Editorial: Bound

Ta Nea’s report today depicts, with broad brushstroke, how Greece’s creditors view the day after the much-touted exit from the current bailout programme.

It is clear that they are preparing a framework of strict fiscal surveillance, and that they will marshal all manner of pressure at their disposal to achieve that end. Debt relief, which is headed towards postponement, is one of the means of pressure that they will employ.

It is also clear that the bailout exit will not be “clean”, as the government proclaims. The “exit” will be a new memorandum in all but name. The obligation to meet its requirements will be non-negotiable. It will be a bailout programme without loans, but rather with news measures and reforms, to be carried out within the timeframe mandated by creditors.

The lenders’ stance can be explained. They remain exceptionally suspicious towards our country and its politicians. The SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government did not manage to regain even one iota of the country’s lost trust. Indeed, it may have made the chasm greater and deeper. We see the results today.

Greek citizens will feel the results after August, when they discover that they remain bound by the same obligations, and by similar or even greater economic burdens.

Greek citizens are captive to the incredulous stance of creditors, and to the mentality of a government that never learned to identify its interests with those of the country.