Greece - No Country For Young Arrogance

In an August 2022 essay by Alexander Clapp, published in the NYT, I found the following quote which I have cited many times since then:

"It is, rather, the unsustainable contradiction between the country Mr. Mitsotakis insists on pitching abroad — an unimpeachably democratic state whose respect for the rule of law and liberal bona fides ought to be rewarded with corporate investments and tourism dollars — and the one he actually presides over.“

Prime Minister Mitsotakis is an excellent salesman of his country and he certainly has sold me on it. It is only in the last few months that some doubtful clouds have shown up on the horizon. To sum it up in one word: arrogance. I had given 3 examples thereof in the above-linked article. 

Still, I felt quite uncomfortable voicing these crescent doubts because I was afraid that in the midst of Mr. Mitsotakis' success, they might be considered sacrilegeous. So much more was I surprised to read in today's Ekathimerini a commentary by Alexis Papachelas who started out by saying:

"This is not an easy country; not by a long chalk. A part of it looks and may also be European. Another is deeply Balkan and looks, in fact, a lot like what the international literature would call a “failed state.” The struggle between the two is constant and sometimes it is even violent. Anyone who is ambitious or crazy enough to govern it has to deal with this struggle between good, European Greece and Greece of yesteryear, between what it could be and what it is at its worst."

So far so good. Anyone who has followed the scandal around the recent train accident can agree with that. But then Papachelas continued (the emphasis is mine):

"The current prime minister has a very clear picture of where the country should be headed. In some areas, the country has made progress, and quite a lot of it. But this government has also made mistakes. No one can change the state alone, nor can they promise to change Greece 0.5 to Greece 2.0 in just a few years. Such undertakings require humility, and what the government is paying for right now is overselling its managerial capabilities. It settled for many of the bad habits of bad Greece and in some instances acted as if it owned the country. Some of the examples are painful and make people mad. The condition of our hospitals is a case in point. Greece is changing, but important areas are being left behind."

That is exactly the concern I have voiced in recent months. I see no Greek politician around who could represent the country internationally as well as Mr. Mitsotakis does ("pitching his country") and I think it is extremely important for Greece's domestic success to be represented well internationally. That has to do with credibility. If Mr. Mitsotakis were to stumble domestically because of cockiness or arrogance, it would do enormous harm to Greece internationally. And that, of course, would affect Greece's domestic success.

It's A Short Putt From Greece-Praising To Greece-Bashing

In the last few years, since Mr. Mitsotakis became Prime Minister, my Greek friends have often criticized me for being idealistically (and unrealistically) bullish about Greece. In short: I had predicted a Golden Age for Greece under only one proviso - that the tsunami of foreign funds coming into Greece in the last 3-4 years and expected to come in in the next few years is spent wisely. Frankly, I was not alone in that assessment. My sense is that most foreign observers had a similar impression.

It only took one dramatic scandal, the train accident, to turn Greece-praising into Greece-bashing. Above all, Greece-bashing on the part of Greeks themselves. The foreign media which I follow have not really engaged in any Greece-bashing.

The Greek blog GreekReporter has now published an article titled "The countless times Greece was convicted by EU courts." The article really provides for some astonishing reading.

EU Court of Justice Convictions

2015: Conviction for violating working hours in hospitals and in general.

2016: Conviction for constant violation of EU waste disposal rules.

2016: Conviction for undermining free movement of capital.

2018: Conviction for failing to recover state aid to Ellinika Nafpigeia.

2019: Conviction for failing to provide support for persons with inabilities.

2019: Conviction for failing to recover state aid to Larco.

2020: Conviction for failing to comply with conservation standards.

2023: Condemnation of Athens over its poor air quality and for failing to take the necessary measures.

