Opening Ceremony of the 13th Annual Symi Symposium

Poros, 12 July 2010

Speech by George Α. Papandreou Prime Minister, President of PASOK and Socialist International, at the Opening Ceremony of the 13th Annual Symi Symposium

"Dear friends, welcome to the 13TH Symi Symposium; let me welcome both newcomers and old friends. It’s great to see you on this special occasion on this very special and unique year, for Greece at least, but I think for the world too.

I’d like to begin by saying a few words in Greek, so those who don’t speak Greek please bear with me, or put on your interpretation headsets. And this also goes for Greek media that are gracing us today with their presence.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me welcome you to the 13th Symi Symposium. This symposium was first organized thanks to an initiative the “Andreas Papandreou Foundation” undertook in 1998; it has been since held every single year, for 13 consecutive years in Greece. This is a gathering of distinguished figures from the world over aiming primarily at finding and highlighting those progressive ideas that could make the world we live in a better and more equitable place for all.

As I said in the morning session we had with the Socialist International financial crisis committee moderated by Jo Stieglitz, this great financial crisis the whole wide world is going through, my homeland being one of the most characteristic examples, is mostly due to policies or lack thereof. What was missing for decades was proper policies the absence of which instead left our societies without those much-needed rules and regulations, democratic control and transparency a globalised economy really needs. This in turn led to arbitrary attitudes and, just like James Galbraith said this morning, it also led to the toxic bonds fraud that should be blamed on the financial system and a failure of politics to take control of the situation.

Arbitrary stances, lack of transparency and eventually fraud led to huge economic and social disparities which in turn led to the accumulation of the world’s wealth into the hands of the few who placed profit above viability, and who primarily took the decision-making process off the field of democratic control for politics, just like they did with accountability to our citizens and our countries.

It is thus a matter of democracy for politics to have a say, a matter of democracy for our citizens to get their voice back in our respective countries as well as within the framework of our European and global cooperation. We can thus make strong counterweights in the course of our joint cooperation.

Cooperation means cooperation between the citizens of our countries and the citizen society; it signifies the cooperation of all of us who incarnate and express progressive ideas regardless of whether the field we are active in is the field of politics or that of science or culture.

This is where the importance of international initiatives such as the Symi Symposium lies. In the 12 years since 1998 we discussed and exchanged points of view on many of the most critical issues there are both at the global and the regional level. We have talked about the war in Kosovo, the Middle East, policies in the Balkans, Greek-Turkish relations, EU enlargement, and raised subjects ranging from climate change to green growth and development. From the war in Iraq to the global financial crisis, we have debated on a vast array of issues from a progressive point of view.

Many of our ideas turned into real policies that impact on our lives and affect developments around the world. A lot of our ideas were and still are of service to our homeland, Greece, at this critical point in time to overcome the current crisis the Greek people are experiencing.

As you all know we were at the crux of a financial crisis, caught unaware for that matter, as we were fully unprepared. You see, apart from the general causes behind the financial crisis Greece was also faced with a crisis because of its own special and actually aggravating circumstances.

Decade-long phenomena such as lack of transparency in decision-making and red tape of unfathomable dimensions meant that serious public policies and focused actions had been replaced by a clientelistic state, which was ineffective and even vicious. This is what we are paying the price for today as well as for the mismanagement of the Greek citizens’ wealth, the wealth of our country.

As far as our economy is concerned, the country’s growth model to date did not count on quality, creativity and extroversion, but rather on low quality services and products and consumption thereof, indeed one of the subjects that we have previously deliberated on here at the Symi Symposium.

Our economy was one that was highly dependent on the state, offered beneficial policies for the few, and the state unfortunately squandered huge amounts of money to cater for its cronies or to just keep a national economy that was ever-shrinking and recycling itself barely alive.

This is why my country is currently dealing with enormous challenges. We are turning this crisis into an opportunity and switching to an entirely different model, different growth model which is what Greece is really in need of.

