Once again, the government is Athens has managed to do little but enough to appease the eurocrats in Brussels who oversee fiscal issues. Inspectors from Brussels are heading to Greece to seek changes to that broken and broke country’s tax, pension and labour market laws, with the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras indicating that it will give way to the minimum of economic reforms to secure the next tranche of its bailout.
For the past five years, Greece has survived mostly on three bailouts from the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), totalling more than €240 billion (Dh929), and has mostly agreed to austerity measures demanded by the financial institutions in return. Tsipras is becoming increasingly reluctant to pare back social programmes further without some form of long-term debt relief.
Right now, following the decision by a majority of British voters to leave the EU, the last thing Brussels needs is more dissent within the EU. Already, there are populist movements in France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, Austria and Hungary that are pulling at the very political fabric of the union. And with elections due in France this Spring and Germany in the autumn, Brussels wants the Greek fiscal crisis put away or at least swept under the carpet lest Athens distract voters in the two key EU founding members.
Tsipras is right in that his nation needs long-term debt relief to end its dependence on the EU, ECB and IMF troika. But that’s not going to happen in the short term — at least not until the German elections are done and dusted. By default, Greece still has wiggle room.
