Editorial: mess made yet hope not lost

Photo: Urmas Nemvalts

«Tsipras messed up.» The words by a eurozone official to Reuters serve to describe the conundrum created by the Greek prime minister by TV address to nation at midnight this past Saturday. On Friday evening the outlook had been a bit more benign: almost half a year of talks with the new Greek government under their belt, European leaders believed (or wanted to believe) that an agreement regarding continued Greek reforms would become reality. The needy one was Greece itself, firstly: this was the condition to be handed the last remaining €7.2bn of the €245bn aid package. The deadline is tomorrow as €1.6bn is to be paid back to International Monetary Fund.

Then came the Saturday night show with Mr Tsipras announcing the issue was worthy of referendum, as also approved by parliament yesterday morning.

The TV address by Alexis Tsipras was noteworthy not only by its internal-national message (agreeing to proposals would equal new burdens on Greek people’s backs) but also by the picture painted by words probably aimed to weight on EU conscience. Pitting authoritarianism against democracy, referring to Greece and democracy’s birthplace which is now issuing a resounding democratic reply to Europe, lets listeners know that throwing Greece out of the monetary union (and, thereby, figuratively also from Europe) would almost amount to casting aside foundations democracy itself.

Hence, parallels can easily be drawn to the discussions around receiving Greece into eurozone and the words of one-time French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing that Plato cannot be left waiting in the door. Thus, we must now imagine it is Europe that sentenced Socrates to drink the poison. Nothing doing, figures of speech work: while some analysts think Greece rather resembles the Balkans as society and state, symbolically it is the home of the values Europe is operating with.

So, what next? On Tuesday, the Greek rescue package expires and IMF will have to be paid €1.54bn. On July 20th, Greece must make European Central Bank payment of €3.5bn. At the ATMs in Athens, people are lining up and during this week-end alone a billion euros were pulled out. Today, the banks did not open.

Understandably, EU leaders are disappointed yet the door is still kept open by a crack. Via media, both Germany and France have rather been sending optimistic notes while underlining it is all up to Greece now. Meanwhile, not all share the optimism.

Austrian finance minister Hans Jörg Schelling said Greece is playing poker, a game where a loss is always an option. The word «game» was correct, but «poker» was is not. As pointed out by BBC a few days before, the Greek finance minister is a game theory expert – the best example of which is the prisoner’s dilemma problem. And that’s the proper background to the circumstances and actions of Greece.

Forget the theories, though. There must be something the Greek government is hoping for. In the ancient Greek tragedies, a deus ex machina popped up when things were getting out of hand. Strangely, the analysts are not ready to rule out the unexpected.