Maria Spassova

The Balkan politicians never stop surprising us with wrong decisions and confused concepts of justice, honesty and geopolitical interests. When talking about activities addressed in Tirana, Skopje or Bucharest, somewhat they might be excused with the argument for the new democracies and the mistakes when growing up. When however we talk about political nullity on the part of the oldest democracy in the world and of a politician from the rank of Kostas Karamanlis, the amazement is great.  

Two days ago Kostas Karamanlis sent a complimentary letter to the Russian president Vladimir Putin for the “conclusive” victory in the elections of this party United Russia. In this way Karamanlis became the second European leader after Nicolas Sarkozy who recognized the election farce of Kremlin. As opposed to France where there were a lot of critics related to the telephone conversation between the Elysee Palace and Kremlin, in Greece the news went unnoticed and wasn’t given much attention as it was something completely normal. And it is not because New democracy is a member of the European National party and for the ENP the right of freely expressing an opinion and holding free and democratic election is one of the key values. These values were severely violated in Russia during the weekend.

Kostas Karamanlis is getting ready for an official visit in Moscow and when somebody goes visiting as a guest he usually brings presents. The surprise in this case is the price of the present. Yesterday the Greek government decided to buy 450 Russian tanks for the price of 1 billion euro for a period of 15 years. This decision will definitely make Putin happy more than the greetings. The question is what will he give as a in return. There are two things that Athens defiantly expects of him – petroleum and gas.