to be limited to $84 cash withdrawals from ATMs and for elderly pensioners to be left confused and wondering where their next meals will come from.
Tsipras has asked Greeks to vote No.
He argues this does not mean an exit from the euro group of nations sharing the same currency. He points out that there is no existing legislation that will throw Greece out of the euro if they reject the “blackmail” terms of the bailout package, which he claims cuts pensions and increases taxes, two moves that will stifle the Greek economy further.
At the moment, Greek crisis watchers and pollsters say the No vote is in the lead by a hair.
If Greece votes Yes, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis announced Thursday he will resign.
Varoufakis told Bloomberg that he would “rather cut my arm off” than sign a deal that fails to restructure Greece’s debt.
A Yes vote means Greeks have democratically chosen to accept the troika’s austerity policies of job cuts and tax hikes that Syriza vehemently campaigned against in the last general election.
Tsipras has not indicated what he will do if there is a Yes vote. However, it would be difficult for him to stay and work with EU leaders on a new deal.
Europe has all but warned the Greeks that if they vote No, they are voting to leave the euro.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has deftly played her hand.
Earlier this week, she rejected the possibility of any last-minute negotiations or new deals being discussed. All EU euro group finance ministers parroted Merkel’s wishes and labelled Tsipras’s moves as confusing and Tsipras himself as untrustworthy.
Tsipras, in an effort to show Greeks he was still trying to negotiate, offered proposals right up until the bailout expired.
Political watchers say the powerful Merkel is watching Tsipras twist, waiting to see if he’ll resign on Sunday if the people vote Yes.
“It’s the legitimate right of the Greeks to do that whenever they want, on whatever question and with whatever recommendation the government wants to give,” Merkel said in parliament.
“But, to be clear, the other 18 euro member states have the same demo- cratic legitimacy to duly take their position in response to the Greek decision.”
Since Tsipras was voted into the prime minister’s office on an antiausterity agenda, he has talked about one thing: debt relief. He has never wavered.
“Without debt restructuring, no program will be viable,” Tsipras said through his Twitter account.
“For five months, we’ve sought a just and viable solution, but we refused to accept recessionary measures. Either you give in to ultimatums or you opt for democracy.”
From the start, Tsipras’s fight was ideological and about the democratic rights of citizens within the EU.
“Personally, I would have never expected that democratic Europe would not understand the need to give some space and time to a people to sovereignly make a choice about their future,” he said in an address on Wednesday.
That is unacceptable in a Europe of solidarity and mutual respect, he added.
“To turn a page, that calls for upholding democracy. . . . It is our duty. We owe this to history.”