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Greek Elections 2019

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  • 08-07-2019 8:30am
    #1
    Patser
    Registered Users Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭


    The Greek snap election has seen the return to power of their centrist New Democracy party, with a big majority in their parliament, which promises to work sensibly within their commitments to the 'Troika' - officially its bailout programme in 2018, but remains under scrutiny. New Democracy is pro European, pro EU and promoting sensible policies.

    Meanwhile Syriza and its leader Tsipras are slowly collapsing. After all the wild promises it made in 2014, after the crisis it engineered in 2015 whereby it almost crashed out of the Euro, lead to a spike in unemployment, made a mockery of democracy with their referendum on a deal that didn't exist and that they then ignored, this is a big fall from that moment in the spotlight.

    Instead of a mad 'revolution' to bring in instant change and happiness, Greece is now in returning to growth through 4 years of slow steady change working with their lenders. A process delayed by the madness of 2015. Ireland returned much quicker to stability by following that approach from the start.

    So just a reminder for those that plagued Boards with threads in 2014, about the need to follow the Greek examples, who wanted riots on the streets and a revolution in politics - and also for those parties or politicians who went off the Greece lauding and praising Tsipras as a hero. Wonder if SF who were happy getting photoshoots with him, Catherine Murphy (then Independent but now SDs) who was happily tweeting support but mostly Paul Murphy who was in Greece to support and promote Syrizas view, will be mentioning today anything about their fallen idol's fate.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48904188


Comments

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    #2
    Inquitus
    Registered Users Posts: 13,730 ✭✭✭✭Inquitus


    A nice summary, eventually the Greeks realised Populism cannot be delivered. Took them a while mind!


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    #3
    Nody
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,260 CMod ✭✭✭✭Nody


    Even more interesting imo:
    Greece’s centre-right opposition party has won the country’s parliamentary elections, as Golden Dawn, the far-right anti-immigrant party who were previously Greece’s third-largest, lost each of its 18 seats.
    Remember that right wing wave that was going to sweep Europe? Yea...


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    #4
    Inquitus
    Registered Users Posts: 13,730 ✭✭✭✭Inquitus


    Nody wrote: »
    Even more interesting imo:
    Remember that right wing wave that was going to sweep Europe? Yea...

    Clearly Steve Bannon is working very effectively, lol!


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    #5
    Leonard Hofstadter
    Registered Users Posts: 5,540 ✭✭✭Leonard Hofstadter


    Worth pointing out that New Democracy are in the same political grouping as Fine Gael in Europe and I believe they did quite well in the recent EU elections, it's one of the reasons the EPP remained the largest grouping in Brussels and didn't do as badly as they were predicted to.


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    #6
    LuckyLloyd
    Registered Users Posts: 36,126 ✭✭✭✭LuckyLloyd


    Very positive result imo. And it's good to see things moving in the right direction in Greece. The Troika coming in was ultimately a brilliant thing for us, and I think the EU have come out of the Greek crisis very well with the benefit of hindsight.


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    #7
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users Posts: 28,805 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    LuckyLloyd wrote:
    Very positive result imo. And it's good to see things moving in the right direction in Greece. The Troika coming in was ultimately a brilliant thing for us, and I think the EU have come out of the Greek crisis very well with the benefit of hindsight.


    Has it really been a positive thing for Europe, with no conclusive evidence anywhere on this planet of the overall positive effects of things such as austerity, but plenty of evidence to show, it does more harm than good. With growing inequality occurring across the euro zone, still high rates of youth unemployment, growing unrest, growing scepticism of the EU project, the rise of the right, brexit, other major EU economies such as Italy not looking too good, has the actions of the troika truly worked?


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    #8
    LuckyLloyd
    Registered Users Posts: 36,126 ✭✭✭✭LuckyLloyd


    Wanderer78 wrote: »
    Has it really been a positive thing for Europe, with no conclusive evidence anywhere on this planet of the overall positive effects of things such as austerity, but plenty of evidence to show, it does more harm than good. With growing inequality occurring across the euro zone, still high rates of youth unemployment, growing unrest, growing scepticism of the EU project, the rise of the right, brexit, other major EU economies such as Italy not looking too good, has the actions of the troika truly worked?

    From an Irish perspective? Absolutely. Our national political consensus resolved to put the head down and work our way out of our issues. We have domestic social issues to sort out but they exist in the context of a growing robust economy that offers a platform to sort them out if we can develop the national political consensus to do so.

    Countries elsewhere in the EU with youth unemployment and structural economic issues need to develop realistic national positions to sort these issues. The era of short term deflationary boosts are gone and that is okay. There would be stunted opportunities for youth in certain European countries with or without the EU. The issues and attitudes are cultural, not economic.


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    #9
    blanch152
    Registered Users Posts: 27,192 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    Nody wrote: »
    Even more interesting imo:
    Remember that right wing wave that was going to sweep Europe? Yea...

    The move away from both extremes is to be welcomed across the board.


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    #10
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 5,121 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    The largest party in the election is given 50 extra seats to ensure a stable government.

    The small party was eliminated because they didn't meet the three percent threshold nationally.


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    #11
    Boulevardier
    Registered Users Posts: 1,375 ✭✭✭Boulevardier


    Glad to see that a group led by Varoufakis has made it into parliament. They can at least keep reminding Syriza of the appalling treachery they showed to their own people a couple of years ago.


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