by Alexander Mercouris
As Eric Kraus has pointed out there is complete
confusion in the media today about how to spin the latest EU sanctions
decision. Did Syriza fold as per Reuters and Bloomberg. Or did the
meeting expose growing splits within the EU as per the Financial Times and the
London Times.
The best answer is that nothing definite was decided at
the latest EU Council meeting but Syriza did manage to put a marker down.
I go back to my piece about Syriza for Russia Insider (http://russia-insider.com/en/germany_politics_opinion/2015/01/27/2785). Whether one likes the fact or not, for Syriza relations with
Russia are not the priority. Syriza does not agree with the sanctions,
but its overriding priority is Greece's own economic crisis.
Given that this is so, it is simply unrealistic to
expect a very young government in the very first days of its existence to
provoke a crisis within the European Union that pitches it against the
Commission, Germany, Britain and France, risking a deeper crisis in Greece and
putting in jeopardy its own existence, on an issue that for Greeks is of only
peripheral importance.
What Syriza did on Thursday was all that in the
circumstances it could realistically do: apply a soft brake on the sanctions
train.
The European Council meeting was convened by Mogherini,
the EU's "foreign minister", following demands from the EU hardliners
led by Donald Tusk (who now nominally chairs the European Council when it meets
at heads of government level) who have been calling for a strong EU response to
the breakdown of the ceasefire and the ongoing NAF offensive, which has
resulted in the capture of Donetsk airport and the gradual encirclement of the
Debratselvo pocket. It also took place against a drumbeat of orchestrated
hysteria following the shelling in Mariupol. Prior to the meeting Tusk
said that he was not interested in a meeting that was purely declamatory.
That however is what Tusk got. What came out of
the meeting was essentially declamatory.
The Greeks insisted on a belligerent paragraph directed
against Russia being removed from the text of the final EU statement and
postponed any further decision on further sanctions to a European Council
meeting on 12th February 2015, which will take place at heads of government
level. In return they agreed to an extension of the limited sanctions
against specific Russian companies and individuals that came into force in
March, but not for a full year (as the hardliners apparently wanted) but only
for 6 months (to September 2015).
These sanctions are a serious matter for the individuals
concerned, but they are not critical for Russia.
This is not the outcome that either the Russians or the
EU hardliners led by Tusk had wanted, but it gives time and space for Syriza to
sort out its own position and make whatever alliances within the EU it can,
both on the critical debt question and on the less critical question of
sanctions.
The next test will come at the European Council meeting
on 12th February 2015 which Tsipras himself will attend. As of now it is
looking unlikely that the EU will impose further significant sanctions on
Russia at that meeting. Syriza is opposed to such sanctions but more
importantly some of the other EU states are not keen on them either. They
now known that one EU government - that of Greece - is strongly of that view,
which is likely to make their opposition still stronger. To what extent
more sanctions can be prevented at the meeting on 12th February 2015 will
depend on the extent to which Syriza is able to play on the doubts of these
other EU states. Significantly Syriza did manage to play successfully on
these doubts at the meeting on Thursday, when it received the discrete support
of several other EU states.
The big test however will be when the sectoral sanctions
come up for renewal in July. That is the key decision upon which the future
of the sanctions ultimately depends.
I would add that by July - and even more by September
when the sanctions that were extended on Thursday come up for renewal - we will
also have a better idea of the prospects for a Podemos victory in Spain.
If Podemos does win in Spain, then the entire calculus
changes with Syriza having one of the big EU countries as an ally. I
hardly need say that Spain carries immeasurably more weight within the EU than
does Greece. A Podemos government in Spain can afford to go it alone on
sanctions and defy the other big powers in the EU. A Syriza government
cannot.
In my opinion Thursday's decision was the best that
could be expected in the circumstances. As I said the big decisions are
still to come. It would be of no benefit to Russia, Greece or Syriza if
Syriza had provoked a crisis in the EU on Thursday on a question of extending
the least important sanctions, which caused a dramatic escalation of the
economic crisis in Greece, which in turn meant that Syriza was either swept
from power in Greece or was unable to make independent decisions when the big
decisions come up in July.
I would finish by again repeating what I said before in
my Russia Insider piece and here.
Greece is a small and economically very weak
country. For its people the sanctions are not the priority. The
economic crisis is. That is why they voted for Syriza: to solve the
economic crisis, not to get the sanctions on Russia lifted. On the
sanctions issue people should not expect more from Syriza than it promised or
can realistically deliver.
Source: The Vineyard of the Saker 02-02-2015
