Foreign Affairs

bemildred

(90,061 posts) Thu Jul 2, 2015, 08:33 AM Jul 2015

Uncertainty over Greece’s future membership of eurozone causes rift in Angela Merkel's party

Rifts are appearing in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition amid mounting uncertainty over Greece’s future membership of the eurozone, and questions over Athens’ intention to go ahead with its weekend referendum.

Ms Merkel is said by insiders to be almost desperate to ensure that she does not go down in history as the Chancellor who initiated the break-up of the eurozone – a project that was initiated by her political mentor, Germany’s “unification Chancellor” Helmut Kohl.

She is also anxious to uphold her reputation as “Queen of Europe” who, during her uninterrupted decade in power, has earned respect at home and in most economically successful European Union countries as a leader who can solve disputes and promote stability.

In a keynote speech to the German parliament, Ms Merkel insisted that the “door is still open” for further talks with Athens and said that the problem with Greece was not about the details of a reform package, but “about the fundamental direction Europe is taking”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/uncertainty-over-greeces-future-membership-of-eurozone-causes-rift-in-angela-merkels-party-10359278.html

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Uncertainty over Greece’s future membership of eurozone causes rift in Angela Merkel's party (Original Post) bemildred Jul 2015 OP

Why Greece’s socialists just might be political masterminds bemildred Jul 2015 #1

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

1. Why Greece’s socialists just might be political masterminds

Reply to bemildred (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2015, 08:59 AM

Jul 2015

Suppose senior government officials in Greece had concluded that the euro was a failed experiment, that the rest of the continent would never extend reasonable terms to their country and would instead doom it to perpetual recession, and that the only way to save Greece from disaster -- and Europe, too -- was to begin the process of unwinding the common currency.

They'd have encountered a major obstacle to leaving the euro: Greeks really like it. To get rid of it, the country's leaders would have had just one option: sabotage negotiations with the creditors, blame them for being unreasonable, and then eventually tell voters that Greece has no choice but to go back to the drachma.

If that's the Greek strategy, as Simon Nixon speculates in The Wall Street Journal, it seems to be working:

If [Prime Minister Alexis] Tsipras had set out in January to take Greece out of the eurozone, it is very hard to think of anything he would have done differently. He won the election on a pledge to respect the overwhelming desire of voters to remain in the eurozone, which meant he had no choice but to go through the motions of negotiating with Greece’s creditors for as along as they were willing to indulge him. If Grexit was always his goal, then his only challenge was to ensure the talks dragged on until the bailout expired, capital controls were introduced and the country defaulted, making a euro exit hard to avoid.

If this was Mr. Tsipras’s plan, he has played it perfectly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/02/wonkbook-why-greeces-socialists-just-might-be-political-masterminds/?wprss=rss_business

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