Alexis Tsipras is in Moscow to negotiate gas prices and a Russian pipeline through Greece, while his ministers travels back and forth between Athens and Beijing to do business with the Chinese. Flirting with Russia and China may be a Greek grandstanding, but it exposes cracks in the EU façade towards the neighbor to the east and reduces the Eurogroup’s role as protector of his family.
The Greek prime minister’s Moscow Flights taking place right that the fears are that Greece, which since 2010 is dependent on emergency loan from the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), should not agree with its lenders on the terms of an impending payment of EUR 7 billion. Crisis Loan is a total of 240 billion euros, but paid in portions.
Alexis Tsipras leads a coalition of leftist parties and nationalists who has promised to end the austerity policies of the EU, ECB and IMF ongoing requires Greece to the new payments.
But Tsipras and his Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is now not to live up to his campaign promises on his knees in front of the ECB’s new main building in Frankfurt and ask for suspension of the installments. Instead, they go through their options, and then primarily on whether they seek help in Beijing or Moscow, or both.
The Greeks had before Wednesday’s Moscow Call promised not to ask the Russians about clean credit – the question is whether it is even feasible for Russia to transfer cash to an EU country, given that Russian banks in the EU sanctions against Russia has limited ability to operate within the Union.
In contrast, as expected Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss both price reductions for Russian gas to Greek customers and the new natural gas pipeline Russians want to pull from Russia to Turkey and further into Greece, Hungary, Serbia and Macedonia.
Even if the pipeline never be built – Russia has himself short of money because of both the dive-bombing oil and gas prices in the world and EU trade sanctions – so are energy talks between Athens and Moscow anathema for many of the other EU countries and Brussels appliance. The European Commission has for years been working to reduce dependence on Russian gas for the continent’s energy supply, and with Ukraine The crisis was this ambition bigger.
Greece are looking for fresh cash even further east. The Deputy Prime Minister Giannis Dragasakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias has been successively been in Beijing to discuss “maritime cooperation”: in plain language that the Chinese, state-owned company Cosco may purchase all or part of Athens’ famous port of Piraeus, paradoxically, despite Tsipras and his government coalition previously declared themselves as adamant opponent of the port’s privatization.
Piraeus is Europe largest passenger port and Greece’s largest container port, and would give the Chinese a nice foothold in Europe. Russia for its part, had an eye on both of Piraeus, the port of Thessaloniki, and buy themselves also like to own a foothold in this geopolitically important part of the Mediterranean: the middle of a NATO country, Greece.
Russia becomes Greece’s rescuers in need particular would be politically disastrous for the euro, which would appear that neither strong nor particularly attractive even to their own members. It would also be yet another crack in the EU’s facade towards Moscow because of the Ukraine crisis.
The facade has certainly as numerous and large holes like Swiss cheese, not least because the European purchases of Russian gas continues exactly prior Ukraine crisis – over a third of the gas consumed in the EU countries comes from the Russian gas giant Gazprom.
But if Greece thanks for the generous Russian investments would stop EU sanctions against Russia, a not unreasonable thanks from the rescued his helper, so it has been publicly castrated EU as a unified, foreign political force in the world. The sanctions require all 28 EU countries’ consent to be maintained.
China could perhaps be accepted as new lenders to Greece, but the great Chinese takeover of critical infrastructure and major corporations have proven to be politically sensitive in Europe, where, for example, the French government stopped Beijing’s plans for the purchase of French energy company. But even a Chinese savior of Greece would be a failure of monetary cooperation and solidarity.
Greece must pay back 450 million euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prior to Thursday, and Treasury Athens has assured that the IMF will get their money. But at a meeting later this month, will Greece and other EU and euro countries try to agree on a new payment plan for Greece’s emergency loan.
The odds are good that Greece with its Russian and Chinese gropings have succeeded in pressing enough many sensitive points in order to get a good new loan agreement.
No comments:
Post a Comment