Just Feance was the sole member state pro prolongation.

Just one.

How many Frankfurter Allgemeine articles would you even bother to read?

As long as they're news and not opinion...

Or any German press?

We don't shy away from the German press on this blog. But no Welt or Bild, please.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

It is a (stealth) class warfare on any level, from any side. Syriza vs the institutions, and internal "possibilities". Achievement metrics are necessarily confusing. There are no good options for those who have nothing, and the misery has to spread anyway. What Syriza is doing is at least interesting. From its point of view, the Eurogroup and Greece's rich have to be upset somewhat.  

The reports I see from the Euro group meetings speak of seething anger, utter annoyance, and a complete collapse of trust on the side of Euro group members towards Greece.

Then you have not been paying attention. This is not a new development; the minutes of the Eurogroup meetings have always consisted of seething denunciations of Greek sovereignty and high-handed demands that they comply with obviously insane demands.

If the rhetoric you are seeing has developed over the course of the "negotiations," then it is most likely because you are relying on unreliable secondary sources like FAZ.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

How many Frankfurter Allgemeine articles would you even bother to read? Or any German press?

If you take your truth from the German mainstream media of today, you're no different from Americans who believed Saddam has WMD in early 2013, reading the US MSM. Yes, it has gotten that bad. The blatant superficiality, bad faith and pro-government bias was exposed best by the media reaction to the VarouFakeFake video.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The reports I see from the Euro group meetings speak of seething anger, utter annoyance, and a complete collapse of trust on the side of Euro group members towards Greece.

As well as utter arrogance, complete refusal to discuss the economic rationality of their demands (pacta sunt servanda!), vile spin and false rumours (Varoufakis was supposed to be replaced, remember?), bafflement that someone would confront bad faith negotiations with the tools of democracy (bad, bad referendums, bad, bad parliamentary votes [if they are not in the Bundestag]) and lies and spin channelled anonymously to media like the FAZ with transparency (bad, bad 'leaks'), and complete superficiality (serious people wear ties).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Stathakis: 'We have made more reforms in five months than previous governments did in five years' http://t.co/RZ0nMvAotH

— EurActiv (@EurActiv) junio 26, 2015

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

... silly for any of the Troika to expect Syriza to capitulate to their demands ... because the Syriza government would not survive flushing the country down the drain, and flushing the country down the drain is the core demand of the Troika.

The fact that there was no benefit available to them from capitulation to that core demand, and no net benefit to the balance of the EU from attempting to enforce that demand, offers the basis for a negotiated improved outcome, but so long as the Troika stands firm on their demand that the Greek government flush the country down the drain as a pre-requisite for being given finance, its seems that the point of the negotiations was not to come to an agreement, in the more common general definition of the word, but rather to give more time to bring the Syriza government to its knees ... which low income nations would recognize as the IMF's preferred meaning of "agreement".


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

But what did they accomplish for the people? There's hardly any progress on anything. All problems that plagued Greece in January are still plaguing it, and there is no trend to see in any, let alone the right direction.

The policy problems Greece had in January are not fixable on a six-month timeline, especially not while at the same time negotiating with a transparently bad-faith group of far-right gangsters.

What Syriza has accomplished is consolidate its power over the functions of the Greek state sufficiently that it can begin taking unilateral actions, which they could not do in January.

So now they can tell Stasi 2.0 to shove his far-right thuggery up his ass.

Do you seriously believe a Syriza government will survive flushing the country down the drain?

You're assuming they miscalculated. That remains to be seen.

This is not the beginning of the end, it's the end of the beginning.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

flushing the country down the drain?

LOL. It's the troika policies that have been flushing the country down the drain:

And the latest ultimatum was promising Greece more of that (and they had the gall to criticise the last offer of the Greek government for anti-growth measures). Where the real goal isn't even Greece but scaring France and Italy.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

That does not follow. It is possible for a party to a negotiation to negotiate in good faith and still conclude that there is nothing on the table which improves on their BATNA.

Of course when one party negotiates in as transparently and psychotically bad faith as the Eurogroup has done throughout this process, it becomes very difficult to make any empirical distinction between Greece arguing in good faith and finding no partner with which to make a deal, and Greece playing along in a kabuki play. Since the only empirical test which would distinguish those two possible realities from each other would be to engage Greece with a proposal that was not obviously insane.

You might argue that stringing the negotiation along after it became obvious, back in January, that the Eurogroup was negotiating in bad faith was itself a form of bad faith. But you could also take the view that the negotiations ended when the Eurogroup made it clear back in January that it would never negotiate in good faith with Syriza, in which case playing along with the kabuki was not so much negotiation in bad faith as it was executing on their alternative to negotiated agreement.

