Syriza’s 100 days: a slow reckoning with financial reality

It promised to turn the page on five years of austerity that brought Greece to its knees, but the first 100 days of the radical government of Alexis Tsipras has seen that hope disappear into the yawning gulf between it and the country’s creditors. With the state coffers all but empty, the youthful Tsipras came face to face with the harsh financial reality less than a month after his election victory on January 25 shook Europe. And so just like his predecessors whom he had lambasted for caving into demands from Brussels in return for a 240-billion-euro ($267 billion) bailout, he was forced to sign up to a “list of reforms” to stave off bankruptcy. Time is running out.

There is no more liquidity in the Greek economy.

Tsipras’s own spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis

That last-minute agreement on February 20 was only signed after Tsipras made a tour of European capitals desperate to drum up support, and a long telephone conversation with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Tsipras, 40, had hoped to convince Europe to restructure Greece’s enormous debt, which stands at 175 percent of its GDP, but other EU leaders stubbornly insisted that Greece must “respect its commitments”. Since then Brussels and Athens have been going back and forth on the still unspecified “list of reforms”, with Greece refusing funds from the last tranche of its original bailout until a deal is agreed.

The length of the talks pose risks that must not be ignored.

Liberal daily Kathimerini

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