Grexit or Brexit?

Grexit or Brexit?

“It´s a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth.”

Nigel Farage

By: Erreh Svaia

In recent days we have faced the “too close to happen” exit of Greece from the European Union, an undesirable situation, but a decision that each days seems to be more logical to happen, as this complicated scenario keeps the world in a delicate state of uncertainty, Alexis Tsipras, head of the Greek government seems caught in a deadly web and the escape just seems to slips farther and farther from his hands, having recently sidelined his finance minister, the intense Varoufakis, who seemed to fail on the negotiations, the pressure these days, with Greece announcing the impossibility of paying its debts, the sword of Damocles hangs above Tsipras head and his government.

Syriza achieved power in the middle of Greece society´s anger against traditional parties, blaming their corrupted politicians for the complex situation in Greece, the radical Syriza, a party composed by Maoists and Trotskyites ended up as the only party capable of capitalizing that anger and viewed as the only exit left for a society disenchanted of traditional politicians, the young Tsipras capitalized society´s anger by distancing himself from old politicians (just like Pablo Iglesias of Spain´s Podemos does), made risky promises about ending austerity policies and renegotiating Greece situation with the EU troika, but we can assure that Tsipras promises got too close to impossible, but desperation drove Greece toward extremes, and Tsipras seized power easily.

Today, the heavy weight of populist promises fall fully on Tsipras back, Tsipras sounds angry and frustrated on his recent interviews about Greece debt and deadlines, but the truth is that he promised too much, he promised things he knew he just won’t be able to achieve and he's just stuck between a rock and a hard place and running out of time, he has too accept the EU conditions on making structural reforms and keep on with austerity, accept his failure to Syrizas hard line council and confess to the Greek people that he sold them promises impossible to achieve, and accept perhaps that the situation was too heavy for him to carry on, or perhaps, follow the path of the populists (like Venezuela, Argentina or Rusia) and blame everything on an external forces, aligning Greece with Putin´s Rusia and exit from the EU.

History looks hard upon Tsipras, by taking Greece out of the Euro, he could end up as the man who started the disintegration of the union, which granted peace for the continent for decades, and could be followed quickly by other countries in southern Europe, like Italy, Spain and Portugal who face similar complex situations, and making things harder for France while weakening the strength of Europe precipitating also the separationist sentiments of the United Kingdom towards leaving definitely the union in an attempt to escape what radicals consider the main cause of Europe low growth and economic failure.

No payment was made by Greece this days and Tsipras is thinking desperately of a way of restructuring debt, in the meantime the world is falling down a dangerous spiral of financial volatility once again, a new fall in raw materials prices and a new strengthening of the dollar, what will happen in the Euro Zone in June is going to shape the situation of the whole world and set the scenario for the rest of what seems to be a very complicated year.