''If you ask me, it has been an act of monstrous folly on the part of the creditor governments and institutions to push it to this point.''
Until
now, every warning about an imminent breakup of the euro has proved
wrong. Governments, whatever they said during the election, give in to
the demands of the troika; meanwhile, the ECB steps in to calm the
markets. This process has held the currency together, but it has also
perpetuated deeply destructive austerity — don’t let a few quarters of
modest growth in some debtors obscure the immense cost of five years of
mass unemployment.
As a political matter,
the big losers from this process have been the parties of the
center-left, whose acquiescence in harsh austerity — and hence
abandonment of whatever they supposedly stood for — does them far more
damage than similar policies do to the center-right.
It seems to me that
the troika — I think it’s time to stop the pretense that anything
changed, and go back to the old name — expected, or at least hoped, that
Greece would be a repeat of this story. Either Tsipras would do the
usual thing, abandoning much of his coalition and probably being forced
into alliance with the center-right, or the Syriza government would
fall. And it might yet happen.
But at least as of
right now Tsipras seems unwilling to fall on his sword. Instead, faced
with a troika ultimatum, he has scheduled a referendum on whether to
accept. This is leading to much hand-wringing and declarations that he’s
being irresponsible, but he is, in fact, doing the right thing, for two
reasons.
First, if it wins the
referendum, the Greek government will be empowered by democratic
legitimacy, which still, I think, matters in Europe. (And if it doesn’t,
we need to know that, too.)
Second, until now
Syriza has been in an awkward place politically, with voters both
furious at ever-greater demands for austerity and unwilling to leave the
euro. It has always been hard to see how these desires could be
reconciled; it’s even harder now. The referendum will, in effect, ask
voters to choose their priority, and give Tsipras a mandate to do what
he must if the troika pushes it all the way.
If you ask me, it has
been an act of monstrous folly on the part of the creditor governments
and institutions to push it to this point. But they have, and I can’t at
all blame Tsipras for turning to the voters, instead of turning on
them.
Source:j
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com
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