Courtesy of Mish.
The Blowout Victory of Syriza has taken on some new meaning outside of Grexit possibilities.
Please consider Greeks Rebuff EU Call for More Russia Sanctions.
A spokesman for the ruling coalition of Alexis Tsipras, prime minister, said Greece had not approved a statement from EU heads of government that asked their foreign ministers to review further sanctions in response to the latest flare-up of violence in eastern Ukraine, blamed by the US and most European nations on Russian-backed separatists.
The Greek statement raised questions over whether the new government, led by the radical leftist Syriza party, would support a continuation of existing EU sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials and Moscow-supported separatists, when they come up for renewal in March.
German chancellor Angela Merkel warned last month that Moscow was trying to make some Balkan states “politically and economically dependent”.
[Mish comment: But hey – political and economic dependence on Germany and the Troika is of course perfectly acceptable]
Nikolai Fyodorov, Russia’s agriculture minister, suggested on January 16 that, if Greece’s debt woes forced it to leave the EU, the Kremlin would help Athens by lifting a ban on Greek food exports that forms part of the measures adopted by Moscow in retaliation for western sanctions.
Syriza has already given a taste of its foreign policy outlook in the European Parliament, where, since last May’s elections, its MEPs have adopted a number of pro-Russian positions, including voting against a EU-Ukrainian association agreement.
Costas Isychos, a Syriza foreign affairs spokesman, last year derided western sanctions on Russia as “neocolonial bulimia” and praised the military efforts of the Kremlin-backed separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
Syriza’s 2013 party manifesto demanded Greece’s exit from Nato and the closure of a US navy base on the island of Crete.
Though a Nato member, Greece in modern times has often enjoyed warm relations with Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, no matter what the political complexion of the government in Athens. The two countries are culturally close, with a shared Orthodox religion, and leftwing Greeks in the cold war used to have an anti-US, anti-imperialist outlook very close to the views of Moscow.
"Neocolonial Bulimia"
That's a good term. It applies to the Troika as well. The IMF is not out to save Greece, it's out to loot Greece for the benefit of external bondholders….
