One month ago the prime minister had warned his ministers that he will not tolerate delays in implementing the preconditions for completing the bailout evaluation. To underline the urgency of the situation he said he will not tolerate delays and technical obstacles, but to no avail.
Yesterday, the deputy minister to the prime minister, Dimitris Liakos, who coordinates implementation of bailout commitments, sent a letter to ministers telling them to finish up.
That is because of the 88 preconditions for completing the evaluation, only three have been met.
At the same time, the president of the Eurogroup, Mario Centeno, in a letter, said that all the preconditions should be completed in the next 14 days. Centeno stressed that the timeframe is pressing if the government wants an agreement by the end of June.
On the one hand, the prime minister takes as a given and promises a clean exit from the memorandum, and on the other hand his government is working at its regular pace, either purposely or due to in an inability to meet the commitments he has undertaken.
It is clear that his ministers prefer to preoccupy themselves with statements, pledges, and attacks against the opposition, instead of rushing to implement the necessary measures to complete the evaluation.
That tactic, however, is almost irrational. On the one hand they celebrate in advance the bailout memorandum exit and cultivate false hopes for the end of austerity, and on the other they undermine that objective, which they themselves set.
That way they offer more arguments for those among the creditors who doubt their sense of responsibility and effectiveness in the post-memorandum era, and who demand stricter supervision.
SYRIZA cadres, with some isolated exceptions, are not known for their sense of consequence or their effectiveness. Negotiations must always proceed until the last minute, at which point they run, whether they like it or not, with an omnibus bill to complete pending issues. Yet, there cannot be forced virtue.
