Sisyphean Tactics and Manoeuvring of the Greek Debt Crisis Post-2015: A Dead-end Crisis Management Paradigm/Yunan Borc Krizine Sisifos Taktik ve Manevrasi: Bir Cikmaz Kriz Yonetimi Paradigmasi.

• Author: Papanastasopoulos, Nicolas
• Position: Essay

Introduction

The complexity of financial crisis that swept the world after 2007 and lasted in most cases up to the midd-2010s has been a great challenge that tested structures, resources and roles at every level of national, regional and global decision making and institutional setting. And while in most cases the structures endured and the crisis was overcome, the Greek case can be seen as a crisis management failure of paradigmatic proportions.

In the Eurozone crisis, "EU governments had to provide emergency loans to banks or to take on their debt in order to prevent them from going bankrupt and harming the rest of the economy." (1) The nature of the EU structures and the perennial question about its democratic credentials (or deficit) has made it hard to respond to the prospect of a collapsing banking sector. The crisis rapidly developed to "not only a banking crisis but also a sovereign debt crisis, as governments in several Eurozone countries struggled to find the funds to rescue their insolvent banks." (2)

When financial markets targeted Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus, the option was either to receive an emergency funding or to withdraw from the euro. Since the latter was out of the question, austerity, cost cut and reduction of salaries were a one-way direction, which came after Germany's decision to impose strict measures to the aforementioned states. These sine qua non conditions were the first step towards the establishment of a permanent bailout mechanism, through the redesign of the EU treaties. The crucial step towards this direction was through changes in the operation of the European Central Bank (ECB) and "gradual progress toward an eventual EU banking union." (3)

Such transformation came at a cost. Criticism about the EU's acquis and social cohesion was at the frontline of the emerging debate in the European public sphere. In the Eurozone, the northern economies were expected to provide bailout funds to rescue their partners in the European south. In such a context, the debate was polarized and bitter. For the North, the South was fiscally irresponsible, and for the South, the North had locked the southern member states "into a currency union that made their firms uncompetitive." (4)

Years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and a failure to implement financial and administrative reforms left Greece badly exposed. As the "dust settled, it emerged that Greece is teetering on the brink of default as it faces debts of over $500 billion. It has become reliant on international funds to make repayments." (5) The supporting packages assumed Greece would eventually be able to return to the markets. Such an expectation soon proved to be unrealistic and other rescue measures became necessary. (6)

In addition, at a crisis management level Greek governments and political personnel failed miserably to implement the structural reforms needed to reboot economic competitiveness, whilst the citizenry was condemned to a never ending austerity. The failure to end the privileges for politically well-connected groups (7) meant that the more vulnerable, poor and less privileged social strata would shoulder the burden of adjustment.

In the following pages a brief theoretical context is offered. Then, the failure of the SYRIZAANEL post-2015 government to secure a debt relief or restructuring agreement although it conceded everything in terms of the demands made by the EU institutions and the IMF manage the crisis is discussed. As elsewhere in Europe, the win of radical left SYRIZA was a vivid demonstration of "a populist desire to punish ruling elites and to shift the balance of power away from the technocrats of the hated 'troika', and back to elected politicians accountable to Greek citizens and no one else." (8)

A Note on Crisis Management

In Greek mythology Sisyphus is being punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean. (9) In addition to this, paradigm is a standard, perspective or set of ideas. A paradigm is a way of looking at something. (10) Hence, we shall analyse the ways in which the Greek crisis management of debt crisis proved to be a Sisyphean and dead-end paradigm.

Let's start by remembering the fundamentals. Crisis management is more than ever an integral part of public policy. When news go viral almost instantly, organizations need to be ready to respond to any crisis quickly and efficiently, using all the available platforms. (11) What is more, the essence (of a crisis) itself provokes and underlines a kind of non-stability of the political and social life. As Ch. F. Hermann notes "a crisis is a situation that threatens the high priority goals of the decision-making unit, resists the amount of time available for response before the decision is transformed, and surprises the members of the decision-making unit by its occurrence." (12) In this context, crisis management literature offers a variety of methods, approaches, and analytical assumptions. (13)

In essence, crisis management is the application of strategies designed to help an organization deal with a sudden and negative turn of events. (14) Consequently, planning and execution are considered the main stages of the crisis management process. According to the former, the crisis management unit displays its preparation readiness. This is a synthesis of a) establishing a framework of authority, b) setting up links among decision making centers, c) creating a group for crisis information, d) imposing the rules, e) simulating practice. In this direction, appeasement derives from the need to make structural changes in the state structures, law and procedures, and informing the public opinion. Also, prevention includes the anticipation of the potential crisis, the permanent actualizing of the information regarding potential crisis areas, analysing objective information on evolutions that can lead to crisis and the corrective intervention during the pre-crisis phase. As far as the second stage is concerned, response process demands to a) control the situation, b) overcome the...