Humiliated Greece eyes Byzantine pivot as crisis deepens
Neither side holds the upper hand in the strategic game of chicken which could still see Greece forced out of the euro
Greece’s new currency designs are ready. The green 50 drachma note features Cornelius Castoriadis, the Marxisant philosopher and sworn enemy of privatisation.
The Nobel poet Odysseus Elytis – voice of Eastward-looking Hellenism – honours the 200 note. The bills rise to 10,000 drachma, a wise precaution lest there is a hyperinflationary shock as Greece breaks out of its debt-deflation trap at high velocity.
The amateur blueprints are a minor sensation in Greek artistic circles. They are only half in jest.
Greece’s Syriza radicals have signed a fragile ceasefire with the eurozone’s creditor powers. Few think this can last as escalating deadlines reach their kairotic moment in June.
Each side has agreed to a deception with equal cynicism, knowing that the interim deal evades the true nature of Greece’s crisis and cannot bridge the immense political divide.
They have bought time, but not much. “I am the finance minister of a bankrupt country,” says Yanis Varoufakis, the rap-artist Keynesian with a mission to correct all of Europe’s economic ills.
First he has to deal with his own liquidity crisis. Tax arrears have reached €74bn (£54bn), rising by €1.1bn a month. “This isn’t tax evasion. These are normal people who can’t pay because they are in distress,” he told the Telegraph.
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