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Anastasia Balezdrova

In recent days, Greece has been hit by events: political and social. In the meantime, the parliament passed the new loan agreement for the country, the main parties disaffiliated a large number of deputies, a huge protest meeting took place in Athens, a group of enraged youths broke and looted dozens of buildings after smashing all they had omitted to smash during their earlier "appearances" on Syntagma Square.

We turned to sociologist George Siakandaris for comments. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology at Sofia University "Kliment Ohridski". He is currently Deputy Scientific Director of the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies "Andreas Papandreou". George Siakandaris is a regular columnist for one of the largest Greek daily newspapers "Ta Nea" and a member of the editorial board of the magazines "Reform" and "The Books' Journal".

Mr. Siakandaris, what caused the wave of Euroscepticism that is sweeping Greece?

Europhilia, as I could call the good attitude towards European structures, was significant in the 1980s and almost until 2009. Eurobarometer data show that the positive attitude of Greeks to Europe was one of the highest among all other countries. Over the past two years, not only Europhilia but also all other indicators of the Greek public opinion started changing given everything that is happening in Greece.

This is because of the people’s perception that Europe is not helping Greece enough to cope with the crisis. They believe that forces of capital stock, i.e. conservative forces, are prevailing in Europe. This is the place to say that there are various anti-European tendencies. Some are conservative and far rightist and reject Europe for its ideas that are contrary to the Greek life, collectivism and Orthodoxy. On the other side are the tendencies that reject it, because in fact bankers and financial capital manage Europe. I.e. the people who are against Europe do not belong to the same trend. They are divided according to political and religious views, as well as according to other indicators.

This is a dangerous phenomenon and it is not only Greek. Eurobarometer more and more often reports about growing anti-European attitudes among European nations, especially among countries of the European south. On the other hand, we see many stereotypes that occur in the northern part of the continent and focus on the countries in the south. This, however, is taking the European Union to decline and decay. The more the idea of "lazy" south and rich north which finances it is supported, the more the issues from the inception of the European Union such as the creation of a joint Europe of nations that are united, not only in economic but also in political, social, ideological and cultural terms, remain in the background. The apathy to the European Union will increase until these things are present.

In Greece, where all this is related to the effects of the economic crisis, the apathy for the European Union is even greater. But I am afraid that it will expand in other Mediterranean countries, and very soon.

How can we fight this?

One way I could mention is not through just monetary economic consolidation of Europe, as at present, but also through fiscal and political consolidation. This means common political principles, not interstate European summits but meetings of politicians who will be elected by the people in their countries to represent Europe as a whole. It means transfer of payments too. I.e. not only to grant aid packages, but to do something like the funds transfer, which took place between former East and West Germany. Of course, there will be control over how they are used; there will be fiscal discipline. But if economies do not converge, the common currency will continue to be in a situation similar to today’s. When you decide to introduce a common currency in some countries of different economic level, you should do whatever you can to make them equal in economic terms. That was not taken into account in the entire European construction: that you cannot have a common currency in countries with different standards of economic development, efficiency and competitiveness. Eurobonds are one solution, transfer of funds - another one. But we see that the opposite opinion is prevailing in Europe currently – the forces that believe that the "wasteful" south should be punished. To avoid misunderstandings, I would like to specify that I do not mean that the "wasteful" south should remain the same or that it is not wasteful. However, this means something else: that the rich north has never sought to create conditions for economic convergence. It has created a south that was functioning as a consumer of the products of the north while things went well. The north found that the south was wasteful without seeking the appropriate productivity and competitiveness after the economic crisis in 2008, when interest rates increased and money became more expensive. Things, however, are much more complex.

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