Something’s changing for the better

It's a fragile and vulnerable trend, capable of being stopped in its tracks in an instant by the crisis at large. Yet it is extremely interesting: Common sense appears to be gaining the upper hand on Greece's central political stage. The main political actors seem to redirecting their focus to the country's big social and economic problems and choosing this as the arena of their political rivalries and confrontations. And this has started to manifest itself in small signs of a new normal in public discourse and political debate. After a prolonged period of morbid self-absorption in the party system and empty rhetoric, it is a trend worth distinguishing.

What we are seeing are small moves that may have been taken as a given at one time, but not this one: The prime minister and the leader of the main opposition finally decided to meet and to discuss serious issues, without...