European Voice ) — PROFILE Costas Simitis Greece’s Mr Chinaman
A FEW foreign correspondents in Athens recall a particserious doubts about the leader’s economic wisdom. Thehis final illness at the end of 1995, it was to the unflappable ular evening in October 1981, just after the first Greekbreak came in 1988 when he resigned from the keySimitis that the insecure Socialist rank and file turned. First Socialist government’s election victory, when the rookienational economy ministry after Papandreou orderedcame him the post of replacement prime minister in January cabinet was feted at the Foreign Press Association. to loosen the purse-strings for an upcoming election,1996, and followed by party leader a few months later and then Attention focused on the freshly-minted farm minister,throw the entire national budget out of kilter as a resultre-election as prime minister in his own right almost the only one of the new power élite who did not“My arithmetic and the prime minister’s do not agree,” Cautious and conciliatory Simitis may be, but the other talk much but never relaxed his ingratiating toothy grin.was his sole public comment, delivered in his trademarkside of the coin is an indecisiveness which has lopped That is how the Greek and international public gotacademic to style of understatement points off his approval ratings for his conduct of both know Constantine - Costas for short - Simitis. A cautious man by temperament, Simitis remained deafeconomic and foreign policy. At the time, few could have guessed that this combito pleas from associates for him to challenge PapandreouOn the plus side of his premiership is dramatic success nation of smiles and technocratic dead-seriousness wouldfor the Pasok leadership, or even form a new party. Suchin fighting inflation Long the highest in the EU, it has been propel Simitis, like the legendary Odysseus, unscathedmoves would, at the time, have been political suicide. slashed from over 12% to less than 5% in two years. through the witches’ kitchen of Greek politics to assumeBut he never regained the leader’s trust When PapanBut privatisation is lagging badly, despite pleas from the premiership in January 1996 at the age of 60. dreou earned a second spell as premier in the early 1990s,technocrat ministers and no end of think-tanks, and Simitis may look and sound Greek, but he does notSimitis act was in and out of the doghouse at the master’sincreasingly strident urgings from Brussels. Pensioners like a Greek. In a volatile country where politics havewhim. But the master was declining and when he sank intoand manual workers are complaining bitterly, which always been theatre and heroes are means the Pasok Party’s influential set up for the mere pleasure of left wing is being kept on a leash knocking them down, Simitis is the only with difficulty. anti-hero. Coming up to no more Bitter are the denunciations from than shoulder height on most other the left, which accuses Simitis of European leaders, he is no orator having abandoned the workers’ and has never pretended to be one. cause, and is why he still dare not But the strongest thing his enemies rile the powerful unions. Although he have been able to throw at him is the faces the left-right policy conun nickname ‘Kinezos’ (Chinaman), a drums common to Europe’s other back-handed tribute to his inscrut left-of-centre leaders, Simitis has so ability and undoubted political far backed away from vital labour and cunning - not to mention his sallow fiscal reforms as soon as the Pasok complexion. left has issued its Cerberian growls. And while other politicians in Then there is the chronic dispute theatreland have inevitably become with Turkey over very real and media addicts, Simitis has never serious problems of sovereign rights sought such exposure. According to in the Aegean Sea and divided close associates, this is more cool Cyprus, issues that so far have defied calculation than temperament even the considerable diplomatic “The media and political estab talents of America’s star regional lishment in Greece have always had troubleshooter, Richard Holbrooke. this very incestuous relationship,” Confronted by a Greek media sw^jerfinnrrtist. Ioannis. a., establishment which whips up anti- close associate. “Simitis is the only Turkish fever on the slightest pre political figure I know who refuses text, Simitis has had more reason to play the media game.” than ever to avoid the limelight The Greek political stage has, His Turkish policy has been however, become a duller place signally unsatisfying to the public, as since Simitis - the quintessential evidenced by his 75-minute meeting man in the grey suit - quietly with Turkish Prime Minister Mesut manoeuvred his way up the olive Yilmaz in Crete earlier this month oil-smeared pole to supplant the when both leaders merely agreed to ailing founder of the Panhellenic keep on disagreeing. “I don’t think Socialist Movement (Pasok), . anyone will be gunning for me back Andreas Papandreou, in January in Athens,” Simitis quipped after the 1996. Papandreou had been the meeting. But they were. consummate grandstand master. His Conciliation has proved politically larger-than-life role had thrilled and risky in a country whose electorate, titillated Greeks and foreigners alike egged on by an often irresponsible with its heady mix of champagne media, would love its leader to be a Socialism, anti-American rhetoric Turk-basher. But he leaves shooting and his 1988 marriage to a blonde from the hip to his burly foreign Olympic Airways hostess. How minister, Theodore Pangalos. could Simitis follow an act like that? Many Greeks cannot quite forgive Bom in June 1936 in the port of Simitis for saying ‘thank you’ to the Piraeus, Simitis soaked up left-wing • US government after it helped deflect ideology from his father, a law y a Greek-Turkish armed clash over professor who became a leading /M /J U /ft ?■ the ownership of a few square metres member of the Communist-led of Aegean rock in January 1996. insurgency which tried to seize power Simitis was thrown in at the deep in a bloody civil war in the 1940s, but end, and has never quite recovered. was defeated by Greek nationalists Washington is happy enough that with British and American aid. Greece and Turkey are still talking, Oddly, for someone closely con but the cost to Simitis at home is nected with the anti-Nazi resistance great A poll by Flash FM, a mildly in his youth, Simitis junior chose to study in Germany, pro-govemment Athens radio station, found he garnered entering the academic world as a law lecturer at Marburg 23 June 1936; Born in Athens a mere 9% approval rate for his conduct of foreign policy. University in 1959. After a brief tenure at the London1959: Graduated from University of Marburg (Germany) But he does not have too much to worry about in the School of Economics, Simitis returned to Greece ready 1961:to Greek Supreme Court lawyer short term. Thanks more to a spiritless and squabbling translate his political ideas into action. 1965: Co-founder of Alexandros Papanastasiou Society Conservative opposition than to any signal achievements The Greece of the mid-1960s was wracked with polit 1967-69: Clandestine action against the junta. of his own government Simitis is fairly secure in his job ical turbulence as a US-backed constitutional monarchy1971: Professor at Justus Liebig University (Giessen) until the next elections scheduled for the autumn of 2000. and conservative democratic establishment tried, by fair 1974: Founder member of Panhellenic Socialist His score in the poll was actually the second highest of means or foul, to thwart the rising left The Gordian knot Movement (Pasok) any Greek political figure (outdone only by Pangalos). was slashed in April 1967 by the Colonels, who inaugu1977-81: Professor of Commercial Law at Pantion The ultimate test of his premiership will, however, be rated a seven-year military-backed dictatorship. University of Political Sciences (Athens) whether he can knock enough heads together to forge After a time spent wearing false beards and tossing a few 1981-85: Minister of agriculture Greece’s immature Socialist Party into a solid social demo bombs about, Simitis eluded a court martial and escaped 1985-87: Minister of national economy crat institution; pare down the massive government deficit abroad, where he quickly joined Papandreou’s budding1989: Minister of education left by the disastrous Papandreou era so that Greece can anti-junta organisation, the Panhellenic Resistance1993-94: Minister of industry, energy, technology and join the EU single currency by 2001; and wean the Greeks Movement (PAK) - the embryo of today’s Pasok. com m erce away from their confrontation mentality towards Turkey. But however attracted by Papandreou’s rhetoric, once18 Jan 1996- Prime minister. It will take more than a quiet, technocratic attitude and in government Simitis almost at once began entertaining an inscrutable grin to pull that off.