European Court of Human Rights

"Greece’s convictions at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) amount to 948, according to the Greek judge of the Court Yiannis Ktistakis. During a recent briefing of the Parliamentary Committee for the Monitoring of the Decisions of the Court of Human Rights, Ktistakis attributed the low position of Greece in this field to our country’s non-compliance with the sentencing decisions and its inability to eliminate the hotbeds that multiply human rights violations. As he said, a telling comparison can be made with Belgium, a country that has many similarities with Greece, and not only in terms of population. “Belgium has only 285 convictions compared to Greece’s 948 and only 234 pending appeals today as we speak, compared to Greece’s 2,214. In the numbers, Belgium in the last decade 2011-2021, paid 1,745,909 euros for compensation awarded by the European Court, while Greece paid six times more, 28,256,237 euros,” he explained."

I wish someone would comment on the above!

Greek Train Accident - The Culprit Was Found And Put Into Jail! Or Was He Not The Culprit?

The tragic train accident and the discussions around it have reminded me of a NYT commentator who recently observed in an article "the unsustainable contradiction between the country Mr. Mitsotakis insists on pitching abroad and the one he actually presides over.“

Well, it seems the country which he presides over (its institutions, its governance throughout the hierarchies, its administration and control, etc.) is indeed quite different from the country which Mr. Mitsotakis pitches abroad. Within days of the accident, all sorts of revelations reached the public about inefficiencies and incompetencies in the public sector. Mind you, not only at OSE (the Greek train infrastructure company) but in the public sector in general!

This just goes to prove, in my mind, how important Mr. Mitsotakis is for the image which Greece is now, after 4 years of his government, enjoying internationally. Yes, he is overselling his country. No thinking person would accept that a state which was not too long ago described as a "failed state" would, within only 10 years, become a near-perfect state. 

The question is whether Greece is really changing or whether the perceived change is only a PR-job of Mr. Mitsotakis. My sense is that in the private sector, there are indeed many positive signals of important changes and improvements. I cannot say much about the public sector because I know very little about the public sector. Or rather, I didn't know much about the public sector until a few days ago.

Now, I have read about the unbelievable scandal of OSE (that, I believe, is the company where the last PASOK finance minister, George Papakonstantinou, said that it would be cheaper for the state to transport all OSE's passengers by taxi than by trains). I read that everyone knew all along that Greece's railways were the most dangerous ones in Europe and that even the EU Commission was concerned about that. I read that the EU transferred about 700 MEUR for the betterment of OSE in recent years. I read that there have been multiple written warnings about the potential risk or a major accident; and, finally, I read that no one in a position to implement improvements really cared.

But yes, the master of a small train station had to be put in jail immediately because he committed such a grave human error. And yes, even Mr. Mitsotakis knew immediately that 'human error' was the cause of the accident (somehow suggesting that the culprit had already been found and put in jail). Why Mr. Mitsotakis bothered to announce the formation of an expert commission to look into possible causes of the accident is not quite understandable under that light.

For someone like myself, who has fallen for Mr. Mitsotakis' pitches, this is a great disappointment. Yes, I had started to believe that the Greek state was transforming from 'failed state' to 'near-perfect state' in a hurry. It seems I was wrong. 

So where do we go from here? How do we solve this problem? Well, certainly not by declaring the station manager as the culprit and sentencing him to life in jail and to declare the matter as closed. That, to me, would be about the most unethical and immoral strategy. Not to mention the fact that it would not work. 

The government now has the unique opportunity to show that they mean business when they talk about modernizing the Greek state. That they won't shy away from hot potatoes; that they will not fear any taboos. It is not sufficient for Mr. Mitsotakis to state that "we will do everything in our power that such accidents will not happen again." Those are words. Actions speak a lot louder than words.

If this huge tragedy does not provoke tough actions and improvements, measurable actions and improvements, then eventually Mr. Mitsotakis may be asked by foreigners why the country he presides over is so different from the one he pitches - and that would be the end of Mr. Mitsotakis' credibility.

And without credibility, you can achieve nothing!