'Ashamed of being European', I wrote one month ago. And after the devastating week-end of negotiations with Greece, I have even more reasons to be so.

The Greek prime minister and the Greek people have been humiliated and were forced to accept an agreement that cannot bring any solution for their sufferings. And now, inevitably, some people are shouting: 'treason', pointing to Syriza… But is this justified? Had Tsipras any other real choice? Let us look at these questions.

First, for all those who may have thought Greece was going to change the European Union from within, all on its own, one can only say this was a very naïve thinking. It was David against Goliath, one against eighteen. It was an impossible task, all the more so since for many different reasons, there was not one single ally amongst the social-democratic prime ministers. Moreover, Syriza never was and is not a revolutionary party. It can be labelled ‘radical-reformist’ and it is a bit strange to expect it was going to bring about revolution for all the rest of us. It negotiated very courageously, knowing there were no presents to receive, and knowing a rightwing government would have found a much more willing group of negotiators.

Secondly, however bad the current agreement is, what are the alternatives? Two have been presented by sympathetic social movements: a grexit with either giving up on debt servicing and/or developing a transition towards a commons based production. Both are very attractive and one might say that at any rate, both strategies should be pursued. The question is whether a grexit can be seen as an alternative for the austerity programme. The problem with Greece is that it depends for half of all its needs on imports. If Greece leaves the eurozone, it has to introduce a new national currency which will immediately and strongly devaluate, its banks will go bankrupt and it will have no resources for buying what it needs. Even if food production might indeed be developed rapidly, how is it going to pay for its medicines, for its computers, for spare parts for cars or machines? Often the country is compared with Argentina, but we should not forget Argentina had high exports of agricultural products and still has no access to international financial markets. We also should be aware of the fact that the IMF and the EU would do everything to block any financial deal with Greece. In other words, a grexit would also mean misery the people.

Thirdly, one should reflect on who the real enemy now is. Directly, concerning the negotiations, it can certainly not be Tsipras or Syriza, the victim, but it should rather be the German minister of finance, Wolfgang Schäuble. The second responsible is the inter-governmental procedures being applied at the European level, with a number of national governments all defending their national interests, surely not a good methodology for promoting a European interest, let alone solidarity. In this final negotiation, the European Commission has been totally sidelined. But if we look at what is happening in Europe at large, and in the rest of the world, we can see that it is not the European Union and its institutions that should be blamed, but rather a neoliberal ideology. Many countries in Europe are changing their labour law, restricting the right to strike and access to collective bargaining, without being forced into this by the European Commission. What about the UK or Norway, also reforming’ their welfare states, without being a member of the eurozone or of the European Union?

In other words, the first lessons to be drawn from this disaster is that one, the Greek people still need our solidarity and our help; and that two, the left should do everything it can to avoid further divisions. It is time to seriously reflect upon new strategies, taking into account the real power relations and the possibilities of building new alliances and new majorities. Global Social Justice wants to point to the real possibilities there are to propose new and credible social policies, at the local, the national, the continental and the global level.

These multi-level policies and solidarities should be our priority. There is hope and we have to build more hope.

Francine Mestrum - July 2015

http://globalsocialjustice.com