Newsletter No11

2013 Newsletter - Issue 11 of the European Union. It is very timely, then, Editorial that the Observatory has been able to welcome two senior research fellows on Cyprus - holding INSIDE THIS ISSUE Greece continues to be a major international the Andreas N. Hadjiyiannis Fellowship: Rebecca focus, as it continues to pursue the adjustments Bryant and Nikos Skoutaris. We were also very required under the terms of its two debt ‘bail- Editorial 1 pleased to collaborate with Neapolis University, outs’. This provides the Observatory with a Cyprus in appointing another fellow (George Public Lecture with major and varied agenda for its public events 2 Kyris) and jointly organising a conference on the Alexis Tsipras programme and its research agenda. This News- EU presidency in Paphos. In October 2012 we letter provides us with the opportunity to report Panel Discussion on the hosted Andreas D. Mavroyiannis, the Deputy 3 Euro-crisis and Greece on what we’ve done recently and what we plan Minister for European Affairs in Cyprus for a for the coming year. The Observatory remains public lecture and the following month we wel- The 6th Biennial PhD 4 in a good position to deliver on both of these Symposium comed Mr Nikos Anastasiades for a policy dimensions. roundtable - some months before he was elect- LSEsu Hellenic Society Our public events programme has again been 5 ed President of Cyprus. In May 2013, we collab- 1st Hellenic Forum lively and well-supported. We were pleased to orated with the LSE’s Financial Markets Group host Alexis Tsipras, the Leader of the Opposi- Public Lecture with to host a lecture by Athanasios Orphanides, the 6 Andreas Mavroyiannis tion, for a lecture and Q&A at the School. The former Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus. SYRIZA leader attracted a large audience - we Greece has faced very painful social conse- PRIO Cyprus 2012 6 could have filled the theatre twice over - to Annual Conference quences from the austerity it has been obliged listen to his perspective on Greece’s economic to follow. In conjunction with the University of Policy Roundtable with 7 options. the Peloponnese (Masters’ Programme on Euro- Nicos Anstasiades With the Hellenic Bankers’ Association of the pean Social Policy), the Observatory held a one- Neapolis University & UK, we hosted a panel debate at the School on 7 day conference in Corinth entitled, ‘Whither HO 2012 Forum how Greece can best exit the crisis. This brought Social Policy? Social Policy in Greece in times of together economists with sharply differing Crisis’, in May 2013. Social Policy Conference 8 views - Daniel Gros (Director of the Centre for For most of our public events, you can down- European Policy Studies in Brussels); Professor HO Co-branded Events 8 load podcasts and/or presentations from our Michalis Haliassos (Goethe University Frankfurt) speakers - simply go to the HO’s webpages, the Research Seminars 9 and the LSE’s Professor Charles Goodhart - to address is given on the last page of this News- try to disprove George Bernard Shaw’s com- GreeSE Papers 10 letter. ment about economists and conclusions. The research activities of the HO continue to be Core Staff Research 11 Throughout the academic year, the Observatory successful: drawing both on our permanent has continued its very successful research semi- A.N. Hadjiyiannis academic staff and our research fellows. The 12 nar series, with speakers from amongst our own Senior Research Fellows ‘GreeSE’ discussion paper series has now pub- Research Fellows and from further afield. lished its 73 issue, for example. th Visiting Fellows 12 In June 2013, we were proud to host our 6 The profile of the Observatory also continues to Biennial PhD Symposium on Contemporary Post-doctoral grow internationally - with frequent coverage in 13 Fellowships Greece and Cyprus. This again attracted a large the international media and a high number number of current research students to present Research Associates 13 (22,230) of visitors to our HO webpages. their work in specialist panels chaired by estab- We hope you will find this Newsletter of inter- Staff Publications 14 lished academics. It was again very pleasing that est. Please do join our mailing list to keep in- students came from many different countries - Donors formed of our activities. We look forward to 14 & Advisory Board Germany, Canada, The Netherlands etc., as well welcoming you to our upcoming events. as from Greece and the UK. Professor Costas Finally, let me thank my colleague, Dr Spyros NBG Research Call 15 Lapavitsas of SOAS gave a popular plenary lec- Economides, who has been the Acting Director ture on the Greek crisis. OPAP Scholarships 15 of the Observatory this last year whilst I have This last year saw Cyprus receive more foreign been on sabbatical leave. He has done an excel- Forthcoming Events 16 attention. It was obliged to accept a bail-out in lent job! & Who’s Who the context of its debt crisis. In the second-half of 2012, Cyprus held the six-month Presidency Kevin Featherstone Director Page 2 THE HELLENIC OBSERVATORY PUBLIC LECTURE with Alexis Tsipras ‘Greece's way out of the crisis’ On 14 March 2013 