Brussels, 21/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Greek government has a lot of work and no time to lose, was the friendly advice given on Monday 21 September by the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in written congratulations to Alexis Tsipras, who returned to power in general elections in Greece on Sunday.
Tsipras is expected to be sworn in on Monday evening, followed by the government on Tuesday. He has already announced plans for a new coalition with the Greek Independents. Between them, the two parties have a majority of 155 of the 300 seats at the Greek parliament (145 for Syriza and 10 for Greek Independents), compared with a majority of 162 in the previous government (149 and 13 respectively). The government will therefore have slightly less of a majority, but Syriza dissidents, who formed a new party, Popular Unity, in August, will not have a seat in the new parliament. The new party did not achieve the 3% threshold required. As with the July referendum, the opinion polls were again misleading They put Syriza and New Democracy neck and neck, but the former ended up 7 points ahead of its adversary (around 35.5%, compared with 28.1%). Turnout was very low, with only half the voters turning up to vote.
On behalf of the European Commission, spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said the Commission was: “particularly encouraged by the ample representation in the new Greek parliament of pro-European political parties defending the need of a strong Europe within the euro area.”
Cinzia Alcidi and Daniel Gros of the thinktank CEPS say that the fact that Alexis Tsipras had decided to form a new alliance with the Greek Independents was not a good sign, but should work. The New Democracy party had repeatedly called for a broad coalition. Former finance minister under Alexis Tsipras (who may get his old job back), Euclid Tsakalotos, explained on Saturday that he couldn't see how one could change political life and tackle tax evasion if one was allied to parties that have constructed their political power on clientelism.
Hari Tsoukas, of Warwick Business School, who stood in the elections for the To Potami party, said Tsipras “will be called to implement harsh austerity measures and structural reforms which, by his own admission, he does not believe in. In his valedictory speech the new Prime Minster still talked about his familiar theme: 'resistance' to neo-liberal creditors.”
Ever since the Greek elections were announced, the eurozone has been relaxed about them. The head of the Euro Working Group at the Council of Ministers, Thomas Wieser, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday morning that he thought the Greek coalition would be “fairly stable.” Pointing out that after the July eurozone summit, Alexis Tsipras had “bought into the programme” and Wieser expected “strong implementation after fairly rapid formation of a government.”
On Monday, an EU ambassador said that the opposition would not find it easy to challenge the measures to be taken.
The first monitoring mission of the institutions in Greece (European Commission, ECB, IMF, ESM) will start work in October, said Wieser, but earlier in the day, the European Commission had refused to give an exact date.
Wieser said: “We had a fairly substaintial disbursement in August. Out of €26 billion released by the ESM, €23 billion were disbursed, €3 billion is outstanding and tied to two lists of milestones to implement in the coming two months.” Another source from the institutions said the prior actions would be the first talks to be held with the new government.
On Sunday evening, Alexis Tsipras said they would be rolling up their sleeves to start work on Monday. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)