The Greeks hang tough, the Germans stick with Herbert Hoover economics

Stephen Hebel has an article on the Greek-German negotiations, Das Signal von Athen Franfurter Rundschau 14.02.2015. He is going on the assumption that reaching some interim agreement by this Monday is critical. But he's not optimistic:

Wir dürfen erwarten, dass es bis Montag zu einem Kompromiss kommen wird, der Griechenland das Gesicht wahren lässt, ohne das Gesamtgebäude der gefährlichen Austeritätspolitik à la Merkel zu gefährden. Das würde den Griechen hoffentlich etwas mehr Luft zum Atmen geben. Aber eine wirklich an Werten wie Solidarität und an dauerhafter Stabilität orientierte Politik hätte viel mehr zu tun. Sie hätte das ganze Gebäude zu sanieren, und zwar durch eine gemeinsame Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik, die auf konjunkturelle Impulse, gemeinsames Tragen von Schuldenrisiken und Verbesserung der Staatseinnahmen durch eine gerechtere Steuerpolitik in ganz Europa setzt. Nichts deutet darauf hin, dass Merkels Deutschland daran Interesse hat.

[We should expect that by Monday, a compromise will be reached that will allow Greece to save face without endagering the whole structure of the dangerous austerity policy à la Merkel. That would hopefully gives the Greeks more breathing room. But a policy is genuinely oriented toward solidarity and long-run stability has a lot more to do. It would have to clean the entire structure, and do so by a common economic and social policy that rests on responses to economic cycles, a common burden for debt risks and improvement of state income by a more just tax policy in all of Europe. But nothing indicates that Merkel's Germany has an interest in that.]

Hebel thinks that Angela Merkel is so completely committed to her Herbert Hoover/Heinrich Brüning economics that she may not be willing to make substantive concessions to Greece.

Hebel mocks the German press for paying so much interest to Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis' clothing style choices. He expresses particular scorn for this article from Jurek Skrobala in which he suggests that Varoufakis' preference for black clothes may indicate that he's an anarchist, Griechischer Finanzminister: Dreister Geist Spiegel Online 06.02.2015.

The German press coverage of the euro crisis I'm seeing comes close to quality of that of the mainstream American press leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And that's really, really bad.

Hebel recognizes how "reforms" as a synonym for has come to be a buzzword that all the Very Serious People and the respectable press repeat as a mantra not to be questioned.

And he describes the general situation well:

Der Wert des Wahlsiegs von Alexis Tsipras liegt nicht darin, dass er mit allem richtig läge. Er liegt in der Tatsache, dass zum ersten Mal seit Einführung des Euro die Frage nach Alternativen überhaupt auf der Tagesordnung steht. Genau das erklärt die Wutausbrüche der Neoliberalen.

[The value of the election victory of Alexis Tsipras does not lie in the fact that he is right about everything. It lies in the fact that for the first time since the introduction of the euro, the question of alternative is on the agenda at all. Exactly that explains the rages of the neoliberals.]