Hacker News Reader

Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

What is actually happening here is that Tsipras is simply trying to save face. Attempting to get the Troika (EU, IMF, ECB) to bend in the negotiations was a suicide commando in the first place.

Now he realizes that his plan failed and is trying last minute to shift responsibility to the Greek public (i.e. "let them decide what the right path is"). In any outcome event (Greece leaving Eurozone or Greece accepting Troika terms) he would be able to point to the referendum and tell everyone that it wasn't "his fault".

View on HN

Given that he and his entire party are loudly supporting a "no" vote, I don't think this is the case. Their position is clear.

They simply don't have a democratic mandate to accept continued, worsened austerity. Everyone basically agrees that if the vote is "yes", that will be the end of the Syriza government. If it's "no", well, then they have the support to continue rejecting austerity.

> They simply don't have a democratic mandate

they were elected this January (democratically)

They were elected based on their promise not to accept more austerity. I would agree with parent that they don't have a democratic mandate to do the opposite now, even if they could legally do it.

A mandate is an authorisation to do something, not an open-ended power. The rest of that quoteed phrase references what the mandate was about - they were elected on a campaign to do the opposite course of action.

Then whats the point of the referendum. If they insist on non-austerity, make a plan outside the euro.

I don't understand your point. Their democratic mandate is to say no to Trioka terms. Great. That's what they did and it resulted in the situation we have now.

If they continue down the path of their mandate it will result in Greece exiting the Eurozone. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

The other choice is to accept Troika terms, keep Greece in the Eurozone, and potentially lose face.

In any case it is a situation that the Tsipras government caused, a situation that was predictable and a situation that they should have to deal with and stand by themselves.

The whole point of having a government is that the people should not be faced with having to make these kinds of decisions that involve many complexities and have long-ranging consequences. Calling in a referendum for precisely these decisions is a declaration of incompetence.

> What is actually happening here is that Tsipras is simply trying to save face.

I disagree with you. He was democratically voted into power 5 months ago to end austerity, but NOT to leave the Euro currency or the EU.

Now that he came to the conclusion that leaving the Euro currency is inevitable if Greece wants to end austerity he does the right thing any person in power should do:

He lets the population decide thereby giving him a mandate to either continue austerity or leave the Euro currency, both of which he didn't get the mandate for when he was voted into power.

For everybody who's not been living under a rock for the last five years it was, and is, obvious that the choice is either to accept Troika terms or to leave the Eurozone. The current situation can't be a surprise for anyone, especially not for the ones who voted for Tsipras.

Tripras promised to end austerity without having to leave the EU. This was completely illusory in the first place. Politicians overpromise and fail, that's part of the game. The right response is to either be a man and continue to fight for the values you believe in or to admit defeat and step down.

But you can't call in referendums every time the situation gets too hot, particularly not in circumstances like the current and within a couple of days. That's just ridiculous.

There is no legal way for the EU to throw Greece out of the Eurozone without them agreeing to it.

Greece could default, revert back to their national currency or keep the Euro currency and STAY in the EU at the same time.

He declared what he wanted to do, this of course meant that he had to convince the other EU elites which required open ended negotiations in good faith.

I'm sure that no one in their right minds in Greece believed that Tsipras simply could dictate something to Brussels.

Apparently negotiations failed, that can always happen, but at least he tried.

Also It is never ridiculous to let the people of a country decide especially on hard questions after the facts on the ground have changed. I never understood the mindset of people who loathe on democratic decision-making.

You seem to believe that there never was the possibility to reach a mutually beneficial agreement to begin with, and Greece should simply roll over and let their economy contract another 25% after it has already contracted 25% in the last years.

If this were the case (I disagree) then maybe it's for the best to exit the EU and work with the Russians and Chinese on building a better future for the Greek people.

First, please don't downvote people who you simply disagree with. That's just bad style.

> Also It is never ridiculous to let the people of a country decide especially on hard questions after the facts on the ground have changed.

"After the facts have changed". Sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about. The facts have been on the table for about five years now, in plain sight for everyone.

> You seem to believe that there never was the possibility to reach a mutually beneficial agreement to begin with, and Greece should simply roll over and let their economy contract another 25% after it has already contracted 25% in the last years.

There was that possibility but Greece just simply didn't have any real leverage in the discussions. Tsipras mislead his own people in that regard and now he needs to face reality.

And yes the Greek economy will contract. But never was real to begin with. It was all just built on other people's money and it wasn't built to sustain itself after that flow of money dries up. So of course, what's not sustainable will deflate.

So letting the public decide their own fate is now called "shifting blame"?

They had ample time to put up a public vote weeks or months ago. Their deadline for submitting a proposal or accepting the terms given to them passed five days ago. They initially sent "wrong papers" to the participants of the EU ministers' meetings. Now the referendum. At this point, they are just playing time.

They are now for the first time in power and only for 5 months. Of course they needed time to conduct negotiations to see, if there is a way to end austerity on the basis of a mutual agreement with the EU institutions.

Apparently this didn't work out (ultimatum by the EU), but how could they find out without at least trying to negotiate with the EU.

He wasn't voted into power to leave the Eurozone, he was voted into power to end austerity and stay in the Eurozone.

When should he have called for a referendum? After the first negative response they received from the EU? This would be silly.

Of course they tried to negotiate and to explore all possibilities until they either reached a mutually acceptable agreement with the EU or they received a final ultimatum.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com