In the past five months the words “critical Eurogroup” are repeated like a mantra on the lips of journalists and Greek citizens alike. Every Eurogroup since October, is like signifying the end of times, or Armageddon, like our flamboyant finance minister likes to say. But the headlines after each Eurogroup are always a letdown: no solution to the Greek debt problem, no Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse either. Last October, Greece’s previous prime minister, Antonis Samaras, chose to play tough with Greece’s creditors. He claimed he was about to tear up the hated memorandum, kill the troika and then climb on his white horse and lead Greece to growth. He wanted to counteract the opposition party’s promises to kill the hated troika, tear up the memorandum, when elected, and lead the country to growth, via another route. Of course neither one managed to tear up the memorandum or kill the troika. They are both alive and well, under different names though. Alexis Tsipras won the election, SYRIZA became government and all they managed so far is to rename things. The memorandum is now the “agreement” and the troika has been baptized “the institutions.” As for results? It is too soon for any. After all, this is Greek politics and procrastination is the art. The new government has been in power for over a month now and there has been no progress whatsoever in the reforms, measures and legislation required to help Greece get out of the economic crisis. It seems that all cabinet members do is try desperately to maintain their leftist profile and appeal to respective voters. They act as if they are still in election campaign mode. They love to talk the Marxist talk, but they don’t seem willing to do any actual work. Everything they say is in the future tense. Everything that should be running has stalled. Nothing is moving. Every day we hear about committees that will be formed to investigate this and that and committees to discuss such and such issue. We love committees in this country. A committee means extra pay for members and hours of idle talk. We are very good at that. We love to talk, to analyze, to theorize, to preach. What actual moves the government has made so far have absolutely nothing to do with the bailout. We had a deputy sports minister deciding that football games will be played without fans for two weeks as a measure to stop violence(!), a deputy citizens protection minister releasing illegal immigrants from a detention center and setting them loose in the streets(!) and the already highly paid Public Power Corporation employees receiving a raise in pay(!). Meanwhile Greece’s creditors expect to hear a program of recovery, what reforms will be implemented to security funds, what actions the government will take to tackle the crisis, what measures Athens proposes to create state revenues, how the state is going to fight tax evasion or smuggling. The Eurogroup president cries out that he wants technical talk from the Greek side and all he gets is philosophizing. Hey, Mr. Dijsselbloem, we’re Greek, we invented that stuff. Instead of technical talk and real figures, Yanis Varoufakis offers Europe the now famous “creative ambiguity.” He proposes that tourists and housewives could be wiretapped and go out like 007s to hunt for tax evaders. He knows that this is practically and legally impossible, but what the hell, talk is free. Next to him, Tsipras proposes a political solution to purely fiscal problems. The new government has baptized the economic crisis “humanitarian crisis” and expects that Greece’s European partners will show pity and disregard the lack of actual proposals. On the opposition side, Samaras accuses the SYRIZA government for doing exactly what his government did a few months ago without any results. He is right in many ways. He didn’t succeed himself because he was afraid of the political cost if he implemented the required reforms. So he procrastinated. To the point where he lost the chair. He thought he had time. The new government continues in slow motion as well. As if there is plenty of time at hand. As if the bright future they advertize is something that can wait. The creditors are shouting that time is running out, that default is closer than the Greek government thinks. Yet, it seems that the Greek cabinet lives in another time dimension. The state purse is empty and they waste precious time arguing over what name to give the new loan Greece will eventually get to stay afloat. However, the troika returns to Athens, albeit with a different name, and the Greek government will start new technical talks on Wednesday in Brussels on continuation of the bailout program. In other words, Greece’s bailout situation is exactly where it was five months ago. Only the persons sitting at the negotiating table have changed.
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