Analysis: Europe’s ‘lab rat’ is growing weary of austerity experiment

THIS month’s election in Greece was heralded as an opportunity for the country to elect a government, with a long term mandate that would lead it to economic salvation.

The public vote, however, failed to produce a decisive outcome. This stalemate will lead to a repeat election, pencilled in for 17 June, raising fresh doubts about Greece’s ability and commitment to implement the provisions of the bailout agreement, as well as the future of the Eurozone itself.

Amidst the pessimism ensuing from these developments, it could be easy to miss some lessons from this campaign. The result confirmed a consistent picture across Europe which sees incumbents suffer electoral punishment for welfare retrenchment.

In Greece, the socialist Pasok and the conservative New Democracy parties, that had taken turns to govern the country since 1974 with a joint share of no less than 77 per cent of the vote, saw their combined power more than halved to just 32 per cent.

The results in Greece and elsewhere signify the first serious challenge to extreme austerity policies: two in three Greeks voted for parties that openly opposed the terms of the bailout agreement.

Advocates of a need for a new approach highlight that even countries such as Ireland and Portugal, where the implementation of measures has been much smoother than in Greece, struggle to stave off recession. The problem thus may be with the medicine, not just a non-compliant patient. Nevertheless, whereas there may be some room for manoeuvre among political leaders to rethink their strategy, it is market forces that may prove the greatest obstacle to any change of course.

Hitherto, a key driver for support of austerity and the core of the political message, domestically and in Europe, was that there is no alternative to it, however painful or even unfair the measures may be seen as. Paradoxically, the majority of anti-austerity forces in Greece continue to see its future in Europe and the eurozone but wish to cancel the bailout agreement, two goals difficult to compromise. The rejection of austerity is therefore not one that is simply explained by support for a tangible alternative strategy. It is, instead, a message to national and international audiences that, if pushed too hard, many may prefer an unstable and uncertain future to an intolerable one.

Such political behaviour, driven by anger and despair rather than rational choice, may be understandable but it can also be counterproductive.

Former prime minister George Papandreou described Greece as Europe’s “lab rat”. The next stage of the experiment is to see whether the ferocity of the punishment for the incumbents will defuse public anger towards them and allow them to regroup or whether people will crystallise and strengthen their support for a new route, which will have to be more precisely defined by the time of the next election. Either way, any solution to the Greek debt crisis will demand decisive reforms at home, coupled with effective leadership, flexibility and solidarity at the European level, or else the likely demise of the “rat” may bring the whole lab down with it.

l Dr Georgios Karyotis is a lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde and secretary of the Greek Politics Specialist Group