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Op-Ed: Syriza can either sell out or exit the euro zone

The current bailout agreement expires at the end of February. Chair of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem said:“There was a very strong opinion across the whole Eurogroup that the next step has to come from the Greek authorities.” Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis claims that European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici presented a draft deal that foresaw a “four-month intermediate program pending a new contract.” In what seems to be a classic bait and switch tactic, just before the meeting began, Dijsselbloem presented a new document with terms even less acceptable to Varoufakis than the one Greece had rejected the week before. The withdrawn document contained a sentence that said: “We also agreed that the IMF would continue to play its role in the new arrangement.” According to this article, the last two words referring to a “new arrangement” are crucial since they imply that the agreed framework for the existing bailout is to be replaced by a “new arrangement.” The proposal presented at the actual meeting calls upon Greece to honor the “agreed framework.” Perhaps in the end, the Eurogroup might allow the Syriza terminology to be used but with the substance of the earlier agreement retained for the most part. As the Guardian describes Varoufakis proposal for bridge financing it would seem not that far from what the Eurogroup has demanded at least in principle: Varoufakis called for “an in principle agreement that during this period, the Greek state will be funded under a minimalist menu that solves the short-term cash-flow problem”.In return, Varoufakis said Greece would pledge to honour its financial obligations to its partners in full, and take no actions that would derail the existing budget agreement with the troika. In the longer term, he promised to proceed with a range of reforms urged by the troika, including cleaning up Greece’s tax courts, and improving its bankruptcy regime.

After the Eurogroup meeting had ended with no agreement, Dijsselbloem said:..yes, there is a flexibility in the program; we are open to discuss the replacing measures, but not by taking unilateral actions; a request to come with the commitment not to roll back any measures, unless agreed with the institutions and unless fully funded. If Varoufakis agreed to this, he would be committed not only to meeting Greece’s financial obligations as he already promised, but also he can only remove any of the austerity conditions and policies that are part of the original bailout agreement if all the Troika institutions involved agree.If he agrees to this framework, he has in effect agreed only to do what the EU says he can do.
Perhaps it is time for a Grexit as some opponents of Syriza claim. In a statement, the anti-capitalist Antarsia party said that Greece should exit the euro zone, claiming that any deal with the EU would have the same dismal results as created the present mess: The same problems will crop up again with the same result of austerity, privatisations and changes in the [domains of] labour and pension reforms. The European Union’s blackmailing is not the exception but the rule. There is no democratic EU, nor is there an EU of the people.” The Communist Party of Greece has also been from the beginning openly hostile to Syriza and its tactics.

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