Happy New Year and welcome to the yearly round-up of news by Kathimerini English Edition. Looking back over the important news of the year for this second edition of the GreeK Letter’s annual review, several important themes became increasingly apparent.
Continuity and Changes
Election years are always a fascinating bellwether of the political situation in a country, and Greece this year had its fair share of elections. The New Democracy party of incumbent Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis won two resounding victories in national elections held in May and June, with main opposition SYRIZA crumbling to below 20% in the polls.
This dismal performance by SYRIZA led to the resignation of long-time leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, and the eventual (and tumultuous) election of political newcomer Stefanos Kasselakis in his stead.
The national elections also saw the re-emergence of the far-right, a political force that had largely been electorally contained in recent years, with three far-right parties being sworn in following the June elections.
Finally, in October, regional and local elections were a game of two halves. New Democracy seemed to confirm its dominance of Greek political life in the first weekend of elections, winning several races outright. However, things would sour for the ruling party on the second week as its candidates in the second round lost in all major cities and most of the regional run-offs.
However, a common theme of the national and regional elections was a historic level of low voter turnout. In June’s national election, 47.18% of voters did not participate in the polls, while in the second round of the Athens municipal elections only 26.7% of voters showed up.
The future of the opposition in Greece remains one of the most important questions at the end of the year. The fragmentation of SYRIZA following the election of Kasselakis, and the party’s continued slide in the polls, do not seem to have been exploited by its competition in the center of the political spectrum to a significant extent. This void, the lack of a strong opposition which can keep the government accountable, can only harm Greece’s democracy.
On the other side of the political spectrum, apart from the resurgence of the far-right, several New Democracy parliamentarians, most prominently former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, have begun to vocally dig their heels in against the more liberal elements of Mitsotakis’ proposed reforms, from migration to the announced legislation legalizing same-sex marriage. Whether this is “broad church” politics in action, or the emergence of a rift within New Democracy, remains to be seen.
Peaceful overtures in the Aegean
This time last year, this newsletter warned of a “a particularly tense 2023 with elections in both Greece and Turkey” following a difficult year in their bilateral relations. However, out of disaster and unimaginable horror came a period of greatly improved relations and the prospect of lasting calm. The devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey in February, and the rapid Greek humanitarian response, radically changed the prevailing situation in the Aegean.
Despite several hiccups along the way, something that was to be expected given the status quo prior to February, the second manifestation of “earthquake diplomacy” largely succeeded in 2023. The rhetoric emanating from Ankara was more conciliatory. As a result, there were several meetings at a ministerial level, as well as between diplomatic staff, both prior to the elections in each country and in their aftermath.
In July, with the two leaders fresh off their victories in their respective elections, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius for over an hour. They agreed to resume talks and confidence-building measures to capitalize on the positive climate, with the two identical statements released by the prime minister’s office and the Turkish Presidency noting that “the two sides agreed to build on the positive momentum and activate multiple channels of communication.”
The two men would meet again in New York on September to confirm the positive atmosphere between the two countries and set out the roadmap that culminated in the official visit of Erdogan to Athens on December 7 for the 5th High-Level Cooperation Council.
In Athens, the two leaders signed the “Athens Declaration on Friendly Relations and Good-Neighborliness”, as well as several memoranda of understanding and declarations.
Undoubtedly, the public commitment of both men to lasting peace in the Aegean is a far cry from where bilateral relations were just a ten months ago. Turkish overflights by fighter jets and UAVs above Greek islets and islands have almost ceased entirely, while the threats of war against Greece have made way to overture of friendship and good neighborly relations.
However, there are still many hurdles to overcome before the difficulties in bilateral relations are completely resolved. They range from settling on a final agenda to be discussed, much less referred to, the International Court of Justice, the continued occupation of Cyprus, and even geopolitical developments in the wider Eastern Mediterranean and Turkey’s relationship to the West.
Disasters
This year also leaves behind it a legacy of disasters and destruction. On February 28, a head-on collision between a passenger and a freight train led to the death of 57 people, primarily university students, and exposed fatal lapses in basic safety standards of the Greek railway system.
The European Railway Agency stated that it had been warning successive Greek governments since 2014 about the dire situation and the lack of proper safety standards, with the disaster unveiling the lack of transparency regarding the allocation of funds and completion of public projects that is common in many facets of the modern Greek state.
The railway disaster, Greece’s deadliest, led to days of political unrest and strikes and the eventual resignation of Transport Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis.
The Parliamentary Inquiry into the disaster is ongoing, with the association created by the relatives and survivors of the collision organizing a protest rally on December 12 decrying the slow progress of the proceedings.
In the summer, wildfires ravaged the country, from the devastation on Rhodes in July that led to the evacuation of thousands of tourists, to the 16-day fire in Evros in late August that killed at least 20 people and led to the destruction of over 93,000 hectares of land, making it the largest fire in the European Union since records began in 2000.
Many of those tested by the fires proved their quality, whether by assisting the hundreds of firefighters from all over Europe and the wider region or by providing assistance to the tourists who found themselves stranded by the flames.
However, it is clear that these massive wildfires have become a recurring feature of the Greek summer and that the Greek state has failed to keep up, with many accusing the government of failing to prepare adequately for the situation.
This same criticism would also be levelled at the government a few days after the fire in Evros finally abated, when Storm Daniel flooded central Greece and left 16 people dead. The persistent flooding that destroyed the majority of the region’s agricultural crop (in one of Greece’s most fertile areas) and killed hundreds of thousands of animals left households without drinking water for days and led to the proliferation of disease as dead livestock rotted in the stagnant waters. The overall cost of the damage can be estimated in the billions.
It is worth noting that the area had also faced flooding in 2020, with questions being raised once again about the response of both central and regional governments.
It is clear that the impact of climate change on the lives of people in the region is here to stay and it is vital that our governments rise up to the challenge facing them.
Economic recovery
To finish the year on a more positive note, 2023 also saw the long-heralded return of Greece to investment grade by the majority of the major international credit ratings agencies.
It began with DBRS Morningstar which, on September 8, upgraded Greece’s bonds and put an end to their “junk status” after 13 years, providing a symbolic end to the financial crisis. However, there were more than just symbolic benefits, particularly for Greek banks.
It was followed by Standard and Poor’s Global Ratings, the first among the “big three”, in October, which noted that “supported by a very rapid economic recovery, the Greek government has been able to regularly outperform its own budgetary targets despite gradually increasing social transfers”.
Finally, in December, Fitch Ratings also granted investment grade to Greece, leaving Moody’s as the only outlier that has yet to upgrade the country’s sovereign credit.
“The Greek economy’s credit rating upgrade by Fitch Ratings marking its ascent to investment grade is an important national success,” noted Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis in the aftermath of the decision.
The upgrades by the credit rating agencies opens the door to major international investors, with Bloomberg Index Services including 17 Greek bonds worth 73 billion euros in its index.
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