In his speech to parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras attempted to construct a reality. He said that the tough part is behind us, and he described 2018 as the milestone year for the country’s transition to a new era.
The only problem is that this reality, which one might call the domestic reality, clashes with the reality that is emerging abroad.
The external reality says that there can be no restructuring of the Greek debt without the implementation of new austerity measures.
It also says that the European Central Bank is demanding the adoption of a new fiscal adjustment programme, which will not be called a memorandum but effectively will be just that, in order to keep providing the Greek banking system with cheap money.
The external reality also says that the tax-free ceiling will be lowered not in 2020, as originally planned, but in 2019, when the government’s constitutional term of office ends.
Sticking to his own reality, the prime minister reiterates at every opportunity that elections will be held at the end of his term.
Hence, it becomes clear that the leeway for him and his government is shrinking.
The milestone year in which the country will make the transition to the new era, meaning the end of the era of the bailout memorandum that he signed three years ago, is merely the antechamber of an equally difficult continuation.
From this perspective, the real issue is not when elections will be held.
The real issue is whether partisan calculations and electoral tactics will once again undermine the efforts of an entire society.
