Greece in the EU: the Odd Man In?

Relations between Greece and its EU partners have drastically deteriorated reaching a dangerous climax. The reasons are more or less obvious and relate to the changing character of Europe and the elimination of some of the elements that led to the peculiar form of European unification.

Relations between Greece and its EU partners have drastically deteriorated reaching a dangerous climax. The reasons are more or less obvious and relate to the changing character of Europe and the elimination of some of the elements that led to the peculiar form of European unification.

For starters, the EU has lost its persuasive credibility and dealt with the Greek crisis using innovative elements of “hard power” falling outside the traditional forms of tools used in international relations, at least for a union of states. Extortion politics, fear mechanisms and coercion took the place of solidarity and the need to support domestic constitutional order as well as orderly-advanced structural changes.

In effect, the EU has operated as an agent of social changes in the country in a way that it established a new post-constitutional reality [1].

Alexis Tsipras has consistently pinpointed the need to support the rule of law and democratic principles when dealing with the Greek debt crisis. Before his coming to power he had emphasized that the way structural changes had been introduced and above all imposed on social partners was of limited legitimacy and caused social injustice in a country that counts 10,000 suicides in 5 years.

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Tsipras came to power with great support from the electorate and even greater expectations. To many it was an unrealistic left policy to a European environment that had long adopted restrictive policies and neo-liberal choices deviating from the EU’s established social order. The Greek Prime Minister made obvious and rational choice to demand a final solution to the Greek problem instead of the austerity recipe adopted during the last 6 years. This is what he has insisted on ever since he came to power. In his effort to meet the demands of the creditors and Greece’s EU partners Tsipras compromised his electoral promises and backed suggestions otherwise unacceptable to his party and ideological stance. Still EU partners refused to meet him half way, aiming at a full political victory over Tsipras who considered this a way to humiliate the country and his left government.

The last episodes in the duel between Alexis Tsipras and the rest of the EU contain a major political bet. The differences between Greece and the EU are not just managerial, but are constructed on deep differences over the future of the EU and its model of post-democratic governance. Tsipras’ rhetoric is consistent with EU normative image, at least with its nominal mode.    

Tsipras’ view is that Greece is a captured state within an inadequate institutional setting that offers no way out. His insistence that the Greek debt should be restructured reflects the views of those who realize that the debt is indeed unsustainable, thus any sacrifices will never lead to a finite goal. This very parameter will affect the country’s conduct autonomously its international relations, particularly vis-à-vis Russia and its ability to operate as a normal rather than a failing state.   

[1] See George Voskopoulos, “The EU as an agent of social and institutional changes: the Greek fiscal crisis as a case study”, Proceedings, vol. 50, n.5.2, 2011.