Greece must change; this is our government’s objective. It is our goal to change everything that had failed to be changed for decades as far as the state and its operations, the economy and its yield, the democratic institutions were concerned.

This is why this year’s symposium focuses, next to the big global issues, on my very own country, Greece. And I am also well aware of the fact that you wish to contribute in a creative way and make this different Greece happen, especially as concerns growth in particular and to have a shift in our production model. That is exactly how we are going to leave all the years of lack of growth behind us and create a Greek economy which will provide impetus, unleash creative powers and do away with the obstacle of bureaucracy.

This should be an economy capitalizing on our competitive advantages such as the environment and our nature’s beauty, turning them into growth and helping generate new wealth. But above all this green economy, the model we wish to put in place, should be beneficial and offer prospects for safety and security to all Greek men and women who are asked today to be actively involved in this new effort.

Your presence, you joining us here means that Greece indeed has many great and important friends, distinguished figures who wish to and indeed can help it.

It is for this reasons that I wish to thank you once again; thank you for joining us here, in our country, at a time when we really need as many creative ideas and prospects as possible.

Let me also acquaint you with the fact that although the Greek people may be experiencing a tough reality and be subject to many and tough sacrifices, it is my firm and profound conviction that the citizens are aware the effort we are making today is about their future. It is for the future of us all, and this is exactly why the people are backing this venture up on a daily and systematic basis through the hard work they put in, patience they have to show time and again but above all through their persistence in terms of keeping this national venture up and running to ensure our country’s rebirth.

Now let me briefly revert to English. As I mentioned before, this has been a momentous year which has tested most countries, especially my own, Greece.

The crisis forced us to look into where our country fits in the global architecture, but it has also made us discuss, debate and deliberate on how the European Union will manage its role in the world, and how the international community will manage opportunity and crisis in a world where everything is interconnected to such a great extent.

We, in Greece and in my government, are clear: We belong and are very active within the European Union. It is to the Union we turned in our moment of crisis. It is the EU that forms the framework in which we are shaping our future and it is with the promise of what a European Union could mean that we will indeed build a new future.

The European Union is historically, politically and economically unique. By its very nature, it is a test of whether nations can come together in times of crisis and times of opportunity to face common challenges for the common good.

The test we now face is whether our organic growth is keeping pace with global challenges. The deeper we unify, the greater the stakes, and the quicker we must anticipate, pre-empt and respond to opportunities and threats. The deeper we unify, the stronger we become in dealing with our globalizing world.

And the past year showed us how interdependent our globalized society has become. The financial crisis, like a pandemic may have a single source but it can also then metastasize and grow into an epidemic with remarkable speed and virulence.

So inaction is not an option and lack of coordinated action was not an option. Swift and unified decisions, fast at least by European standards, helped intervene in the markets and deal with a threat of unimaginable economic proportions as the crisis which evolved was not only about Greece and even though the European Union was much slower than the markets were.

One lesson we learned is that we need both regulation and democratic control of markets so that they do not outpace democratic decision-making and that they therefore do not undermine the democratic decisions of our societies.

And we have yet some other threats to face: violence, global poverty, new migrant flows, the uncontrolled exploitation of our environment, weapons of mass destruction and their proliferation.

By not having solutions to these problems, we are creating scope for the politics of desperation, or the politics of fear.

We notice, for there are, ideologies that preach total exclusivity, populisms, fundamentalism and racism. They will eventually prevail, if we fail to find solutions to these global problems.

They challenge the very foundations of our society and pluralism upon which the European project is based.

They promise no promised land, but only a new type of barbarism.

Unluckily, there are those that have took advantage of this crisis and used it as an opportunity to strike against the European model, against the social welfare model, against a model of peaceful resolution of conflicts and against a model to protect and promote human rights.

This model, the European Union, should be seen not as a problem but as a solution offering a way out of this crisis, and as a means of protection for the most vulnerable, not a hindrance to economic growth.

And we do notice many conservatives exploiting this criticism, which I believe, in the end, undermines our European project.

