Is the “honeymoon” for SYRIZA over?

One thing must be made clear from the outset: the “in principle” agreement reached by the Eurogroup on Friday 02/20/15 regarding the four month extension of the Main Contract for Economic Facilitation of Greece (commonly known as '' Memorandum '') relieves every intelligent man. 

Any embroilment would be a mortal danger for the European course of the country with devastating economic, geopolitical and social impacts. 

Therefore, the first difficult steps of the government towards more realistic directions are absolutely welcome.

However, though, the developments confirm those who during the pre-election period used to say that the announcements of SYRIZA were completely incompatible with reality, a fact which already cannot be hidden by the verbal “acrobatics” like "there is no troika but only three institutions'', or that “anti-memorandum” means “I agree with the Memorandum by 70%'', etc. 

The under configuration “Syriza-speak” will soon be the subject of satirical texts and TV shows. 

That, however, which is actually a momentous event, is the overt reaction of prominent members of SYRIZA towards the deal with the lenders which has been strongly manifested even before the elapse of one month from the date of the elections. 

Many, in this political Babel, which is called SYRIZA, cannot accept the fact that the memorandum cannot be eliminated by a single law (or even with more than one laws), that the assessment by the same natural persons will be a clause for the disbursement of the remaining amount of 7.2 billion euro from the extended “program” to consequently be led, in late June 2015, to a new “Program” (the word “Memorandum” is eliminated), that many privatizations proceed and HRADF (HELLENIC REPUBLIC ASSET DEVELOPMENT FUND) will be maintained, that it is unknown whether and when ENFIA will be repealed, the minimum wage will be increased, the pre-election promises will be materialized regarding red loans, pensions, labor relations, state control of the banks and many more.

Mr. Tsipras, while in opposition, characterized “the rejection of the loan agreement as an act of national responsibility, with a new coalition of powers, he said, we will not recognize the illegal and unconstitutional loan contracts '' and at the same time the memoranda were characterized as “draconian” and the modulated status as “colonial”. 

These, obviously, having in mind, Mr. Manolis Glezos, believes that today SYRIZA “names the fish meat” and “apologizes to the Greek people because in his opinion he played an actual part in preserving this illusion” (!).

 And certainly he is not the only one. 

According to MP, Stathis Leoutsakos, the Prime Minister if pressed for breaking the commitments which have been made, he should bring the people either in front of a referendum or elections, to say that they are going to cancel people’s choice and ask regarding the eurozone issue. 

The Deputy Parliament President, Mr. Alexis Mitropoulos disagreed even with the acceptance of Moskovisi’s text (which had been previously accepted as conducive to Greece by Mr. Varoufakis), and he also disagreed with the choice of a representative from the center-right for the position of President of the Hellenic Republic. 

With the latter view many other Members of the coalition government also agree. Mr. Rudy Rinaldi, member of the Political Secretariat of SYRIZA, characterized the agreement with the lenders as problematic. 

Ministers and officials, like P. Lafazanis, N. Valavani, K. Lapavitsas, S. Sakorafa, expressed strong reservations. Thehoneymoonwithinthepartyseemstohavepassed. 

However, the government spokesman Mr. Gabriel Sakellaridis stated that “in three weeks we succeeded in all that all previous governments have failed in five years, we did not win the war but the government puts the foundation that Manolis Glezos, us and the society seek ''. 

We do not know whether among the government's achievements is also included the abandonment of the “haircut” of the public debt, which was the flagship of SYRIZA and ANEL’s pre-election campaign of SYRIZA and ANEL and its replacement by other forms of its relief, such as the lengthening of the repayment time, the stabilization and the reduce of interest rates etc., which were actually provided by the decisions of the Eurogroup since November 2012. 

What certainly has been succeeded in a very short time by the government is the burden of the Greek banks by almost 50 billion Euros (“Kathimerini”, 02/22/15). 

In this amount are included: the reduction of deposits by 22 billion, the reduce of the liquidity due to issuing treasury bills by 3 billion and, furthermore, due to the interruption of trading in the interbank market by 10 billion Euros, an increase of subprime loans by 2 billion Euros, the charging of the cost due to the appeal to the ELA by EUR 1 billion and to the reduction in their valuation of about 10 billion. 

The increase in the cost of money is diffused throughout the economy and is also a reason why the anticipated growth in Greece, which was estimated at 2.9% for 2015, already according to the latest forecasts by international agencies, is being reduced to levels below 1%. 

These are not good developments for the country and especially for the unemployed.