EU sanctions meeting

by Alexander Mercouris

As Eric Kraus has pointed out there is complete confusion in the media today about how to spin the latest EU sanctions decision.  Did Syriza fold as per Reuters and Bloomberg.  Or did the meeting expose growing splits within the EU as per the Financial Times and the London Times.

The best answer is that nothing definite was decided at the latest EU Council meeting but Syriza did manage to put a marker down.

I go back to my piece about Syriza for Russia Insider (http://russia-insider.com/en/germany_politics_opinion/2015/01/27/2785).  Whether one likes the fact or not, for Syriza relations with Russia are not the priority.  Syriza does not agree with the sanctions, but its overriding priority is Greece's own economic crisis.

Given that this is so, it is simply unrealistic to expect a very young government in the very first days of its existence to provoke a crisis within the European Union that pitches it against the Commission, Germany, Britain and France, risking a deeper crisis in Greece and putting in jeopardy its own existence, on an issue that for Greeks is of only peripheral importance.  

What Syriza did on Thursday was all that in the circumstances it could realistically do: apply a soft brake on the sanctions train.  

The European Council meeting was convened by Mogherini, the EU's "foreign minister", following demands from the EU hardliners led by Donald Tusk (who now nominally chairs the European Council when it meets at heads of government level) who have been calling for a strong EU response to the breakdown of the ceasefire and the ongoing NAF offensive, which has resulted in the capture of Donetsk airport and the gradual encirclement of the Debratselvo pocket.  It also took place against a drumbeat of orchestrated hysteria following the shelling in Mariupol.  Prior to the meeting Tusk said that he was not interested in a meeting that was purely declamatory.

That however is what Tusk got.  What came out of the meeting was essentially declamatory.  

The Greeks insisted on a belligerent paragraph directed against Russia being removed from the text of the final EU statement and postponed any further decision on further sanctions to a European Council meeting on 12th February 2015, which will take place at heads of government level.  In return they agreed to an extension of the limited sanctions against specific Russian companies and individuals that came into force in March, but not for a full year (as the hardliners apparently wanted) but only for 6 months (to September 2015).  

These sanctions are a serious matter for the individuals concerned, but they are not critical for Russia. 

This is not the outcome that either the Russians or the EU hardliners led by Tusk had wanted, but it gives time and space for Syriza to sort out its own position and make whatever alliances within the EU it can, both on the critical debt question and on the less critical question of sanctions.  

The next test will come at the European Council meeting on 12th February 2015 which Tsipras himself will attend.  As of now it is looking unlikely that the EU will impose further significant sanctions on Russia at that meeting.  Syriza is opposed to such sanctions but more importantly some of the other EU states are not keen on them either.  They now known that one EU government - that of Greece - is strongly of that view, which is likely to make their opposition still stronger.  To what extent more sanctions can be prevented at the meeting on 12th February 2015 will depend on the extent to which Syriza is able to play on the doubts of these other EU states.  Significantly Syriza did manage to play successfully on these doubts at the meeting on Thursday, when it received the discrete support of several other EU states.

The big test however will be when the sectoral sanctions come up for renewal in July.  That is the key decision upon which the future of the sanctions ultimately depends.

I would add that by July - and even more by September when the sanctions that were extended on Thursday come up for renewal - we will also have a better idea of the prospects for a Podemos victory in Spain.  

If Podemos does win in Spain, then the entire calculus changes with Syriza having one of the big EU countries as an ally.  I hardly need say that Spain carries immeasurably more weight within the EU than does Greece.  A Podemos government in Spain can afford to go it alone on sanctions and defy the other big powers in the EU.  A Syriza government cannot.

In my opinion Thursday's decision was the best that could be expected in the circumstances.  As I said the big decisions are still to come.  It would be of no benefit to Russia, Greece or Syriza if Syriza had provoked a crisis in the EU on Thursday on a question of extending the least important sanctions, which caused a dramatic escalation of the economic crisis in Greece, which in turn meant that Syriza was either swept from power in Greece or was unable to make independent decisions when the big decisions come up in July.  

I would finish by again repeating what I said before in my Russia Insider piece and here.  

Greece is a small and economically very weak country.  For its people the sanctions are not the priority.  The economic crisis is.  That is why they voted for Syriza:  to solve the economic crisis, not to get the sanctions on Russia lifted.  On the sanctions issue people should not expect more from Syriza than it promised or can realistically deliver.

Well, that did not take long

Greece voted for sanctions against Russia.

The dream was nice while it lasted.

Now lets forget SYRIZA.

The Saker

The limits of what can be expected from the SYRIZA government

by Wayne Hall

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.gr/2015/01/syriza-voting-to-join-realm-of-shared_28.html

The above analysis of the politics of SYRIZA and its government does not say anything that is untrue, but it leaves out of account a number of points that are relevant in estimating the political potential of the new Greek government.