These threats must be met with forward-thinking, decisive action. We have a historic responsibility to our citizens within Europe, but also to the rest of the world, the emerging markets and the developing world who are looking for a viable economic model, to define what this project we call Europe could and should offer.

As Europeans, but as progressive citizens and states people too, we must define a Europe that is unified in more than its name, a Europe where financial and political coordination is possible, but also a place where the old can be cared for, the young can find employment, the migrants can feel at home, the entrepreneurs can innovate and the politicians – well, we must make this a place where politicians are neither the servants of the market nor the servants of a state but simply servants to their citizens.

Neither markets nor states are God-like. They are not to be worshipped. They are simply tools in our hands to effectively implement policies for the collective good and the protection of our collective wealth.

Our social welfare systems are not the problem. As we said this morning, in our commission’s session and in our Socialist International council meeting in New York, there are many models, in the Nordic countries and elsewhere, such as in Australia and Canada, which have shown that competitiveness goes hand in hand with a well-organized welfare state and deeply democratic societies.

It is societies of increased inequality and countries where democracy is held hostage to special interests that are most susceptible to crises. There is also lack of competitiveness there, which seems to be one of the developed world’s chronic malaises. It is actually one of the reasons why we have the sovereign debt.

Yet, in a globalized economy, with deep inequalities, where capital can fly from one place to another, from one tax haven to another, from a richer country to a poorer country, we see competitiveness along with lower wages, labor cannot have collective bargaining, human rights are not necessarily respected, welfare systems do not exist, environment can be more easily destroyed, offering, I would suggest just a temporary and short-term competitive advantage to these countries.

I thus would suggest we converge towards a common model, or agree on some common standards, and common values, if you will, so as for both the developed, the developing and the emerging economies to change into a much more equitable society. I am not referring to just what happens within the confines of our nations alone but also what we could have around the world, with much more democratic societies where our citizens do have a voice, and where there should be a much more sustainable society for sustainable growth respectful of our environment.

But this could be Europe’s task. Europe being a global player could take the lead on these issues and become a model in such areas as we would like to see them in a globalizing society.

This is why it’s important that we socialists have come up with proposals, such as for example the Tobin tax, i.e. the so-called transaction tax, or the carbon tax. Coupled together they could be an important tool, not only for the sake of Europe but for the world, favoring development, growth, jobs, the transition to a green economy, helping the transfer of technology to developing societies, and the convergence of our world to a more sustainable one.

So I believe we must bind the Union to its future members but also its existing members with more conviction. This is not simply about enlargement; this is about completing a task which is vital to the stability of the European Union.

I believe it’s time we create a new roadmap for Europe, its current and prospective members alike. And we do have many representatives of these prospective members with us today.

We must bind the Union to its neighbors and other global players, so that we create zones of shared interests, rather than having competing neighborhoods or competing poles. To our east lie Russia, Ukraine and Turkey which is an EU candidate. With these three very large countries the Union must find a much more productive role and modus vivendi.

There are also Brazil, India, China which are as relevant to us as we are to them; we must recognize our responsibility in offering and supporting a social democracy model for them as well.

As for the south: we must build links across the Mediterranean, creating a new sense of stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and establishing new links for energy and commerce. Then we must engage ourselves fully, as we already do, with regions and global institutions, so that we have a strong voice and participate in the institutions that should eventually shape our future.

All this is possible. And I do believe we will be a very important partner also for the United States, Latin America, and the American continent overall.

I would argue that this is possible but it is also necessary. That is why it is a particular pleasure and a privilege that we have Baroness Ashton with us today. I can unofficially, and although it is not in the Lisbon Treaty, call her our new Foreign Minister. A number of EU member-states didn’t like that term, still this is what we hope this new institution will develop into.

So we are very happy to have Cathy join us for the first time along with her family in this Symi Symposium. The European Union has vested in her a unique authority as for her to bring some of this agenda to fruition.

So Cathy, I would like to call you to the podium, and wish you good luck with your work."