Alexis Tsipras, Greek Political Star, Puts Europe on Edge

Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

Alexis Tsipras, 37, vaulted to prominence less than two weeks ago, when his party placed second in national elections.

ATHENS ? At 37, and looking not a bit his years, Alexis Tsipras is clearly enjoying his moment. He vaulted to prominence less than two weeks ago, when his previously obscure left-wing party placed second in national elections with the promise of repudiating the loan agreement Greece?s previous leaders signed in February.

Since then, he has engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken with Europe?s leaders. While they have scrambled to put together contingency plans in case Greece exits the euro zone, Mr. Tsipras has calmly stated his case and let the rest of Europe sweat about the possibly disastrous ramifications if it does.

?It?s true,? he said Friday, with a smile and a glint in his eye, during an interview in his small office in the Greek Parliament. ?I like to play poker.?

While Mr. Tsipras clearly has much of Europe on the run, he hardly seems to be breaking a sweat. ?Our goal isn?t to blackmail or to terrorize, our goal is to shake them,? Mr. Tsipras said coolly of the foreign lenders whose austerity-for-loans deal he wants upended.

?We want to convince them,? he said. ?They need to change the policies in Greece and change the policies in Europe, otherwise Europe will be at very large risk.?

In Mr. Tsipras?s view ? which neatly dovetails with the rising anti-austerity tide across Europe ? Greece?s problem is a European problem that needs a European solution. He insisted that he wants Greece to stay in the euro, just not under the terms of its current bailout. ?The euro zone is a chain with 17 links,? he said, referring to its members. ?Greece is one of these links. If one of these links breaks, the link is destroyed, but the chain falls apart, too.?

Poker references aside, Mr. Tsipras insisted that it was really the financial markets driving much of the crisis, not him or Greece.

?They don?t have any moral scruples, and if they push Greece out, they?ll just move on to the next country,? he said. The next countries in the firing line, he added, happen to be Italy and Spain ? both too big to fail.

While other political parties in Greece are now also calling to renegotiate the loan deal, it is Mr. Tsipras, an untested leftist who could well become Greece?s next prime minister in elections on June 17, who has positioned himself in a showdown with Greece?s lenders.

In the interview, he said he would not veer from pledges to repudiate terms of Greece?s bailout that forced wrenching hardship on average Greeks, a stance that may lead Greece?s lenders to withhold further aid and set off a default.

But as far as he is concerned, negotiations over Greece?s debt deal ?have already begun,? he said, largely because European leaders are already showing signs of being more lenient on austerity. ?The red lines from before no longer apply,? he said.

But while Mr. Tsipras has sometimes been portrayed in the European news media as a wild-eyed radical ? he even seems at times to delight in that caricature ? he is a cool strategist playing a game of brinkmanship with the rest of Europe, and particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. In the past, German and other European leaders have made last-minute maneuvers to keep Greece in the euro, precisely because of fears that an exit would carry too high a cost, from bank collapses across Europe to destabilization of the global financial system.

Mr. Tsipras seems to be betting that they will blink again, but whether they will is far from clear.

Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London, said, ?The Europeans may blink, but this time they might not blink enough.? He said that European leaders might propose a ?mini-Marshall Plan? to stoke growth in Greece, but that what was needed were political changes to promote closer bonds among euro zone countries. ?People are fed up,? Mr. Tilford added. ?They would prefer that Greece stay within the euro zone, but they won?t take the political steps to make Greek membership sustainable.?

Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c20a3ae728fb62beb7aae45b763f0161

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