Melina Mercouri was a renowned Greek actress who became a long- serving Minister of Culture under several socialist Greek governments in the 1980s and 1990s when I was still in the early years of my political career. She once began to address an international audience by saying that she would say a few words in Greek, only to reel off a list of words in English (or, rather, words that English had acquired from Greek): democracy, philosophy, drama, crisis, tragedy… In the wake of the economic crisis that has engulfed Greece, it is Ms Mercouri who comes to mind now. The word “Greece” itself is being given a new meaning in English. It has become a warning, an omen.
The new UK government that will be formed after yesterday’s general election has already been told, by the European Commission, that it will have to address a deficit larger than that of Greece. As though that comparison gave a more precise idea of the scale than the actual percentage.
When I wrote about Greece after its general election, in October, I noted that the loser, outgoing Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, looked far more relaxed than the winner, George Papandreou. I had also warned against taking an election victory led by the leader of the Socialist International to be a sign of good things to come for centre-left parties.
Up till recently, however, Mr Papandreou still had the broad support of the country or, at least, was trusted as the man most competent to see the necessary reforms through.
Whether the sheer anger displayed by the massive strikes this week shows a turning point against him is not yet clear. The strikes were led by civil servants, who will be hit hardest by the austerity measures.
The Greek crisis is so deep that simply saying the country is nearly bankrupt does not quite capture its scale. It is the country’s first recession in 16 years. The economy is due to contract by four per cent this year. The crisis has already seen the foreclosure of 65,000 (yes) small and medium enterprises. Real unemployment stands at 18 per cent, hitting the young hardest.
Greece will have to borrow €110 billion over the next three years. In return, under the intrusive supervision of the EU and the International Monetary Fund, it will have to drastically slash its deficit by €30 billion over the same period. That will involve wage freezes and cuts to pensions, bonuses and many allowances. The country has seen nothing like this since the end of World War II.
The scale of the crisis is so large. It seems to make any attempt to draw lessons from it excessively moralistic or even platitudinous. Does one really need to warn against cooking the national accounts or profligate government spending?
However, there is one reflection to be made that is not so obvious. It concerns the role of the political centre, especially the centre-left, in our crisis-hit Europe.
In my last article on Greece, I had noted a European tendency to elect centrist political parties to government, without any popular feeling of gratitude towards them. If anything, their electoral victories occurred at the same time as extremist parties, on both left and right, were being strengthened. The angry protests in Greece have seen the Communist Party take a prominent role.
However, these protests have really been driven by a sense of unfairness that has characterised anger elsewhere. When an economic crisis provoked by the reckless behaviour of an elite occurs, it is still the middle and lower classes who have to foot the bill. In the US and most countries, this anger has been directed at bankers and their bonuses. In Greece, it stems from the perception that the austerity measures will hit salaried workers and pensioners hardest.
There may, however, be a silver lining to this very dark cloud, currently over Greece, and, possibly, coming soon to countries closer to us. As the Greek President told his Prime Minister, ordinary people may in time accept these measures if they are seen to be fair, which means that the measures will need to include a crackdown on corruption and tax evasion by the rich.
Ordinarily, these are steps that are more difficult to take than it seems. But governments today have an extraordinary opportunity to do so, with enormous public support behind them. If the opportunity is taken, the crisis will have served to engineer an important reform that ought to be a central plank of all progressive politics.
Greeks love to point out that they invented democracy. Their current crisis could possibly lead to a reinvention of social democracy, especially if their malaise spreads to the rest of Europe. If it happens, that would be good news and we should not be too surprised. Remember another word Greece gave us: paradox.
Dr Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.