The Greek coalition government seemed to be standing on shaky ground this week, with rumors of the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL) party threatening to lead the partnership to collapse, due to differences in handling the country’s negotiations with FYROM and the catpure of two Greek officers by Turkey.
But as much as the government’s critics – and mainly the opposition – would welcome the opportunity to host an elextion before the end of the Parliament’s term, all clouds seemed to have been dispersed on Tuesday, when the two coalition parties’ leaders, PM Alexis Tsipras and Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, had a meeting.
“Cooperation between SYRIZA and AN.EL, despite the persistence of those writing scenarios about the opposite, will continue until the end, and with respect to the ‘red lines’,” said the Defence Minister, after the meeting, without clarifying what these “red lines” are. Kammenos said that there is an “honourable and public relationship between the two parties”, which both “retain their political autonomy without one being absorbed by the other. We are going forward with what we have jointly decided, to do what we promised, which is to lead Greece out of an enormous economic crisis and the Greek people out of impoverishment,” he added.
The cooperation between a party formed by a merger of various radical leftist parties and groups and one echoing the ideology of the populist far-right-verging-to-nationalism, has always seemed as an anomaly both inside and outside of Greece. But the parties share a history of anti-bailout and anti-austerity rhetoric, both seeing their influence rising during ther first years of the Crisis.
Critics of this cooperation had been particularly weary of the hot-tempered Minister of Defense, but so far, there has not been any incident in which the far-right junior coalition partner has presented any ideological objections to policy, even voting for the new laws about gender identity recognition.
However, these past few weeks have been difficult, as Greece faces two significant issues with its neighbouring countries, Turkey and FYROM; the Defense Minister is referring to the Greek soldiers imprisoned in Turkey for violating the borders, as “hostages” and mentioned that, although it is a bilateral issue, it requires attention by the EU and NATO. As for the Greece – FYROM negotiations, Kammenos insists on refusing to co-sign any agreement that would grant FYROM to use the name ‘Macedonia’ and continues to call the country to remove irredentist elements from its constitution. But he also insists that the government is stable and working together to forge a national line for both issues.