Political World
The final act has yet to be written in this Greek tragedy
The events in Greece over the past few weeks are all too reminiscent of those of late 2010 when Ireland was being drip-fed on emergency liquidity by the European Central Bank and under enormous pressure to accept a bailout.
Think of a steamroller dangling above your head suspended by nothing more than a piece of string.
Except that Greece is already in a programme and the deal it is being forced to accept comes on top of a lot of seriously unpalatable austerity measures it has been forced to implement over the past five or six years.
As I write no deal is in place and the clock is ticking with its trio of international lenders (the Greeks refuse to call them the Troika) giving its government a two-day reprieve.
Meanwhile, the ECB has been meeting on a daily basis to extend emergency aid to its banks. There is a real fear there will be a run on its banks as depositors continue to take money out.
Michael Noonan was among two ministers at the meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers on Monday who reportedly raised the issue for the introduction of capital controls.
Now the Greeks have put a deal on the table which may or may not be accepted at the Thursday summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
The stakes are high; the Government must repay a €1.6 billion loan to the IMF by the end of June.
If it fails to do so, it will have a month in a kind of limbo situation where it will be officially in arrears. But if that is not resolved by the end of July, it will be in default.
The Greek government is reliant on its international lenders for support to repay the loan.
If it fails to satisfy the three institutions it will carry out the meaningful – and very painful – reforms they have demanded, what will follow is… well, to be honest, nobody knows.
The EU has been saying for a long time now that unlike the crisis in 2008 and 2009 it can sustain a big shock like a country leaving the euro or defaulting on its loan. You still wonder.
A Grexit will mean that a lot of Europe’s bigger countries and banks will be left on the hook with unpaid debt.
The knock-on effect, economically and politically, for such a seismic shock is just impossible to predict. Sure, the EU might be able to withstand it. But there are no guarantees.
As for the impact it will have on the Greek people; it’s not going to be good. It’s clear enough from experts to whom I have spoken the Greeks have put forward economic arguments that don’t stack up and have not been backed up by evidence.
But politically the Syriza government led by Alexis Tsipras has been as combative as they come. For months now it has been one against 18 others in the eurozone and equally one against everybody else in the eurogroup.
You have to admire its resolve and its willingness to indulge in brinkmanship – politically if no other way.
Sinn Féin hitched its wagon to Syriza early on and might regret it close to the next general election.
Gerry Adams said his party would not have capitulated to the will of the Troika but would have slugged it out through as many sleepless nights necessary to get an acceptable deal. We are seeing that strategy in action now.
It’s not true that Brian Cowen’s or Enda Kenny’s governments rolled over when Jean Claude Trichet said ‘non’. But they certainly did not a never-ending Lough Derg out of it.
So what will be the outcome?
For more see page 45 in this week’s Connacht Tribune, download the Digital Edition here or get the Connacht Tribune app from iTunes or Google Play
Harry McGee is political correspondent of The Irish Times; you can contact him via twitter: @harrymcgee
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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