The one-year anniversary of a snap referendum (July 5, 2016) in Greece didn’t go unnoticed by German media this week, with extensive reports from the Greek capital and on the political scene in the recession and crisis-plagued country.
The influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung referred to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ policy reversal, as it says.
“Alexis Tsipras exercised precaution in spending the anniversary far away. A year after the Grexit referendum … he was on a promotional campaign in China,” the newspaper wrote.
The mass daily stressed that while yet another protest was taking place in Syntagma Square, which in the past would have been led by Tsipras himself, the Greek premier was now in Beijing, courting investors."
“The fact that investors are not considered exploiters and enemies of the state any more, but as an opportunity, marks one of the most noteworthy changes in the life of young Tsipras,” the daily adds.
In its coverage, German radio (DLF) recounts how Tsipras returned to the negotiation table after the “No” in the referendum, only to accept yet another reform program.
“The rhetoric may have been the same, but Tsipras had made a 180-degree U-turn.”
The radio report added that 60 percent of Greeks today believe that the referendum actually harmed the country in the end, whereas ruling SYRIZA party has fallen to as low as 17 percent in opinion polls, far behind conservative New Democracy party.
“Transforming ‘no’ into ‘yes’ may, in the end, not be such a good idea”, DLF concludes.
Another portion of German media focused on the very recent disclosures of controversial US economist James Galbraith over a so-called alternate plan in case of “Grexit”, a scheme the former claims was prepared with the knowledge and direct guidance of then finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
Südwest Presse ran an article under the headline “Secret plan for Greece: Varoufakis and the ‘new drachma’.”
“Greece avoided chaos by a hair. Then finmin Varoufakis was preparing a coup-like secret plan.”
The article writer also wonders: “What did PM Tsipras know about these preparations? Galbraith leaves the question open; he does express his disappointment that the plan wasn’t implemented in the end.”
