Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev attend a signing ceremony on the naming of North Macedonia, in Prespes, Greece, June 17, 2018. Dimitris Tosidis/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
How different does Greece look today compared to in January 2015, when Syriza, the radical left party, became the government. Between 2010 and 2015, Greece had lost 25% of its GDP, the debt to GDP ratio rose from 120% to 180%, unemployment was running at 27%, youth unemployment at 60%. Highly educated young men and women work in the NHS and wait in London restaurants. The dynastic power structure that had run Greece for forty years had finally brought it to its knees. Cronyism, corruption, tax evasion and avoidance had become the hallmarks of a failed party system.
The result of the bankruptcy was the biggest bailout program in recorded financial history and the most intrusive austerity policies imposed in Europe under IMF oversight. Syriza was elected in early 2015, against the wishes of a combination of Greek and European elites with a promise to reverse this situation. The outgoing right-wing government had not fulfilled its obligations under the second bail-out memorandum and had left state coffers empty. It was part of a plan freely admitted by its inventors to have the Syriza government collapse within a few months. The elaborately prepared ‘short left interval’ would disqualify the European Left for a generation.
