The Moral of the Story

As of last Monday Greece has a new coalition government formed by left wing SYRIZA and the centre right oriented Independent Greeks. Yesterday the new Cabinet of Ministers was announced and I, for my part was shocked at the fact that one common trait of our new political staff is the casual appearance of almost all of them in their attire. Definitely a new dawn in Greek/European politics from a styling perspective and I suppose that the one-first thing that Angela Merkel should get used to is the fact that from now on she will be obeyed without a tie. Yes, our PM made it very clear in a recent interview given prior to the election that since he wasn't wearing a tie when he met with the Pope, there is absolutely no chance of wearing one when visiting Merkel. Maybe this is what triggered Merkel's belated wishes for Tsipra's election victory, which came only two days later, while the Russian Tsar was the first one to congratulate him. This also clears any doubt as to whom our new PM respects more - the Pope or Angela Merkel. Now with that certainty and relief - I am very hopeful that the first huge change that our PM will impose onto the EU is his casual attire, which quite frankly should not have too many followers. Leaving the fact aside, that this idiotic symbolism is a remnant of the past and has no particular symbolic value other than reminding us of the evolution in style - farmers standing up to aristocrats- I would be very embarrassed, if conservative Europe would demand of him to respect that evolutionary acquis. And because I am running the risk of being accused to pay more attention to form than to substance, let's talk about substance. SYRIZA clearly came to power as a result of public protest against the mismanagement of traditional political parties over the course of the last 30 years, and to my concern, I heard a lot of people say "well, they have never governed, they should be given a chance". This basically means that anyone who is patient enough to wait until others fail will get his "four years" of fame. Without any attention to their political agenda -no one clearly knows what SYRIZA represents on a political level- they made sure that its representatives are creating more confusion than clarity with their often times contradicting positions on the same subject in the pre-election public dialogue and all people probably grasped was this generic, rebellious intention to go against anything that burdens us in our every day lives. They promised to increase minimum wages to 710 EUR, to increase pensions, to reduce taxes -generally, all these things that are music to a suffering nation's ears. And yesterday, our new Minister of Economy already made pompous statements on BBC that our debt should be linked to our capacity to earn, which under normal circumstances does make some sense, but not in the case of Greece, as it directly translates to no structural reforms and no housekeeping whatsoever, since a debt that is linked to earnings does not pose any performance related obligations. I earn 5 (irrespective of my actual capacity to earn 20) I pay you 2. I believe that this kind of suggestion, next to displaying either low political wit or grand political amateurism, is a direct insult to the intellect of our counterpart, the Troica. Europeans have studied this nation long enough to know who we are and how we act and react. Our new government keeps forgetting that we are the subject of the experiment not the conductor of it.