Draghi was not slow to act.

Gradually both the banks and the public sector of Greece went dry, thus
reducing dramatically the state’s room for maneuver. The Syriza government was for months engaged
in a breathless race to secure liquidity to pay for public sector salaries, pensions and other obligations,
while the ECB tightened the screws steadily and ruthlessly. Eventually, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of
Syriza, was forced to confront the reality of the promises he had made to the Greek people before the
historic January 25 election that brought Syriza to power. Tsipras had vowed that he would negotiate
“hard” to get rid of the bailout agreements, but without taking the country out of the European
Monetary Union (EMU). Simple logic dictated that for Greece to sustain itself during the negotiations
and perhaps to succeed in casting aside the bailouts, it would have to have regular access to liquidity.

Unfortunately, Draghi and the ECB were not going to oblige. The choice for the country after the
February 20 agreement was stark: either generate liquidity independently, which of course implied
abandoning the EMU and reverting to the national currency, or surrender abjectly to its lenders.
Tsipras could try all he liked, but he simply could not fulfill his electoral promises. The tragedy was
that this awful dilemma was neither clear to most Syriza voters, nor to its members of parliament and
ministers. It was possibly not clear even to Tsipras himself. The bulk of Syriza continued to labor
under the illusion that “Europe” would somehow see sense, a compromise would be reached, and
some agreement would be implemented that would not be as disastrous as the two previous Greek
bailouts. Needless to say, during the period that followed the February 20 agreement, all thoughts of
implementing social radicalism and reasserting national dignity dissipated in the breathless search for
a compromise, any compromise.

This was the context in which the “Programme of Social and National Rescue” was written. The aim
was to provide a coherent and clear argument — a series of steps — explaining how Greece could
adopt an anti-bailout strategy, rather than submit to the dictates of the lenders. The foundation was
provided by my earlier joint work with Heiner Flassbeck; Verso publishing house had published that
work as a book (Against the Troika) a mere day before Syriza’s January 25 victory. The program puts
forth an integrated set of measures that constituted an alternative policy: writing off debt, rejecting
balanced budgets, nationalizing banks, redistributing income through tax reform and redesigning the
relationship between the private and the public sector. These measures would be impossible to take
within the rigid confines of the eurozone. A radical government would have to consider reintroducing
a national currency if it wished to implement them.

What had not been done in earlier work was show how the transition to a national currency could take
place. It is, of course, far from easy to work out the actions needed to both reintroduce a new currency

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and also deal with the ensuing turbulence and beginning to implement the broader economic and
social transformation of the country. With this is mind, the program outlines twenty-nine steps that
chart a coherent way out of the disastrous monetary union for Greece. It is no more than a roadmap,
though one that is based on ample empirical and theoretical research. No one is more aware than I am
of the deficiencies and limitations of the analysis in the program. For one thing, a great deal has
changed in Greece and Europe since it was written. For another, there is a need for more detailed
empirical elaboration of several of its components. Equally, however, no one is more aware of the
pressure-cooker conditions under which the analysis was undertaken in Athens and of the lack of
resources. Above all, no one is more aware of the desperate effort to spur a badly needed public debate
in Greece. Alas, the attempt proved futile and in the end it was impossible even to make the plan
public. There are many reasons for that, but the political class of Greece — extending from left to right
— must take much of the blame. Given the complete absence of debate, Tsipras was able to claim
that no alternative program existed that could offer a realistic way out of his terrible dilemma. This
was always disingenuous on his part, but it served his political purposes brilliantly.

The “Programme of Social and National Rescue” was eventually made public after the September 20
election. It was, first and foremost, an act of setting the historical record straight. But there was also a
real political purpose to putting it in the public eye, even belatedly. After many years in effective
hypnosis, the European left has begun to wake up to the disaster of the EMU, and to the impossibility
of radical policy within the confines of the euro.

The awakening of the European left is certainly welcome, provided that the lessons of Syriza’s failure,
as well as of the conservative hardening of both the EMU and the EU, are put to good use. What is
required in Europe at present is more national work on exiting the EMU — French, Spanish, Italian,
and, dare I say it, German. Only after producing a body of left-wing approaches that reflect each
country’s traditions and specificities will there be a proper foundation for the European left to develop
a transnational approach that would free Europe from the shackles of a failed monetary union and set it
on a path favoring labor.

The national is the real basis for the international, as has always been the case in the history of
capitalism. Without plans developed at the national level, all attempts at developing an international
plan lack foundations and are little more than political spin. There is no doubt in my mind that when
the components of the European left come to do the required work at the national level, they will find
in the program an indispensable aid, despite its many deficiencies. That is its real value and its
contribution to the unfolding debate on the future of Europe and the role of the Left.