This summer the Greek government is creating a series of diversions in order to make the populace forget temporarily the enormous new taxes they have to pay and the hike in prices of almost all staples and consumer goods.
After the television licensing travesty, the effort to change the electoral law, the attempt to ask Germany for war reparations and several other acts of dubious intentions, the latest diversion is the reactivation of the criminal prosecution of former ELSTAT chief Andreas Georgiou.
According to the Greek government, in 2010 the independent statistical authority head colluded with Eurostat in order to inflate the public deficit, thereby leading to the need for more financing from Europe, in other words for more bailout cash. As if the Greek economy was in great shape in 2009-2010 and Georgiou conspired to make it look bad. Or as if there would not be the need of a bailout if the deficit had not been falsely bloated.
Now Georgiou is accused of damaging the Greek economy and undermining public interest. An enemy of the people is created out of nowhere. A typical Stalinist method. SYRIZA newspaper Avgi actually called Georgiou an “executioner.”
But the Georgiou case has another, more devious motive. It creates division inside New Democracy as well. The conservative party is roughly divided in the Costas Karamanlis supporters and the Kyriakos Mitsotakis supporters. The former represents old politics clientelist tactics and the latter reformist tendencies.
But if Georgiou is accused of inflating the country’s financing needs, what can one say about the Yanis Varoufakis absurd rhetoric and tactics that held negotiations with lenders back and ended up costing the Greek economy several billion euros? According to Bank of Greece governor Yiannis Stournaras, the January-July 2015 protracted negotiations cost the Greek economy 80 billion euros.
However, the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition denied any of that. They talked about a “brave, proud stance” during negotiations and then denounced Varoufakis. Yet, when opposition parties asked for the Varoufakis methods to be investigated, the coalition government turned down the request.
Georgiou is the scapegoat of the week for an administration that lies consistently on the true issues, namely austerity, unbearable taxation, corruption, steadily high unemployment, lack of security, migration and education.
Although the prosecution of Georgiou serves the government’s nefarious purposes, it hurts the country’s image abroad. The European Commission has already warned Athens that interfering with independent authorities goes against EU rules. What foreign investors would want to invest in a country where the government sees independent authorities as anathema, as with the recent effort to control mass media by giving out only four television licenses. Again, what investor would invest in a European country that defies European Union rules. Or in a country where taxation seems to be the only source of state revenues and tax laws change all the time.
Yet, the Georgiou case will hardly sway public opinion. The “enemies of the people” Alexis Tsipras is continuously inventing, in order to divert attention from the real issues, are not enough to appease people’s discontent.
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