Charisma and luck

Now then, things are as follows.

In Paris, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meets with current and former French presidents, picks up two awards, depicts himself as Odysseus, quotes Victor Hugo and Jacques Delors, solves the problem of youth unemployment, unites the right-wing and the left-wing, and offers and exit strategy for Germany’s governmental crisis. The founder of the journal Politique International , which awarded Mr. Tsipras, justly called him a man of charisma and luck.

In Athens, the government is at the brink of being dissolved because of a decision by the defense minister to sell to a shadowy middleman 300,000 military projectiles, because of Saudi Arabia’s insistence upon buying only 100,000 projectiles without a middleman, and because of the rebellion of certain Syriza cadres, who suddenly discovered that the projectiles will be used in Yemen.

Fortunately, however, our charismatic and lucky prime minister will be here at Monday’s parliamentary debate on the matter, so everything will take its proper course.

Meanwhile, twelve European Parliament deputies from various parties and ideological orientations – liberals, conservatives, socialists and Greens – are demanding that the European Commission evaluate the repercussions of the continuing prosecution of former Hellenic Statistical Authority – ELSTAT – chief Andreas Georgiou, on the economic aid programme for Greece, on the country’s fragile recovery, on judicial independence, and on the credibility of state data.

“Does the Commission believe that this case violates the spirit of the treaties and of governance rules of the eurozone?’’ a group of Eurodeputies, none of whom was Greek, asked. Naturally, they knew the answer, but they asked anyway, for the record.

In other words, while Alexis Tsipras is busy solving the problems of Europe, and humanity more generally, with charisma and luck, there are Europeans who are mobilising to defend an economist who is in danger of being slapped with a life sentence, and a penalty of 171 billion euros, all because he did his job.

Last week, the French news magazine L’Obs – formerly Le Nouvel Obervateur – featured a lengthy cover-story expose on Andreas Georgiou and his lonely, Kafkaesque struggle against irrationality, entitled ‘’The most hated man in Europe’’.

For three whole hours, the former chief of ELSTAT recounted his adventures to the French periodical’s reporter, who visited him at his home in Maryland, in the US.

He recounted how a trade unionist shoved under his nose a classified document that had been hacked from his email account – ‘at the mere memory Georgiou turned red on his sofa’, the report says – about how main opposition New Democracy called him a Trojan Horse of the IMF – ‘He remembers Antonis Samaras’ November, 2011, speech in Thessaloniki as if it were yesterday.’ – how Greece’s current president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, launched a campaign against him, and how the baton was taken by Syriza members afterwards.

Only on one day did he break. On 9 April, 2015, when he was interrogated for hours, he feared that he would be remanded in custody and that his five-year-old child would be left alone.

French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the issue with Alexis Tsipras in the past. Perhaps he brought it up again in talks with Tsipras yesterday.

But those who awarded him for his charisma and luck had nothing to say.

Michalis Mitsos

in.gr