Kyriakos Moumoutzis

Shortly after SYRIZA’s electoral victory last January, I wrote on this blog that SYRIZA’s positions showed that they did not understand European Union (EU) politics. They were proposing changes to Greece’s bailout programme, which they did not have the bargaining power to negotiate successfully. Shortly before the Euro Summit on Greece (the summit of the […]

Little over a month ago, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was still claiming that his party’s electoral victory last January had put an end to bailout programmes. A few days ago, he told the Greek people that a ‘No’ vote in the Greek referendum would lead to a deal with Greece’s creditors within 48 hours. […]

When Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to unilaterally abandon negotiations over Greece’s so-called ‘bailout programme’ and to propose a referendum on the latest offer that Greece had been made, he employed a tactic that is common in negotiations in the European Union (EU): using difficulties with domestic ratification of EU agreements to extract concessions. […]

It has been little over a week since its electoral victory and SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) has already begun to back down from some of its most radical positions. Prior to the election, SYRIZA claimed that they would negotiate the forgiveness of the better part of Greece’s debt. Now Greek Finance Minister Yanis […]

Less than a week after SYRIZA’s (Coalition of the Radical Left) electoral victory, uncertainty regarding the newly formed Greek government’s economic policy has increased. In a statement emailed to Bloomberg News, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said: ‘we need time to breathe and create our own medium-term recovery programme’. Mr. Tsipras’ statement followed his Finance […]