The Progressive: Greek Elections a Victory for Europe
http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/02/187998/greek-elections-victory-europe
European officials are finally acknowledging that democracy matters. After their initial hostile reaction to the new Greek government’s pleas for a review of the country’s crushing debt, EU leaders finally seem willing to compromise—for now. The hardball approach of Greece’s new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, may have unnerved them.
“Do we really want Europe to break apart?” he asked. “Anybody who is tempted to think it possible to amputate Greece strategically from Europe should be careful. It is very dangerous. Who would be hit after us? Portugal? What would happen to Italy when it discovers that it is impossible to stay within the austerity straitjacket?”
His tough talk is popular in Greece. “Thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday to support their new anti-austerity government which was locked in tough negotiations with eurozone partners in Brussels,” Reuters reports. “A poll on Tuesday showed 75 percent support in Greece for the government’s stance.”
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“Alexis Tsipras, the new prime minister, summed it up when he said, ‘Democracy will return to Greece,’ ” Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, tells The Progressive. “Greece has had a six-year depression directly prolonged and deepened by very wrong decisions over which it had little or no control. The election is an attempt by the citizenry to regain some of that democratic input that they have lost to unaccountable European authorities.”