we had the range of policies that ought to be pleasure to host a Public Lecture by pursued in Europe, as an alternative Mr Alexis Tsipras, President of SYRI- to the policies of austerity. While he ZA - USF and leader of the opposi- talked about the need to strengthen tion in the Greek parliament, titled the fiscal transfer mechanisms with- ’Greece's way out of the crisis’. This in the Union (across Member States was a highly-anticipated lecture, as - including through the issuance of SYRIZA’s strong opposition to Eurobonds) and to reform the gov- Greece’s fiscal consolidation pro- ernance and function of the ECB, gramme and ‘anti-memorandum’ there was much less emphasis and rhetoric keeps generating a lot of detail on his party’s policy proposals controversy in Greece and much with regard to the wider economic nervousness - concerning Greece’s governance of Europe (e.g., the role position in the Eurozone - interna- of fiscal rules and surveillance) as Alexis Tsipras, President of SYRIZA - USF tionally. well as with regard to key policy questions versation with Professor Kevin concerning Featherstone, Director of the Hel- the imple- lenic Observatory, who chaired the mentation of event, and a Q&A session with structural questions from the general audi- reforms ence. A reception with students, (domestically) staff, and guests followed. The and the types Event was widely covered by the of policy in- Greek media: ethnos.gr, inews, tervention Kathimerini, SKAI, To Vima and needed to many more. stimulate productivity growth and From Left to Right: competitive- Spyros Economides, Konstantinos Bikas, Kevin Featherstone, A page dedicated to Alexis Tsipras, Paul Kelly, Euclid Tsakalotos ness (at the Mr Tsipras Lecture European level). is available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/ Mr Tsipras stated from the onset of Instead, Mr Tsipras emphasised the europeanInstitute/research/ his speech the main premise of his role of society - and of social mobili- hellenicObservatory/Events/ opposition to the policies followed sation in particular - in changing the pubLectures/ in Greece and in the Eurozone more direction of policy towards a more Tsipras_2013.aspx widely: “The policies of austerity democratic, more inclusive and less that are being implemented in Eu- unequal Europe. “In the past”, he rope, not only in the Eurozone, but said, “elites have never given up also here in the UK, do not appear their power and privileges willingly. to be providing a viable exit from It is unlikely the crisis. They do not even seem to they will do be the preconditions for such an so in the exit. On the contrary, they are deep- future. Only ening the crisis and making any such a demo- exit in the future more difficult”. He cratic drive went on to explain his party stance to change on Europe, emphasising his support the balance to the European integration project, of class but for a ‘social Europe’, that would forces with- put “people’s concerns and needs in Europe before bankers’ profits”, placing the can bring notions of solidarity, redistribution about a and social security at the heart of progressive “what Europe is”. exit”. Alexis Tsipras delivering his speech His speech was much less specific - The lecture in a packed Sheikh Zayed Theatre perhaps disappointingly so - on the was followed by a con- 2013 Newsletter- Issue 11 Page 3 PANEL DISCUSSION CO-ORGANISED WITH THE HELLENIC BANKERS ASSOCIATION-UK ‘Euro-Crisis and Greece’ Already three years into the Euro- however, that at the current junc- A page dedicated zone crisis, debates about the caus- ture, the ‘exit option’ (getting out of to this Panel Discussion the euro) would is available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/ be even worse. europeanInstitute/research/ The second hellenicObservatory/Events/ otherEvents/ speaker, Dr Dan- HBA_Panel_Discussion_2013 iel Gros (CEPS), .aspx focused his speech on the issue of competi- emphasis to fiscal consolidation and tiveness, arguing austerity. that the depth of The presentations were followed by the recession in an interesting debate between the each country - panellists, prompted also by ques- and, in the same tions from the audience. The debate logic, the exit highlighted some areas of disagree- The Panel from Left to Right: Charles Goodhart, from the crisis - Kevin Featherstone, Daniel Gros, Michael Haliassos ment (for example, on the issue of depends on each competitiveness and whether, or to country’s export es and possible solutions to the what extent, this is an issue of wage growth capacity and performance. crisis remain hot and controversial. moderation and internal devalua- Continuing our collaboration with According to his analysis, the under- the UK Hellenic Bankers’ Association lying problem for (UK), on 20 March 2013 we hosted Greece was ‘an a Panel Debate on the topic of ‘Euro extraordinarily -Crisis and Greece’, with an excel- bad export per- lent line-up of speakers, separated formance’, by their rather divergent views on worse than that the issue but united in their deep achieved by knowledge and expertise on the other bailout topic.

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