The PM who queued for the cinema

by | Jan 13, 2025 | Editorial and Analysis

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Costas Simitis was the antidote to much that preceded him in Greek politics. He was the antithesis of the populism and the melodramatic conflicts that had sometimes gone before him. Lacking the charisma and rhetorical skills of Andreas Papandreou or Konstantinos Mitsotakis, he was awkward making public speeches to large crowds. In contrast to the choreography of “Andreas” in Syntagma, Simitis’ on-stage persona was closer to that of a bank manager called to government. In the context of politics at the time, he appeared “un-Greek” in his style.

Indeed, it was remarkable that he emerged as PM and leader of PASOK at all. Few would have bet on him doing so against the likes of Akis Tsochatzopoulos and Gerasimos Arsenis, each with a stronger base within the party. Andreas Papandreou had earlier disparagingly told his associates that Simitis was “not really PASOK.”

And, yet, Simitis had a wider appeal: attracting those hungry for reform and tired of old ideological confrontations. He redrew the political landscape and his footprint on Greece’s pathway was heavy. History will surely acknowledge that he was one of the most able prime ministers in modern Greek history and that his governments recorded major and lasting achievements. That he did so, with his quiet persona, his modesty, his decency, and his respectful manner to all made his premiership even more remarkable.

His rise also tells us something important in the changes under way in Greek society at the time. Frustrated by the “larger-than-life” character of his predecessors, voters warmed to the PM who might be seen standing in a queue, with his wife, to enter a cinema in Athens. Simitis appealed across party divides to those yearning for a pragmatic politics and evidence-based policies. And he mostly delivered: Simitis showed that Greece had a reform capacity beyond the expectations of many and that real progress could be made.

His broad-based appeal, focused on reform, was consistent with his friend Nikiforos Diamandouros’ depiction of progress in Greek history reflecting a struggle over its “cultural dualism.” Simitis reached out to “modernizers” (reformists, not traditionalists) sometimes beyond PASOK, and fostered a new political generation.

It would be wrong to dismiss Simitis the politician as a technocrat, lacking in ideology. The Simitis project of “modernization” was carefully thought through and had depth. Its choices were social democratic in nature. If Andreas’ worldview was laced with the leftist international political economy of Immanuel Wallerstein, Simitis’ project lacked nothing in comparison in its intellectual rigor and sophistication. Andreas spoke of paternalistic capitalism and client nations on the periphery; Simitis sought a Greece placed at the core of a developing European project. The latter narrative has survived more strongly than the former.

Internationally, Simitis’ project was part of a new, so-called “third wave” of socialism. He became PM in the same year that Romano Prodi headed his first government in Italy, one year ahead of both Tony Blair in the UK and Lionel Jospin in France, and two years before Gerhard Schroeder became German chancellor. Arguably, Simitis’ reputation in history will be more favorable than any of them.

Today, Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz have rekindled this ideological stance. Unlike Simitis and his contemporaries, however, they have not developed as substantive a narrative to explain their political projects, and their profile is less confident and more lightweight as a result. In fairness, they probably face much stronger “culture wars,” with the rise of a populist and nationalist right. The nearest parallel for Simitis was the conflict over the revised “identity card” issue in 2000, a sensitive matter that he deftly avoided to stop it derailing his wider project.

Abroad, Simitis raised Greece’s reputation. The plaudits this week from his contemporaries like Tony Blair attest to the respect accorded to him as a politician and a man. Within the European Union, Simitis’ Greece elicited credibility and admiration. He brought fresh thinking and pragmatism to foreign policy issues, as with his handling of the EU’s Helsinki Agreement in 1999.

Simitis was a proud alumnus of the London School of Economics – he was a student there in 1963. As PM and after, he joined in the school’s activities in Greece and supported the establishment of the Eleftherios Venizelos Chair and the Hellenic Observatory at the LSE. I was delighted, on behalf of the school, to bestow on him in 2023 an “honorary fellowship,” our highest honor.

Simitis’ politics still resonate in today’s Greece – a reference point for struggles on the center-left, but also for reformists across political divides. That we might discuss who is his closest heir – Nikos Androulakis or Kyriakos Mitsotakis or others – is testimony to his stature and legacy. And, that we can equate Simitis’ project, so strongly, within a wider European frame is exceptional in the history of the Metapolitefsi.


Kevin Featherstone is emeritus professor, London School of Economics, and chair of the Anglo-Hellenic League.

 

https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/1258370/the-pm-who-queued-for-the-cinema/

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