Alexis Tsipras interview LaRepublica

Published on Tuesday, 11 February 2014 09:20

Five year into the sovereign debt crisis. How do you judge the European response? What would you have done different?

The recipe for dealing on the part of the European leadership with the debt crisis is going to be taught in economics courses in a few years as a negative example to be avoided.

First of all, the debt crisis is not solely the result of an erroneous developmental model of over-consumption through loans, which is basically what happened in Greece. It is primarily the result of the limits and the asymmetries inherent in the monetary union. Therefore, it is not a crisis of separate countries, Greece or Italy, etc, as it is purposefully being declared by some people in the European Union.

The political establishment in Europe has responded to a European debt crisis through the policy of austerity—of the so-called “domestic devaluation”—which actually worsened it. It has done so for the sole purpose of salvaging the European banks which preserved the sovereign bonds of the over-indebted countries. They care very little if as a result there would be an increase in the ratio between public debt and GDP. As it has been accurately observed by Jurgen Habermas, only this previous Sunday in Potsdam, the management of the crisis “does not only fail to tackle the causes behind the crisis, but actually involves a danger of ending up with a German Europe.” It is characteristic that throughout the duration of the Memoranda and because of the austerity, the Greek public debt is not simply unsustainable—it has in fact gone out of control.

Therefore, what should have happened from the start is a “European Debt Conference” designed to settle comprehensively, credibly, and definitively the sustainability of debt of the countries in the Euro-zone, using the “London Debt Conference” of 1953 which regulated Germany’s post-war debt thereby giving it the necessary impulse for growth and, so, opened up the road to what came to be known as Germany’s “economic miracle.” It happened through the elimination of a good part of its debt and with a “growth stipulation” attached to the remaining part. And with an end to austerity at the same time. A significant role could be played by the European Central Bank in the management of the debt, if it would act as a real central bank, as, for example, in the case of the U.S.A., namely as a lender of last resort to countries too, and not only to banks. At the same time, there should have been adopted from the very beginning a different model of economic policy placing emphasis on the strengthening of active demand and growth, centered on public investments in every member-state of the Euro-zone. At a European level, it was necessary and is now urgent to adopt a kind of European ‘New Deal’ and to take all necessary measures for precluding a similar financial and credit crisis in the future, via the legislation, among other things, of a “Glass-Steagall European legislative act” for the purpose of separating between commercial and investment activities—and hence between their respective risks—of the banks.

Instead of all that, the European establishment saw an opportunity in the crisis to re-write the post-war European political economy books. To impose a model of neo-liberal capitalism by launching an unprecedented assault against the world of labor, and by dismantling also the post-war social contract.

It fails to tackle the underlying causes of the crisis. It attacks democracy and settles scores with History. This dangerous neo-liberal vengefulness towards History must come to an end in the elections of May 25. We, the citizens of Europe, are taking our own destiny into our hands again.

Greece and the fiscal compact. Mr. Schauble suggests that austerity in Greece is starting to work. You have a primary account surplus, maybe Greece GDP could grow in 2014. What do you think of these statements?

Indeed, the Greek government has presented an accounting primary surplus for 2013, which however is simultaneously is also the measurement of social disaster. The way it has been achieved renders it unsustainable. This is not asserted simply by SYRIZA. Even the state’s budget authority in parliament, in its trimester report, published a few days ago, makes the same observation. For example, it refers to it as a contribution to the surplus, namely the constraint of spending in the program of public investment by 200 million Euros by comparison to the 2013 target. In other words, the postponement of growth has contributed to this surplus. What is worse is that the social cost of this surplus amounts to an unheard of for a European country at times of peace humanitarian crisis; one where 30% of the labor-force is out of work and 35% of the population faces the danger of poverty and social exclusion. With daily images both in Athens and in other major urban centers of well-dressed people looking for food inside the garbage cans. And with the closing of hospitals and the merging of schools. It is no accident, therefore, that as the poverty deepens, the surplus increases too

With regards to whether the country is going to return to a growth course during 2014, that is something claimed only by the government and the troika. On the contrary, OOCD, the German Council of Economic Experts, as well as the institutional economic adviser to the Greek government—the Center of Planning and Economic Research—are forecasting the continuation of the depression. But the point is not to meet the target of a temporary increase in the percentage of the GDP a little above zero. The extent of the productive and social disaster is so great that Greece needs many years of muscular and socially just growth in order to stand on her feet.

