Missing the forest for the trees
The fact that Greece remains stuck where it is despite its potential is due, to a significant degree, to an excessive preoccupation with politics – with a small p – and we journalists and commentators are partly to blame for this.
The double election is now well behind us and we’re heading toward EU polls, which are important because it is imperative that we are ably represented in the European Parliament, where extremely important decisions will be made over the next few years. Apart from this challenge, there are no other important political events on the Greek calendar until June 2027.
Nevertheless, a debate has already begun about the next parliamentary election, and specifically about what it will mean if the ruling conservatives drop below the 30% threshold and whether a double election would be in store. The fact, however, is that there are no clouds in the political sky.
The government has a strong and still fresh mandate, and even if it is trampled slightly in the upcoming European elections, this will mean little more than an unfavorable public opinion poll. Voters may express frustration, anger and a desire for a more effective opposition, but that’s about it.
There have been instances in the past, however, where a poor performance in the ostensibly harmless European elections has become a turning point, including for two prime ministers in the past two decades. They felt compelled to assume a defensive position where they counted the political cost of every single decision and second-guessed every move.
Such an attitude would be a mistake if the government does not do as well in the European elections as it hopes. At the end of the day, no one knows what result the polls will yield, while there are many voters who will ultimately think twice about who can really govern the country. The other course of action is to govern by setting goals and assigning their attainment to people who are not just thinking about how many votes they’ll get in faraway 2027.
There is a lot that had to be done since 2019 and has not, in the health sector, justice, education, security, public administration, environmental protection and the protection of Greece’s tourism product. Everything can be fixed when working with a proper plan, tangible goals and determined people at the executive level. All it takes is political courage and the understanding that the very day after the European elections, the government is looking at a three-year stretch of plain sailing where the only threat is allowing itself to get sunk in the shallows.
Whatever the result of this June’s polls, the government would be well served to listen to what society has to say, close its ears to excessive commentary and get to work. Hopefully, Greece will not produce more drama than it can consume.
