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Anastasia Balezdrova

Professor Athanasios Veremis teaches Modern Greek History at the Athens University and is the chairman of the National Education Committee of Greece. Two days ago he and ten colleagues of his from various Greek universities supported the medium-term plan for the recovery of the Greek economy and urged the Greeks to close their ears to the "sirens" of populism, to consider prudently the Greek reality and make efforts to take out Greece from the severe crisis. Here's what the professor said in his analysis for GRReporter.

What is your assessment of the events at political level?

I think George Papandreou considered at one point that it is now time to focus on a new type of government involving, individuals and another prime minister. We can not be completely sure, but the responses of the government spokesman to journalists' questions proved that the prime minister has taken such a decision.

Then he changed his mind, or rather he said that he has not changed it, and New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras disagreed with some basic issues. And here lies the big question which is whether the prime minister based his decision on the premise of agreement with Antonis Samaras or he intended to leave the premiership anyway.

They failed to agree with Mr. Samaras, who insists on discussions with the European Union on the debt restructuring. This is something I do not think that Europe intends to do anyway. I think these are meaningless statements, which are only meant to be heard by voters. That's like saying "I will not participate in the government, unless God gives me the Ten Commandments." Well, this can not happen, of course, and you do not participate. I mean, Antonis Samaras’ intention not to participate was abundantly clear. Thus the decision to form or not to form such a government remains in the hands of George Papandreou.

We are all waiting to see what government will emerge following the changes. If it involves, for example, Lucas Papadimos, Alekos Papadopoulos, Stefanos Manos and others we would be able to say that this is a reliable government and good for the future of Greece.
 
I do not think things will change if he just replaces five ministers with another five from PASOK. This could be even damaging because the current ministers have some experience at least.

After everything that happened yesterday, when George Papandreou almost resigned, will he has the face to continue to be prime minister?

Everything depends on the type of the government that he will make. If credible and serious people are part of it we could hope that we would go somewhere, i.e., the lack of faith in the present government will be replaced with a hope of progress with a new and stable government.

But if we see a game in which the participants simply change the chairs, then most likely we will not be very happy. My opinion is that we will lose all hope.

What will happen if they hold early elections for which opposition parties are calling? Last night we heard Antonis Samaras too calling for elections for the first time.

The answer is known. New Democracy will win, but it will not have enough MPs to form government alone. Endless negotiations for agreement will start with PASOK, i.e. what George Papandreou is trying to do now with Antonis Samaras will happen again. This will be a new period of instability with an unknown outcome. Elections are not the solution.

Is the country able to withstand such a long inactivity?

I do not think it is able to withstand it. If this atmospheres continues the country will simply fail. I can not suggest anything else. What Antonis Samaras said is impossible to happen. He would go and negotiate a debt restructuring. I am bringing back the example of God and the Ten Commandments. Well, a man in despair really can quite believe impossible things.

People have proven anyway that they can believe different things.

Yes, this is a fact. We hear everything. From direct democracy, whatever that means, through the national assembly in its ancient form to the "I do not pay", "I do not sell" and the like. These are things that I can say on personal level to those who I owe. But it is not possible a country to say them to Europe, which will answer "You do not pay? You do not pay. Goodbye, see you next year."

Currently, we are witnessing a split in the Greek society. There are those who insist on changes because they see that things can not continue this way. But there are others who do not want anything to be changed.

I think people can not understand because they are economically affected. Their children are unemployed, the pensions for the elderly are cut as well as the salaries, taxes increased. All this made a very large number of citizens hopeless. They are no longer able to think wisely. They think with their emotions and I do not know how far that will take them.

Logic suggests that it is very difficult to reduce the cost of a country that is now three times Austria. If a government decides to cut at least half the public sector about 25% of the Greeks would lose their jobs. But the opposite solution is 100% of the Greeks to remain without salaries and pensions. I.e. the choice is between 25% of the people who could ultimately be paid social benefits for 2-3 years, which of course will be lower than their current salaries, but sufficient to make their living and default payments when no one receives any salary and pension.

