German minister of Finance made statements containing the sense of what is happening in Greece: it was promised too much
by Emanuele Bonini
«Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters». German minister of Finance Wolgang Schaeuble's words need to be explained. An agreement for an extension of the assistance programme for Greece was reached yesterday in Brussels, and of course great attention has been dedicated to the deal. But there is now the need of an analyses to what happened in the EU capital city, and what happened is Syriza promised something impossible to honour. Thinking to can re-write the financial arrangements is impossible, since who set conditions are always creditors. And creditor can accept to be convinced, but they will never accept to be forced to review the rules of the game. At the same time the idea by which is possible to review laws and agreements just because governments change is a foolish one. «Elections don't mean everything changes vis-a-vis EU partners», recalled the German minister of Finance. And all that is something Syriza and his leader Alexis Tsipras had to be aware of before running for the elections. And here we have Wolgang Schaeuble's sentence meaning: in politics everybody is responsible in front of his own voters as well as his national Parliament.
Contrary to what could be thought, there is no malice in Schaeuble's words. «Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters» is not a way to humiliate Greece, is just a way to remind that members of the governments have always to explain what they do. «I will make a lot of effort to convince the German Bundestag of this decision». So, it is not only a problem for Greek leaders to explain the deal reached, and this is because of democracy. Similarly difficult time to explain the deal will come in Portugal and Spain. In Lisbon as well as in Madrid the current governments will have to explain why flexibility has been granted to Greece and not to Portugal and Spain, other countries under financial assistance. So, what happened now is Tsipras will have to explain what he promised in the electoral campaign were just dreams. Of course dreams are for free, but everything else is not. Maybe in the future Tsipras will be able to get what he wants, but at the moment he has to deal with his promises and all what they mean.
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| Alexis Tsipras |
«Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters». German minister of Finance Wolgang Schaeuble's words need to be explained. An agreement for an extension of the assistance programme for Greece was reached yesterday in Brussels, and of course great attention has been dedicated to the deal. But there is now the need of an analyses to what happened in the EU capital city, and what happened is Syriza promised something impossible to honour. Thinking to can re-write the financial arrangements is impossible, since who set conditions are always creditors. And creditor can accept to be convinced, but they will never accept to be forced to review the rules of the game. At the same time the idea by which is possible to review laws and agreements just because governments change is a foolish one. «Elections don't mean everything changes vis-a-vis EU partners», recalled the German minister of Finance. And all that is something Syriza and his leader Alexis Tsipras had to be aware of before running for the elections. And here we have Wolgang Schaeuble's sentence meaning: in politics everybody is responsible in front of his own voters as well as his national Parliament.
Contrary to what could be thought, there is no malice in Schaeuble's words. «Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters» is not a way to humiliate Greece, is just a way to remind that members of the governments have always to explain what they do. «I will make a lot of effort to convince the German Bundestag of this decision». So, it is not only a problem for Greek leaders to explain the deal reached, and this is because of democracy. Similarly difficult time to explain the deal will come in Portugal and Spain. In Lisbon as well as in Madrid the current governments will have to explain why flexibility has been granted to Greece and not to Portugal and Spain, other countries under financial assistance. So, what happened now is Tsipras will have to explain what he promised in the electoral campaign were just dreams. Of course dreams are for free, but everything else is not. Maybe in the future Tsipras will be able to get what he wants, but at the moment he has to deal with his promises and all what they mean.
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