It is Friday 19 June, and my youngest son, who lives in central Athens, is on the phone.
‘What do you think I should do with my money?’ he asks. He hasn’t got much, and I’m the last person he should be consulting: my mother, who died more than twenty years ago, told me more than once that I have champagne taste on a beer income, and that I’d never be rich.
How right she was. So in this moment I flounder more than a little, and burble something about leaving the money where it is, ‘as a gesture of confidence.’
‘A gesture of confidence isn’t going to do me much good when I lose the little money I’ve got.’
And I am forced to concede that he has a point, seeing that the much-feared Grexit looms more threateningly every minute. The conversation is left in limbo.
Between Tuesday and Friday Greeks made bank withdrawals of at least two billion euros. Deposits of any substance have not been made for a long time, Greece has to pay its creditors 1.6 billion euros by the end of the month, and the European Central Bank did nothing for frayed nerves by suggesting that Greek banks might not open on Monday. A friend told me of seeing a girl in tears as she turned away from an ATM. The machine was working, but had denied her request: many people fear this, fear being unable to get hold of ready cash.
Also on Friday Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, rather than being in Brussels, was in St Petersburg, a surprise attendee at the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum. But perhaps Tsipras’s presence was not such a surprise, after all. A staunch Communist in his youth, he has few warm feelings for the United States, (currently insisting that the burden of compromise is the Greeks’ responsibility), and has lately been engaging in fiery rhetoric against the powers that be in Europe, labeling them ‘criminals,’ and accusing them of exploiting Greece.
His Russian visit is seen in some quarters as an attempt by both leaders to thumb their noses at Europe: Tsipras is demonstrating he has friends elsewhere, and may be hoping to put a little pressure on the EU via this manoeuvre, while Putin has had Europe’s attention distracted from the Ukraine, even if only momentarily. But so far there is no real indication that Russia is going to help Greece.
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