Mr. Tsipras’ recent visit in the USA is still being discussed in contradictory terms. If one looks carefully at his busy diary and excludes meetings with such bad company as Mr. Maduro, it is obvious that his intention was to focus on two things: The appeal for US and other investments and the restructuring of Greek debt.
On the latter, KOUMOUNDOUROS has already remarked that he was playing his card in the wrong casino. On the former, however, things are more subtle. The appeal was loud, but not clear. It was half-hearted, uttered with great psychological difficulty and without any persuasion. He did not present Greece’s advantages as an investment destination, nor did he develop why Greece is better than its neighbours in political stability, taxation, bureucracy, qualified personnel, strategic commercial location.
Was this the result of a crisis of a leftist conscience that cannot swallow the bitter pill of American private investment? Or a sincere confession that Mr. Tsipras’ Greece has none of the above advantages, as long as SYRIZA-ANEL remain in power?
We discard the latter interpretation, because Mr. Tsipras has shown time and again an admirable ease at pre-election promises and post-election rescinds, with no sign whatsoever of any qualm of conscience.
Was it then a case of a split personality? This is a question to be answered by a psychiatrist. What we can say is that Mr. Tsipras is a master of double talk. He says one thing abroad and the opposite thing at home, because he is keenly aware of the intransigence of his own flock in such matters. May be his caution to preach openly for American investment is due to this particular hang-up.
This view is further strengthened by the current spectacle of the Government at home. Mr. Tsipras, last night, in his government’s Policy Statement before Parliament repeatedly declared his adherence to the timely implementation of the recent Memorandum, while at the same time his Ministers and MPs competed, with each other, in letting hell out against privatisations and reforms. But can this internal split go on for ever? It was precisely this snag that brought down Mr. Tsipras’ government last time. Who can guarantee that it will not happen again?
Mr. Tsipras is clever enough to understand that his great problem does not lie, in the timely implementation of the reforms he signed in the third Memorandum, but in the reform of his own party into a European socialist party. The alternative is simply the prolonged agony and impoverishment of the Greek people with the final GREXIT looming pretty close. Can he do it? If he cannot his only alternative is the formation of a new Government of National Unity, to carry out the project in time and fully.
Maximos