Article: An Orthodox Friendship

(The Economist April 7^th 2012)

Article Summary

Not much to say, Greece is one of the best vacation spot in Europe. Furthermore, since hospitality industry is one of the major businesses, invigorating tourism industry would be the Greece government’s main concern; regarding current stagnancy of nation’s economy, tourism is one of the few economic breakthroughs of Greece.

In this regard of Greece’s main concern, this article deals with relationship between Russia and Greece. As mentioned already, although the economic status of Greece currently is notorious, it is still true that Greece is one of the dream spots of Europeans. Not to mention, the coldest and the most barren area among Europe continent, Russia, Russians are also very interested in Greece vacation spots. Despite many different discords: Abbot Ephraim of the Vatopedi monastery alleged for involvement in a land-swap scandal, Moscow is still gratefully willing to keep good relationship with Greece. Not only in the aspect of tourism, but also it seems like Greece is the strategic business and political point for Russia: Gazprom, Russia’s state-backed giant, has expressed an interest in adding DEPA to its growing portfolio of international interests. Thus, Greece is one of the doors for Russia to keep on contact with the Syrian government which Russia supports.

Nevertheless, discouragingly for Russia, Antonis Samaras, Greece’s probable next prime minister, shows few signs of being tempted by either deal from Russia. Also, this disaccord between Russia and Greece also is extended inside the Greece government; that is, Greek politics became more unstable – as many as nine parties could win seats in the next parliament, not all of them with savoury views – there is still plenty of room for Russian influence-mongering. 

Economic Terminologies

DEPA (Dimosia Epichirisi Paroxis Aeriou, Greek: Δημόσια Επιχείρηση Παροχής Αερίου – ΔΕΠΑ; English: Public Gas Corporation) is the public gas supply corporation of Greece. It operates within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Development. In 2005, in order to liberalise the natural gas market, DESFA SA was created as a fully owned subsidiary to transport natural gas within Greece. Since then, DEPA sells gas to large consumers and to the gas supply companies. Natural gas is imported by pipelines from Bulgaria and Turkey and by liquified natural gas at the Revithoussa LNG Terminal.

(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEPA)

Opinion

It is not surprising that Russia is so much interested in Greece; Russia always wanted to be acknowledged as a European country rather than staying as one of the Asian countries or nothing at all. Since Greece is one of the European countries that are near to Russia, economic crisis in Greece would have provided a great chance for Russia to aid them and make a good looking pretext for themselves to be viewed as one of the European countries. For Greece, although there is underlying intension of Russia aiding them, this support would contribute greatly on relieving their government deficits. Actually, since Russia being acknowledged as a European country is not a big deal for Greece, there is no reason for Greece to feel bad about Russia’s support.

Yet, unexpectedly, according to the article, Greece’s probable next prime minister, Antonis Samaras, is not being irenic to Mr. Putin; he is not at all showing interest in Russia’s interest on Greece. As to cite the article, “He(Mr. Putin) is hoping to replace Abbot Epharaim as a Russia’s best friend in Greece”. Though the fact that this line contains is not that much shocking, way the sentence was written is very triggering to the Greece government as we can see; official world top economic magazine The Economist is printed an article that says one country’s government is willing to change and influence on other country’s government. Although this might be very disrespect towards the Greece government, it also indicates that the power of Greece in international society has been tarnished.

Although the line “He(Mr. Putin) is hoping to replace Abbot Epharaim as a Russia’s best friend in Greece” was very short in the article, it truly does imply a lot of issues to us, especially makes us once again think whether welfare state is truly a “Well-fair state” or simply a nanny state.