The danger faced by Greece today is the suspension of payments in the event of failure and return to the drachma, which would be devalued in a very cruel way. This outcome would make happy only those who owe money to the state. For media and other groups that owe large amounts that would be something like Easter. Our debt would be in devalued drachma, which would have no value. Prices would vary from morning to night and all those things that the Greeks suffered during the occupation in the 1940s would happen again. I was a small child then, but I remember that my parents had stuck a broken window with banknotes of billions of drachmas. Could an economy survive this way?

The picture is very sad and unfortunately our politicians have this attitude. George Papandreou tried to do something, but apparently he had a response from his members and I still can not understand whether he had changed his mind or not. He says Antonis Samaras did not agree. He, in turn, said that Papandreou had promised to leave the premiership, but did not do it. What conclusion can we draw from all this? The only thing that is certain is that the actions of Antonis Samaras are not in any way for the good of the country. And this is something I can not understand. I would be ashamed if I were in his place. If he was a true patriot he would say "yes, Papandreou is a political opponent, but our homeland is at risk. Let us help all and things could go well."

You are one of the 11 professors who signed an appeal to the Greek people and urged them to close their ears for populist statements and to listen to the reasonable voices.

Look, I and my colleagues gathered together and decided to share our position through this text because we decided that it unites us. What the response should be? People are concerned.   Some are in panic, others possibly in depression and hopelessness. You can not think logically when you are in such a state.

The main problem that we have always faced is that the public sector is full of some useless people. I mean all those state enterprises that hurt government finances, and their managers get 'royal' salaries. The trade unions operating in them believe they are losing their great fief and intend to drag Greece to the bottom. And they would do it, of course.

This is a dark assumption.

Things are going that way. We had a little hope yesterday when George Papandreou admitted that he could not continue with this staff and he would form a government of eminent personalities. Ultimately, this did not happen, although we do not know the developments.  However, let's hope that we might have such a government.

Will the members of PASOK allow this?

PASOK is no longer a united party. There are at least two if not three or four parties within. There are some new people, there are some good ministers such as Michalis Chrysohoidis, Anna Diamandopoulou, Andreas Loverdos and the so-called "deep" PASOK. These people are still in the "blackout" of Andreas Papandreou. He created them in the end. They are determined not to leave their seats. They are ready to destroy the country along with the trade unionists.

Only the prime minister is able to take some action now. But he is George Papandreou, he is not Eleftherios Venizelos or Harilaos Trikoupis. If he were one of them he would do the right thing. But, unfortunately, he is not.

You are a historian. Is there an equivalent of the current situation in the Greek history and what happened next?
 
Similar was the situation in 1893 when the prime minister at that time Harilaos Trikoupis said: "Unfortunately, we failed" and Greece went bankrupt. There were default payments; there were no imports of goods. An economic revision was held in 1897, which put some order in finance, like today's Memorandum. But Greece was quite different then. People were poor anyway and were not affected by the sacrifices made at that time. The country had no imports of goods and did not pay salaries but this did not affect the farmers in any way as they made their living on the food they produced themselves. The crisis affected the civil servants in urban areas, but they were few. People in villages did not even understand what happened. A peasant in 1893 would not even understand what bankruptcy means.

Society is different today, but there is a significant difference between those who ruled then and those who rule today. Harilaos Trikoupis invested these funds in infrastructure. He changed the face of Greece by making the railways, building roads, the Corinth Canal and many other sites. Later, when the country recovered, it advanced very quickly just because it had this infrastructure.

Today, these funds are spent to maintain the public sector. Greece is full of government officials. And the money was "eaten". Everything else you hear are empty words. Of course, there were people among the politicians who have misappropriated funds. But they are nothing compared with the annual deficit due to the public sector spending. If we do not cut the public sector we will not survive. This is the truth.