Luigi Zingales: belief

Transcript context

…My name is Alexander Skouras, from the Atlas Network. I’m from Greece, so that’s what I’m about to ask you about. Please don’t laugh. I know that you have been following what’s going on in Greece and in other European countries very closely. The question is very simple. Given the new agreement that the European Union signed with Greece, is there anything, under any conditions, you would see something good coming out of it? The second part, what Greece can do in order to get out of the crisis, if we forget about the debt negotiation, which we must assume that is going to take place some time soon? The big hope is that eventually there will be some debt forgiveness in some form that is not called debt forgiveness, but delay of payment to infinity that is tantamount to debt forgiveness. [laughter] This is why politics is so hard, because in economics, you call a spade a spade. If you forgive in present value, isn’t that forgiveness? In politics it’s very different. I think that’s the hope. The big fear that I have is the political backlash we have seen with the rise of Syriza. Now Syriza has been tamed and made part of the European elite. All of a sudden all the newspapers in Europe are celebrating how great is Tsipras, the same guy that, until yesterday, was a communist, a revolutionary, dangerous. Now, he’s sort of part of the European team. Why? Because he signed on the dotted line whatever they told him to sign. My frustration is I agree with a lot of the reforms that the European Union is imposing on Greece. I think that longer term would probably benefit Greece, but I am democratic at heart. I think that the reforms, you should own them. They should not be imposed on you. I think that inevitably the Northern countries are trying to do with Greece what Northern Italy did with Southern Italy. They’re trying not to fix Greece but to minimize the problem for Europe. Nobody really in Brussels, except maybe the Greek representative, cares about Greece and the Greek people. They care about stability in the EU and getting that problem off their agenda, exactly like in Turin people did not care about people in Sicily. They care that the revolt will be sedated. They did whatever it takes to sedate the revolt — including, by the way, aligning with the Mafia. One of the reasons why the Mafia is alive and well is because it was a method of control of Sicily that the Northern army used very effectively. The long‑term costs are huge. Now, I’m not saying the European Union is helping the Greek Mafia, but I wouldn’t exclude it. I wouldn’t exclude it. Also because the people that best can negotiate with the European Union in Greece are part of the Greek elite. They all speak English, travel abroad, are part of the very elite that run the country, up to now, into the grounds. Corrupt, crony, and every negative thing that you’re going to say. Why do you expect these guys, all of a sudden, to change just because they’re blessed by the European Union? I don’t think that that’s the case. I think that I thought that the so‑called bailout of Greece in 2010 was a disaster, was really a bailout of French and German banks covered with the pretense of helping Greece. I think that since then, we’re not recovered from that mistake. I think that’s a really sour spot in the European history and something that will weigh heavily in the future. We have time for just a final, very quick question and quick answer. Next, please.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.