I will leave it to those more pedantic than myself to conclude on that point, and simply note that by the end of the January clown parade Greece did not owe the Institutions the time of day. Nevermind good faith at the negotiation table.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

You don't negotiate that way

This was a reaction to a ultimatum, which is no negotiation at all. In the previous two weeks, the Eurogroup and the Council rejected Greek proposals without any substantial debate. You don't negotiate that way.

Syriza summit

?

Hours later Syriza walked back from the whole thing.

With good reason:

Paul Mason: Schauble nixed text seeking to `amend' bailout programme |thetoc.gr

The Financial Times claimed that both the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Deputy PM Yannis Dragasakis had agreed to sign the draft but that the Greek Prime Minister had pulled the plug at the last minute. It is also claimed that the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble left the meeting believing that a deal had been struck. That version of events has been rejected as thoroughly inaccurate by the Greek government.

Now Channel 4's Paul Mason has provided another account according to which it was Schauble's inflexibility as opposed to Tsipras's that was chiefly to blame for the non-agreement.

Citing an 'authoritative Greek source', Mason says that the Greek delegation had agreed to a draft that called for the Greek program to be `amended and extended and successfully concluded'. However Schauble refused to entertain the thought of amending the Greek program and demanded the word be removed. That resulted in the next draft text - the version rejected outright by the Greek delegation and leaked to the Financial Times.

This was neither the first nor the last time Stasi 2.0 played this game.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

You don't negotiate that way - the point of negotiation is that participants at the very minimum clearly understand each others positions.

I hope you're not quitting your day job to apply for a position as negotiator.

Because that absolutely is the way you negotiate if you are presented with a proposal that is worse than your BATNA: State politely but firmly that the proposal on the table is not even worth discussing. Re-anchor the discussion with your own proposal. If the other guy persists in his nonsense, leave the room and execute on your BATNA.

Improving the other guy's understanding of the situation and exploring options for its mutually gainful resolution is absolutely a valid negotiating gambit. But only when there is room for mutual gain through negotiations and the other guy shows interest in negotiating.

Once it becomes clear that you are going to need to execute on your BATNA, you don't owe the other guy anything. If your BATNA is improved by keeping him in the dark (and it usually is), then you keep him in the dark.

Remember when Schaueble traveled home from that first(?) Syriza summit in late afternoon, having been assured that important points were settled and only the details were still worked on? Hours later Syriza walked back from the whole thing.

[Citation Needed]

And not from Stasi 2.0 himself.

Because, and there really isn't any parliamentary way to say this, he's been spending the last ten years doing a stellar impression of a pathologically dishonest sociopath.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

I have difficultis with the timeline

"The finale came on Friday with a last offer from the creditors - the European commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - which represented a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum, revamping the pensions system, creating a new VAT regime, slashing the defence budget, and cutting proposed taxes on business in return for a five-month bailout extension worth €15.5bn (£11 bn).

Financial experts from both sides were still negotiating in Brussels late on Friday when the call came through from Athens ordering them to quit, Dijsselbloem said. Tsipras then went on television to announce the plebiscite."

How does that fit with:

"Three things happened Friday. 1. Greece had a proposal that converged closely with the Institutions, except for $200m extra cut for military. 2. Institutions had a proposal that walked back increase on hotels from 6% VAT to 23%. 3. The Eurogroup not only ripped up the Greek proposal, but also the Institution's proposal, and then it gave Greece an ultimatum: extend the current MoU for 6 month, but without the requisite funding to see your debt repayments, or your banking solvency"

Is the take or leave it ultimatum supposed to be 2.?

And neither the greek proposal nor any ripping up is mentioned in the guardian narrative.

Remember when Schaueble traveled home from that first(?) Syriza summit in late afternoon, having been assured that important points were settled and only the details were still worked on? Hours later Syriza walked back from the whole thing.

I don't "remember" any such thing, since I live all of my time living outside of the German information bubble (and most of it living outside the US informatiom bubble), so I don't "remember" events based on the spin given by a politician that is a party to negotiations.

Some eurozone ministers called Tsipras's decision "bizarre" and said they were mystified about what he was trying to do.

If they live in an alternative universe where they (or their minders) believe that the ultimatum they were presenting was less bad for the Greeks than default, no wonder they were mystified by what he is trying to do ... to wit, trying to get a firm proposal from the Eurogroup / Troika melange that is superior to default.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.