Confronting the meta-problems of democracy.

• Author: Papandreou, George
• Position: International Ass'n of Defense Counsel's 2015 Midyear Meeting

Prime Minister Papandreou originally presented this speech as the Keynote Address to the IADC's 2015 Midyear Meeting held in Marco Island, Florida on February 18, 2015.

1. Where Greece was and is today--Bond Spikes

   WHEN I first received your invitation--in mid-September of last year--there was an accepted view of the Greek and euro economic crisis that we were making real progress. The ten-year Greek bonds were yielding about 5%. Today, it seems we are back in crisis mode. One telltale sign is the fact that yields earlier this month were as high as 11%. (See Figure 1.)

   As bond markets saw that we might go --as we finally did--to a snap election in January, there was a huge spike in bond yields. What was this all about?

   Voters in Greece frustrated after six years of recession and five years of austerity, which has cost us a loss of 25% of our GDP, decided to change course. A new government was elected by promising completely different policies. But is it that easy? Is it a matter of simply changing a government? Or asking the people through a referendum which I attempted to push through?

   That would be a triumph of democracy.

   When I called for a referendum, I was immediately summoned to Cannes, where the G20 was to meet. Nicholas Sarkozy, then President of France, who chaired the G20, warned me, "The markets will go haywire." He was dead against the referendum. No, the people could not have a say!

   No wonder our citizens around the world mistrust politics. They see politicians as impotent and believe that the average citizen has little influence. Most believe that little can change and that everything is futile. Politicians around the world are getting blamed. But are they to blame? Or are they getting a bad rap? Let me take you on a trip through some of my experiences.

2. Personal Stories

   Before I get into the gory details of the crisis in Europe, let me introduce myself--and why I feel strongly about the future of our democracies--by way of some personal stories.

   I was born in St Paul, Minnesota in 1952. We soon moved to California, where I grew up. My father fled from a Greek dictatorship in the 1940s and got a PhD in economics from Harvard. The family moved to Berkeley when he became head of the economics department. As an interesting side note, my father actually became a U.S. citizen and served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. In the early 1950s, he was head of Hubert Humphrey's campaign in the state of Minnesota.

   But I can assure you, growing up I was well aware of my Greek identity. I heard plenty of bedtime stories from my grandmother about Greek gods. I was always reminded of my Greek heritage because every time one of my teachers called out my last name half the class would burst out in laughter.

   No, I was not a Jones or a Smith. It was a time when ethnic names were not popular. So my classmates usually changed my name to GP or Pappy or even Curious George, because my protruding ears reminded them of the famous monkey. Actually, I rather liked the Curious George nickname. He was one of my favorite characters, always trying to discover and always getting into trouble. Maybe it was a sign of what was in store for me later on in life.

   I first travelled to Greece around six years old. Starting out in California, my parents threw the four kids, three boys and one girl, into the back of the station wagon--no seat-belts then--and we took a week, from motel to motel, to get to New York.

   Upon arriving in New York, we sold the car and took an ocean liner to Greece, another two-week trip to the port of Piraeus. I still remember my grandfather, a tall and lanky man with a top hat, waiting for us on the dock. I was his namesake and he greeted me first. He grabbed my ear, pinched my cheek and then slapped me in the face.

   "Uh-oh," I thought, "I'm already in trouble. What did I do?"

   But I soon learned that that was his show of deep emotion and overwhelming love for me. He was a proud man. When I met him he had already been in jail or exiled five times fighting for democracy. And there would be a sixth time.

   I grew up in many different countries around the world. And like most of you, I have a diverse background. I chose to live in Greece. But because of my background, I had competing ideas, competing perspectives in my brain, challenging my every action. For some this can be disconcerting, even threatening. But if you use it as a tool for innovation, change, re-thinking our world, challenging established dogma and stereotypes, and reframing problems to find solutions, this diversity becomes an invaluable asset. I've learned the value--and necessity--of challenging the status quo. Trying to see how Greece, and our world can better itself.

   There is no time better to challenge the status quo than during a crisis. When I became Prime Minister, I saw it as an opportunity to make this crisis a new beginning for Greece. I saw an opportunity to bring transparency and challenge a governance system that had been captured by powerful lobbies and interests, and with it, to reclaim trust and reimagine democracy in a mismanaged Greece.

3. Meta-Problems

   1. Interdependence

      Reclaiming democracy seems to me to be a challenge to all our democracies today, not excluding the U.S. What are the problems our democracies face today? I call these problems meta-problems, from the greek word meta, or beyond. These are problems that are new and beyond the realm of our traditional democracies. How does the Greek experience shed light on these? The first meta-problem I mention is that our politics, our institutions remain essentially local or national, yet our challenges are global.

      It hit me last September when I sat next to Alpha Conde, the President of Guinea, in the United Nations. His country is fighting the Ebola pandemic. I found the debate about Ebola uncannily familiar to what I went through a few years ago when I was Prime Minister of Greece. He made a dramatic plea not to close borders and isolate his country. This, he said, would not solve the problem. Nor would it stop the specter of contagion. Instead, he called for collective action from the international community.

      I was elected into government on the slogan "either we change or we sink". People wanted change in Greece. But just a few days earlier, the previous conservative government had announced that Greece's deficit was 6%.

      When I took office, I was stunned--angered--to discover that we were already sinking! The actual figure was over 15%.

      For Greece, it was a moment of truth. For me, it was a critical test of my leadership. My option was full transparency--to come clean about our situation. Honesty, no matter how painful, was the only way to show all that we were ready to change.

      But some countries, fearing they might be attacked by market speculators, looked at me as if I had a disease. I was a leper.

      I felt empathy with President Conde because like Guinea, isolation, or even an exit from the Euro, rather than cooperation, was being prescribed by many for Greece. Others, much stronger...