Alexis Tsipras is the latest addition to the list of European prime ministers aged under 50. He was voted as prime minister of Greece on January 25, leading an extreme left political party but forming a government with an extreme right political party. Not quite a workable alliance except that both parties are Eurosceptic.
Born on July 28, 1974, Tsipras is just 40 years old. He is today the fourth youngest European prime minister and probably the one who will be most in the news in the coming days and months because of his anti European Union policies, which do not coincide with those of the majority of EU and eurozone member states.
With the election of Tsipras to lead the Greek government, the EU of 28 states is now governed by a new generation of 15 prime ministers who are 50 or under the age of 50, heads of government who do not remember the last world war and its aftermath. They have lived in a Europe dominated by its longest period of peace, stability and well-being.
The youngest European prime minister is Tanvi Roivas (born on September 26, 1979) of Estonia, who leads a centre-right government. Next comes Charles Michel (December 21, 1975), the centre-right prime minister of Belgium, followed by left of centre Matteo Renzi (January 11, 1975) of Italy and then Tsipras.
Joseph Muscat (January 22, 1974) was elected less than two years ago as the youngest prime minister in Europe. He has now lost four places and is in fifth place followed by Xavier Bettel (March 3, 1973), of Luxembourg, Victor Ponta (September 20, 1972) of Romania, Bohuslav Sobatka (October 23, 1971) of the Czech Republic, Alexander Stabb (April 1, 1968) of Finland, Mark Rutte (February 14, 1967) of the Netherlands, Helle Thoring-Smith (December 14, 1966) of Denmark, Zoran Milanovic (October 30, 1966) of Croatia, David Cameron (October 9, 1966), the Conservative Party leader, who became prime minister of the United Kingdom in 2010, Robert Fico (September 15, 1964) of Slovakia and Pedro Passos Coelho (July 24, 1964) of Portugal.
Of these 15 prime ministers six are to the right of centre and nine to the left of centre, with one of them, that of Greece, on the extreme left.
There is nothing wrong that Europe is governed by a younger generation of politicians
Most of these leaders contested a general election for the first time. So they were not burdened with a past to defend. Moreover, they could promise heaven on earth. It is what Tsipiras did.
He promised to negotiate a new deal with the troika (the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF). He wants his country’s debts written off so that he could go on a spending spree.
Let me be frank. Most of the Greek population is living in poverty with wages in the region of €500 (or less) a month. But the economic and financial situation in Greece, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, was the result of bad decisions, extravaganza and rampart tax evasion under previous Greek governments.
The troika helped Greece with a financial packet worth €227 billion, tied to an austerity programme and measures that will see the Greek economy back on its feet. They were also given two major concessions, including lower interest rates and longer repayment periods.
It looks like the economy of Greece was, in 2014, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But it still needs assistance and EU member states made it crystal clear that, even if the repayment of debts were to be spread on a longer period, the Greeks had to pay their debts in full.
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna went on record as saying that any renegotiation of Greece’s austerity programme should not include writing off debt owed to Malta and to other eurozone countries.
Malta’s exposure to Greece includes a €50 million bilateral loan and €138 million as guarantees to the European Financial Stability facility, set up as a temporary rescue mechanism. A total of €188 million, which, in our case, are not peanuts. Other countries are owed tens of billions of euros.
So it is very improbable that any EU member State would agree to write off the Greek debt. Germany, the country that is owed the most, has made it crystal clear that it might renegotiate the repayment period but discounted the possibility of a write-off.
Just to mention another prime minister who promised everything to everyone: it was our own Muscat.
He did not need to promise to write off our debt because our debt is local and only €43 million consist of foreign loans. Besides, he inherited a very strong economy with high employment, including about 20,000 foreign workers, low unemployment, low inflation and sound manufacturing, tourism and financial services sectors. But he had to promise and he promised a lot.
His major promise was that of a new power station by March of this year but works on its construction have not even started. Before the general election he declared that the Delimara new generating plant was a cancer factory.
The experts thought otherwise. And if it were true that the Delimara plant was a cancer factory, under the previous administration it produced electricity for less than three months (it was commissioned in December 2012). Under this Labour administration, it has been producing electricity for nearly two years. And only God knows how much longer it will take to be turned to gas.
There is nothing wrong that Europe is governed by a younger generation of politicians. But these must not go for populist promises which lengthen, not shorten, the time needed for the re-emergence of Europe as the major economic bloc. For Germany to take its place as the main European economy, it took years of austerity, sacrifices and reforms. German employees did not receive any pay increases for years.
Unless other European countries follow Germany’s example, it will not be different whether the leaders are young or old.
The pre-requisite for success is that the people are shown the true picture and that they are taught to live within their means. If European countries go on spending what they do not earn, the debt problem will grow larger and larger and there will be no institution to write it off. The end result will be one of misery for all those who prefer to live the day without bothering for tomorrow.
For all those who want to share a hug with Tsipras, good luck to them. I prefer experienced, elderly and sober leaders, the likes of Angela Merkel.
Joe Zahra is a former newspaper editor.