For a start, SYRIZA does not touch on any taboo “conspiracy theory” issues, such as 911 and/or the militarization of climate. They have systematically and resolutely refused to engage any of them. They line up with the side of the climate debate that attributes all anomalous “natural” phenomena to “global warming” (of course the other side of that debate is also manipulated).

On Ukraine and Russia there are also limitations to what they can say or do. The senior member of SYRIZA most committed to policies not hostile to Russia, Nadia Valavani, who was foreign policy spokesperson before the election, has now been assigned to economic issues.

Giulietto Chiesa, the journalist and former Europarliamentarian who, I would say, has a “Vineyard of Saker” political orientation http://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=242 , tried to work with SYRIZA in Greece and its equivalent in Italy but has been, and is, treated like a persona non grata by them. I don’t think there is anything personal about this. It is a reflection of political differences.

SYRIZA has continued the traditional Greek “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” orientation towards the Kurds, which in the new post-ISIS geopolitical environment involves a convenient alignment with American and international policies of border changes at the expense of Turkey. Greek and Turkish geopolitical interest are arguably converging, with the two countries having more potential common interests than diverging interests. Of course this is a complex issue but categories of “left wing” and “right wing”, while not entirely irrelevant, also probably do not have as much importance as is attributed to them by SYRIZA.

On the subject of “empowerment of citizens’ participation”, SYRIZA’s declared politics deserve more rigorous thought than they are getting. “Citizens’ participation” in a context of corporate mass media control is no guarantee of politics that are in the objective interests of citizens. It can be a Trojan horse facilitating imposition of policies by foreign-controlled NGOs. Possible first steps towards dealing with this problem have been put forward and discussed to a very limited extent https://epamaegina.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/independent-citizens-assembly/ but the discussion has not acquired any traction within SYRIZA. SYRIZA’s policies in this area are as vague as they are in other parliamentary parties.

Syriza: Voting to join a realm of shared, sustainable prosperity

by Mario
 
Recap:

In 1971 Bretton Woods failed. The United States implemented a new strategy:
Disregard its twin deficits and act as a gargantuan vacuum cleaner that sucked in the trade surpluses of Germany, Japan and later China, attracting into Wall Street between $3 to $5 billion net on each working day.
Forcing productivity and zero real wage rises created a further daily 5$ billion domestically for corporations.
All this money, in Wall Street banks, created new money with financialisation.
By 2007 for every one dollar issued by the Fed 50 dollars of this bank private money (mainly CDOs) were circulating.
It took a small correction in the housing market to collapse this bubble and we write 2008.
The CDOs became worthless and to save the criminal banks, governments printed trillions of public money. Debt was transferred to the tax payer.
The banking system was not reformed, to the contrary, it kept the freedom to speculate, to short and manipulate the world economy.

Greece:

A common currency, like the Euro, requires monetary and fiscal coordination.
As long as debt, taxes and government expenditure stays national, the weakest members of this monetary union have to run deficits and borrow.
A country which creates surplus (like Germany) needs to invest this surplus in the weaker members, to create employment and development, to maintain their health and their demand for German products. It was never done.
Borrowing was easy and rampant until 2008.
Enter 2008: The European banking system (mainly Germany and France) holds debt from Spain, Italy, Greece and others.
Germany, mainly, could have searched for a sustainable debt relief and repayment, taking into account the debtors ability, instead it instructed austerity and the granting of new and expensive loans to repay ultimately the German banks.

Enter 2015: Expensive $240 billion loans did nothing to help Greece.

25% unemployment (50% unemployed youths), halving of pensions, failing medical and social assistance and being treated as a 2nd class European is the result of the mantra "that debt is a contract and contracts must be honoured" (Lagarde).
The political class failed and Greece could have gone to 'Golden Dawn', the fascists, but it did not, as others in Europe do by taking refuge in nationalistic and xenophobe movements, instead it voted in a modern socialist alternative, based on democracy and solidarity.

Enter Syriza: The Thessaloniki declaration demands:

1. Confronting the humanitarian crisis
2. Restarting the economy and promoting tax justice
3. Regaining employment
4. Transforming the political system to deepen democracy

On (4) the immediate programme is:

Regional organization of the state. Enhancement of transparency, of the economic autonomy and the effective operation of municipalities and regions. We empower the institutions of direct democracy and introduce new ones.

Empowerment of citizens’ democratic participation. Introduction of new institutions, such as people’s legislative initiative, people’s veto and people’s initiative to call a referendum.

Empowerment of the Parliament, curtailment of parliamentary immunity, and repeal of the peculiar legal regime of MPs’ non-prosecution.

Regulation of the radio/television landscape by observing all legal preconditions and adhering to strict financial, tax, and social-security criteria. 

Re-establishment of ERT (Public Radio and Television) on a zero basis.

More details on the programme:

http://www.transform-network.net/en/blog/blog-2014/news/detail/Blog/-5ed1064aab.html