Why the Beautiful New Greek Government Is Screwed
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, often in a good-cop-bad-cop manner, have been cruising through the media, lobbing a mix of admirable rhetoric, verbal hand grenades, and down-to-earth explanations. And they have become white-hot media darlings.
So Varoufakis was in Germany to meet with his counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, and they didn’t “even agree to disagree,” he said. He urged Germany to help end the “gross indignity” of the Greek debt crisis. The Troika’s austerity program had wasted “too much time, hopes, lives,” he said.
But it’s all about other people’s money.
They’d come to power with a pledge to wipe out half of Greece’s insurmountable pile of debt. Debt restructuring, debt exchange, more haircuts for bondholders, exit from the Eurozone… these are the kind of terms that Syriza party officials have bandied about before and after the election victory.
To show that this isn’t just talk, that the Greeks mean business, the government hired Lazard’s government advisory arm, headed by Matthieu Pigasse, master of sovereign-debt restructurings. And they made sure the media picked it up.
Syriza is also running a highly effective charm offensive. Not just words and smiles – but actions, or at least symbolic actions. It wants to show that it’s different from the prior succession of corrupt, self-serving governments.
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