With Greece so close to defaulting, Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister of Greece, is preparing to meet with Vladimir V. Putin as the European deal to give more aid to Athens wavers. The timing of this meeting has created many questions. People are trying to decided if this is this visit an ordinary component of the New Greek government’s multipronged foreign policy, or is it a pivot toward Russia for financial aid in the event that Greece’s conversations with European official flop. The European leaders said that the reform plan proposed over the weekend to give Greece 7.2 billion euros fell through. Greece has made it public that they will run out of money soon after Mr. Tsipras set his meeting with Mr. Putin
Mr. Tsirpas was originally supposed to travel to Moscow in May, but with terms of releasing more money to the Greek government the trip was moved up. Without this money Greece would go bankrupt or exit the Eurozone, both of which would increase instability in the region. The trip to Moscow is supposed to “strengthen the relationship between the two countries, which have longstanding political and religious ties.” But some believe that this meeting could also be to see if Russia will finance the Greek government in place of the European nations.
This clearly will not help the tensions between the rest of the European nations and Greece, but relationships since the new Greek government took office have been very strained. Tsipras wanted to do away with the austerity terms attached to Greece’s original bailout. The most recent proposal, according to creditors, is inadequate. Tsipras believes that Greece’s debt needs to be restricted for Athens to be able to repay its debt. What do you think is the next step for Greece?
Full Article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/business/international/greece-looks-to-russia-as-deal-with-europe-stumbles.html?src=me
3 Comments
i think this is an interesting development and is surely an opportunity for Russia to stick its nose in the EU. I don’t remember the full details, but any additional sanctions levied on Russia by the EU would require the assenting vote of Greece. Through a Russian bailout, Putin may be buying political capital that he could later call in if new EU sanctions against Russia are proposed.
Does this give Greece greater bargaining power? If the EU thinks a Grexit marks a forfeit of Greece to Russia, we might see this behavior continue.
Since Russia is a natural resource dependent economy, it is at present not in a position to do much for Greece, offset in part by the small size of Greece’s relative to even a depressed Russian economy.
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