Populist movements are on the rise in the continent. Why and what could be done to prevent their success in next elections? Why Golden Dawn is still rated as the third party in Greece, notwithstanding Pavlos Fyssas’s murder and the arrest of its leaders?

The current rise in Europe of the extreme and the populist Right, as well as that of neo-Nazism, are the political products of neo-liberalism. And while it remains the same so will the phenomenon that you are describing remain undiminished. Populism amounts to cheap words and targets. It is the regress of reason in the face of anger and despair. It is the psychological facility with which some people channel their anger towards the weaker ones and the immigrants.

“Golden Dawn” is not just an extreme right-wing party in Europe. It is a neo-Nazi criminal organization. From a mere 0,3% in the 2009 elections, it reached 7% in 2012, all within the three years of memorandum-based austerity. That is a country which still bears open wounds inflicted by the barbarity of Nazism. One reason that neo-Nazism is flourishing in such a country has to do with a deliberate mitigation of memory about the Nazis and their allies, as explained by the German-Greek historian Hagen Fleischer. Another reason is the despair and anger that reigns among a portion of the population, leading them to the choice of punishment against the political system at large. However, the extreme right-wing is an anti-systemic political force only in words. In order to discover the culprit behind the crisis they blame immigration, not neo-liberalism and the austerity. They have close and affectionate affinities with the economic oligarchy in Greece. For that reason, we believe that they are simply the long arm, the replacement forces at the system’s service, in view of an imminent political change through a SYRIZA government.

What does Europe need to become a true union?

We have repeatedly pointed out that the united Europe will be democratic or it will simply not be. Europe today needs to come out of the long night of neo-liberalism and back into the light of Democracy. It needs a democratic re-foundation in the principles of solidarity and politics—not just the mere institutional equality among member-states. We have to broaden the citizens’ participation in the decision making and the formation of common policies. We have to strengthen the institutions through an immediate democratic legitimacy, like the national parliaments and the European parliament. We have to stop austerity in order to regain democracy; to liberate the Euro-zone from the extreme constraints of the fiscal treaty and secure the transference of national sovereignty at a European level will not result in a loss in democracy. The European institutions of implementation of common policies need to be transparent and under the control of the Parliaments and the citizens with regards to their functions. The task of a democratic, social and ecological Europe is ours. It is for such a Europe that it is worth struggling for.

Der Spiegel crowned you as Europe’s Enemy number 1. What’s your answer?

It all depends on which Europe is one defending. Is it the Europe of the markets and the social inequalities; the one that divides and keeps divided its peoples—in that case, surely, we are its biggest enemy. But for the Europe of solidarity, social cohesion, democracy, and for the Europe of the peoples we are the only hope. The European Left is the choice of dignity, growth and reconstruction—the choice of Democracy.

Who are now Europe’s enemies?

It’s the neo-liberalism that poses the greatest threat to Europe. The crisis has made that plain. The policies of the European populist Right, which are unfortunately followed closely by social-democracy, are actually threatening the European edifice.

Why should you vote Alexis Tsipras and not Martin Schulz?

Because the European Left candidacy is the only hope really for change in Europe. It is a candidacy that combines the demands of the world of labor and culture, in the North, the South, on the East and the West, into one basic program for the democratic re-organization of the Euro-zone and for the democratic re-foundation of the European Union. It is the candidacy of a progressive solution to the crisis—it is not the candidacy of the continuation of the crisis. My friend Martin Schulz is especially likable as a person, but in his case the entire strategic dead-end is personified of the European social-democracy. It’s the dead-end reached by an active adoption of the neo-liberal consensus. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, for the last two decades the social-democracy in Europe has been participating in the dismantling of the post-war social contract, which itself had inspired and co-authored. For that reason it has at this point been severed from its traditional social base. There are many who say that social-democracy should become as radical as reality itself today. Instead, we ask them to simply to stop being a part of the crisis and become a part of its solution, by making a necessary turn left. True, you cannot create the new by using old material. You cannot defend a different prospect than the one under austerity for Europe and at the same time to be Ms Merkel’s accomplice.

A group of Italian intellectual is supporting your bid to be E.U. president? What do you think of their support? Which are the conditions for your “Yes”?

It is really an honor to have received this proposition for the formation of an open, democratic and participatory ballot of the Italian Left, the movements and the society of the citizens—of a ‘Tsipras List’ as it has become codified. For such a novel endeavor to prove hopeful and successful we must proceed decisively but also cautiously. This list has got to be formed from the bottom up, with the initiative of the movements, the intellectuals, the society of citizens. I think it’s something that is already happening. The citizens are self-organizing in every corner of Italy. It is a list of citizens’ self-organization—something very encouraging. At the same time, this effort is going to have to exclude exclusions. To encourage the participation and support by simple citizens first and foremost, but also by all collectivities and organized forces that may require it. Because the ‘success story’ of SYRIZA teaches us that at times of crisis left and radical is that which succeeds to unite. So, let’s put our differences to the side by taking each a step back, in order to take several steps forward together.

What do you think of Movimento 5 stelle and Beppe Grillo? And what about Matteo Renzi? Could you work with both of them for a different Continent?

I wish to make clear that it is not my intention to interfere in the domestic Italian political affairs, nor is it to lead some new party on the Italian political stage. You see, the new list, under formation currently, is not a political party but a coalition of social and political forces with the express goal to change the balance of forces in Europe. With Matteo Renzi and Beppe Grillo, it is true, I have on different questions with each rather different views. However, I will not hesitate to request their collaboration if, as Greece’s prime minister, I come to lead some hard negotiation process in the European Union on behalf not only of the Greek people but of the entire European south. At this moment, however, my candidacy in view of the European elections comes with a crucial question: “Which Europe do we want and under which balance of forces?” It is a question which, on the one hand, Renzi answers by ‘I want the same Europe with the same balance’, while Grillo, on the other, by ‘I don’t care about Europe, let it go whichever way’. Both answers are, I think, wrong and inadequate.

Syriza is leading in Greek polls. What would be your first move if you were prime minister? Do you hope in early elections and when?

SYRIZA has repeatedly asked for a resort to the people’s will in the ballot. That for the reason that no day goes by without a confirmation between a discrepancy between the government’s majority and the popular will. Mr Samaras has now the people opposite him because he does that himself, through his own policy. We have also repeatedly stressed that the first act of a SYRIZA government will be the ending of austerity and the start of a collective and comprehensive effort, through the active mobilization of the people and all productive forces in the country for its reconstruction and for growth. 2014 will be an election year. It will be the year of the reconstitution of both the popular and the national sovereignty, via a government of the Left, a government of SYRIZA. And the first thing to do will be to request the re-negotiation with our partners in the European Union, not only of the Greek austerity program, the failed memorandum, but also of the European policy of dealing with the crisis.

Are you in favour or not of a return of Greece to the drachma?

As you know the abandonment of the common currency and the monetary competition among countries and peoples in Europe is not our preferred choice. From this crisis we are not going to find a way out along the lines of the memoranda, or through a currency devaluation. We will find a way out through debt removal and a new social agreement. With a European New Deal for the financing of growth, the strengthening of employment and the social cohesion.

Alexis Tsipras