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The transcript of this interview wasn't yet available when i sent the
original message. It is now. Here are some excerpts:
. . .
JAY: Now, you're a member of parliament. You've been writing columns
in the Guardian. What are you advocating now? In this moment, what
should Syriza's next steps be?
LAPAVITSAS: Let's think here about a number of things. The strategy of
Syriza before the election, and for most of its time in government,
has been to achieve radical change in Greece and a new relationship
with the lenders, solving the macroeconomic problems of the country
within the Eurozone. The argument was if we negotiate hard, if we use
democratic weapons that we've got in our hands, we will achieve a
better settlement for the Greek people. This strategy has come to an
end.I don't think the lenders will take a step back. I think they'll
actually do [inaud.] Syriza needs a new strategy very quickly, and I
think the realization will come upon it equally quickly in the coming
days and weeks. It's a dead end. I don't think the European Central
Bank will provide the country with more liquidity. I don't think the
lenders will make a better offer. Syriza will have to face a tough
reality in the coming period. And that means making do. Relying on the
strength of the Greek people, and only that, to see them in the
crisis.
JAY: I heard on BBC last night a member of Merkel's party, a
right-wing member of Merkel's party--I mean, the whole party's pretty
right-wing. But at any rate, a right-wing of a right-wing party. He
says it's time for the Greeks to take their lesson.
LAPAVITSAS: The Greeks have shown, they've shown yesterday, that they
are ready to face up to whatever will come their way from the lenders.
The lenders must not forget that. Yes, they will show very clearly the
Greek people are ready for it. So that's the first thing to say.Beyond
that, there is no liquidity in the country. The economy hardly
functions. Syriza can make an attempt to get a better deal with the
lenders. If that doesn't come true, Syriza needs to take radical
measures quickly. It needs to put the knife in. It needs to sort the
problem of the banks out. Banks need to be nationalized and run
centrally very quickly. It needs to do something about the mass media.
The mass media in this country this week went absolutely crazy, tried
to push for the yes vote. Syriza needs to do something about big
business.
. . .
LAPAVITSAS: ...I don't expect the lenders to back down. Because
there's very little that's new on the table. The lenders don't respect
democracy anyway. And the lenders will find themselves in a very weak
political position if they, if they're seen to back down to Greek
demands now. The Portuguese might want a better deal then, the
Spaniards, and so on. So I don't expect the lenders to show much
flexibility now. The Greek government will find it very hard to back
down, because the very strong vote for the no creates its own dynamic.
No government will be able to renege on that. So draw your own
conclusions. We're heading towards major events in Greek and European
history.
JAY: Just to flesh out some of the things you said in part one of this
interview, you had three things, sort of radical measures, the Syriza
government should do. It started with nationalizing the banks. Just
flesh that out a bit, what does that look like?
LAPAVITSAS: Greek banks at the moment have got a majority public
ownership, share ownership. But their shares are not common stock.
Therefore they haven't got voting rights. So we've got the [inaud.]
here, a sham. Whereby the capital in the banks is owned by the public
overwhelmingly, but the management is basically private, and the
people who run the banks are basically the people who ruined the
banks, by and large.These people don't see eye-to-eye with the
government. And they're not making it easier for the government to be
able to make its own policy. So what we need immediately is
intervention, and a normalization of the operations of the banks to
the degree to which it can be normalized. Obviously there's very
little liquidity, but there's no reason why the banks could not start
doing more banking transactions even behind closed doors. There is no
reason why the banks could not facilitate some fairly normal economic
activity even if there are capital controls and banking controls.So we
need to nationalize the banks, effectively, and we need to operate
very quickly to start having some banking activity in the economy once
again to unblock the markets.
. . .
LAPAVITSAS: Yeah, cash is a big problem. It's unfortunate. The state
and Syriza should have been better prepared. But such is life.
