Krugman: Greece (and Europe) Deserve Democratic Ideals of Syriza

As leaders of the Syriza-led government of Greece participate in high-stakes meetings with their European creditors in Brussels on Monday, New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is among those urging the so-called Troika negotiators—representing the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission—to do what is right by giving Athens the chance to unburden itself from the harshest austerity measures and reach a compromise deal on future lending.

Placing the current crisis in Greece in historical context as he compared it to the Weimar Republic of Germany following War World I, Krugman argues that Europe risks a much larger catastrophe if it continues to treat Greece as a defeated enemy.

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Syriza’s chief negotiator and finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has also made the comparison to post-war Germany and argued that debt forgiveness and reduction of austerity would insulate Greece from the rise of the nation’s far-right forces, exemplified by the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

According to Krugman, Varoufakis’ warning about what will happen to Greece if his government is not allowed to renegotiate the terms of the bailout program agreed to by the previous government should not be taken lightly. “More than ever,” writes Krugman in his Monday column, “It is crucial that Europe’s leaders remember the right history. If they don’t, the European project of peace and democracy through prosperity will not survive.”

In cities across Greece on Sunday, citizens came out in force during rallies designed to show support for the Syriza-led government ahead of Monday’s talks. Solidarity demonstrations were also reported in cities across Europe where residents of other nations called on the EU ministers to end their harsh commitment to austerity in Greece and elsewhere.

As Agence France-Presse reported:

In an interview over the weekend, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he expected “difficult negotiations on Monday” in Brussels, but added he was “full of confidence” that an acceptable deal to both sides could be reached.

However, as the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini reports, the two sides are still very far apart on the deal:

According to the Guardian newspaper’s live coverage from Brussels on Monday, no progress has yet been reported, but many European ministers at the talks appeared unmoved by the reforms Greece has so far put forward.

That display of intransigence, however, is exactly what the anti-austerians, like Krugman, are worried about. He writes: