Greece needs a new narrative

By Stefanos Manos *

With the help of Greece?s international creditors, reality put the SYRIZA-led government on the well-known path of continuous negotiations, in which it is seeking to: a) protect the party?s clients ? that is to protect those who feed on and are kept afloat by taxes (henceforth ?tax dependents?) paid even by workers in the private sector ? and b) to ensure some kind of financial support from our creditors.

The negotiating goals of the present government are no different than those of the previous administration. The style and intensity of talks has changed, but the narrative remains the same.

By seeking to protect the tax dependents, the former governments of George Papandreou and Antonis Samaras drove the country to recession and record unemployment. By seeking the same thing, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will also lead the country down the same path, and faster.

A lot has been written about what needs to be done but no one has appeared to do it. As European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has so succinctly put it: ?We all know what to do, we just don?t know how to get re-elected when we do it.? Whenever I tried to do it (in the past with the Liberals party and more recently with Drasi) I was thwarted, amid much praise, by the Greek people.

PASOK, New Democracy and SYRIZA tried to deal with the crisis by drawing a big, fat, red line: They refused to fire civil servants or target tax dependents. I firmly believe that the crisis will never be dealt with unless the tax dependents are taken on. ?That?s the kind of thing you say and then get just 1 percent of the vote!? Indeed. But the 99 percent that did not vote me were wrong. The recession and unemployment are proof enough.

How would the tax...