Less than two weeks after a new government was sworn in in Greece, the European Union seems set to make a leap forward.
Not because at the end of thisweek everything showed that it was ready to reach a compromise with Greece on it's bailout programme. After all, as Angela Merkel put it last Thursday while arriving at the European Summit, "Europe always aims to find a compromise and this is the cornerstone of Europe's success." But because this is a sane political approach which was sorely missed during the last few years, as politicians cowered behind bureaucrats and technocrats allowed to run amok with one of the most serious political challenges the European Project has ever faced.
The initial decision to treat the crisis in Europe as a purely financial one was certainly political, as was the decision to continue (mis)treating it like that when it became obvious it was a political crisis touching the core of the European Project, including such fundamentals as Democracy, Human and Social Rights. But politics and politicians have to come to terms with reality, at least sporadically.
Last week's extraordinary Eurozone meeting on Greece followed by the European Summit may signal an attempt to reverse this disastrous slide. After all, it has been obvious to -almost- everyone but the less imaginative core of the EPP that the previous approach was creating an existential threat not just for the Eurozone but for the EU itself.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the return of politics needed a catalyst, provided by a leftist party breaking for the first time the Christian Democrat – Social Democrat oligopoly of power in the EU. It is also unfortunate, although understandable, that political interests vested in the previous calamitous approach feel compelled to fight a rear-guard action, as in the case of the Spanish government, or the EPP parliamentary group that is strongly influenced by its Spanish element.
But, haltingly, timidly, controversially, politics are returning to Europe. And, once again, after many centuries, we have to thank the Greeks for that.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/return-politics