Greece through the Spanish looking-glass

Blog: JOSEP COLOMER'S BLOG

Abstract

    It may look as if Greece has beaten the record of political instability by calling a snap election only five weeks after the previous one. But the recent developments are, on the contrary, rather an instance of economic and political recovery and restored stability within the European Union. Greece was the
most damaged European country by the Great Recession generated nearly fifteen
years ago. Unemployment skyrocketed, per capita GDP decreased to 55% of the
previous level, emigration of young and qualified workers was massive.

In 2015, a
Memorandum of Understanding put under the control of the EU, the ECB, and the
IMF virtually all Greek policies on taxes, pensions, health care, control of
the banks, labor market, competition, energy, administration, justice against
corruption, and several others to be implemented "over many years". Greece
eluded a declaration of bankruptcy by accepting the EU's bailout and the reduction
of its autonomy to the election of the domestic rulers that would implement the
decisions of the European Empire.

Now, Greece has
repaid part of its debt ahead of schedule, it is being upgraded to welcome
foreign investments, and grows at an almost double rate than the European average.

There are some
similarities between Greece and Spain, including a long delay to recover the
levels of per capita GDP previous to the Recession and the low rates of
employed people out of the total population. But there are also significant
differences regarding the ways they democratized in the 1970s, in particular regarding
the party system and the types of leadership for the resolution of crises. I
warn the reader that, in the following, I am using "center" and "extreme" as geometric
relative positions along a political space, not as ideological references.

In Greece, the
military was removed from the government and democracy was restored under the
leadership of the center-right led by Konstantinos Karamanlis, a former prime
minister before the dictatorship who returned from exile and later on was also president
of the Republic. Since then, his party, New Democracy, now led by Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, has been in government more than half of the time, was back four
years ago, and has been reelected now.

In time, the
extreme left, organized as Syriza, appeared as an alternative to face the
crisis. Its government, led by Alexis Tsipras, called a referendum for "no" to
the EU bailout, which might have triggered Grexit, but then it canceled its
result.

On the other
extreme of the Mediterranean, in Portugal, the other country democratized in
the 1970s, the process was kind of symmetric. The initiative was pushed by
extreme left military officers of the Armed Forces Movement, which provided
several prime ministers and presidents, with the help of the Communist Party. This
left room for the main alternative to be located on the center-right, around a
member of the European People's Party that is as moderate as it calls itself
Social-Democrat.

The case of
Spain was different from both Greece and Portugal. The main actors in the first
stages of democratization were neither the center-right nor the extreme left. It
was the ex-Francoist right, which ended up as the People's Party, eventually alternating
in government with the center-left Socialist Party. In contrast with the other
two countries, the center-right failed once and again: Christian-democracy, Liberal
Union, Union of Democratic Center, Democratic and Social Center, Reformist
Party, Citizens. Currently, the Spanish People's Party is the most rightist
member of the European People's Party, according to eupoliticalbarometer.com,
to which the even more extreme Vox is annexed.

Certainly,
Greece is relatively less difficult to be governed than Spain because it is a
smaller country (one-fourth in population and one-sixth in GDP). It does not
have a vacate meseta or centrifugal peripheries. It suffered a much briefer
dictatorship, for only seven years. More than 50%of its citizens can speak
English, more than double the proportion of the paltry 22% in Spain, the lowest
in Europe.

Of course, all Greek
prime ministers have been English speakers, able to actively participate,
negotiate, and have some say at the European Council, as well as at the summits
of NATO and other organizations of paramount importance for the country's
governance (as have been all Portuguese prime ministers too). In contrast, only
two of the seven Spanish heads of government have been able to sustain a
conversation in English: the current one, Pedro Sanchez, and the brief Leopoldo
Calvo Sotelo. (I do not include Aznar because I have seen him in a one-hour
meeting in English).

In short: Greece's
economy was crushed by the Troika because it was a small and relatively poor
country. But its politics has achieved a more stable situation that is helping
its economic recovery.

Spain, in
contrast, is dickering. Europe cannot afford Spain's economic collapse because it
is too big to fail, and the subsequent restrictive effects on trade, foreign
investments, and emigration to other countries would be too disruptive. So, Spain,
which has about 10% of the EU's population, is allocated more than 20% of the EU's
Recovery Instrument (Next Generation EU). This is not a badge of pride, but
rather the opposite.

A consequence of
this overprotection is that, unlike in Greece, the Spanish politicians can
continue arguing more about where and to whom the funds are distributed than
about what they should be invested in, fighting among themselves, getting by,
and muddling through.