Commentary: Greek crisis: Tsipras's "honorable compromise" is desirable

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had no choice but to plead as he did Wednesday before the European Parliament (EP) in Strasbourg for an "honorable compromise" in the showdown that is pitting his government against the EU institutions.

After Tuesday's ultimatum from Brussels by the European Council, European Commission and IMF, Tsipras announced that he would present in the next 48 hours a series of concrete measures and that he had sent a request to the European solidarity mechanism for a new aid program.

While Greek banks remain closed and anxiety paralyzes the country, time is running short. Although representatives of the European institutions accuse him of not implementing reforms immediately, he responded correctly that his government has been in office only for five and a half months, while the austerity measures presented as a solution to the crisis have been in place for over five years.

How indeed can the scale of the current disaster be explained only in terms of the policies of the first half of 2015?

Since the beginning of the debt crisis in March 2010, Greece, more than any other European country, has suffered a particularly brutal form of austerity.

The standard of living has dropped to below that of 2008, unemployment has soared, growth is stagnant, and tourism, key to the Greek economy, has been significantly affected while impoverishment is reaching into a wider segment of the population almost daily. Many voices even warn of a looming humanitarian crisis.

Against this background, Tsipras, mandated by over 60 percent of Greek citizens who rejected the creditor's proposals in Sunday's referendum, is right to ask for a sustainable program to be able to honor the debt.

The Greek prime minister has already announced his priorities, namely, to fight against the rule of the oligarchs and cartels, to fight fraud and tax evasion, and to modernize the state. These are ambitious projects that, to be successful, require effective support from Greece's European partners.

The negotiations this week between Athens and Brussels, before Sunday's summit, could well be Greece's last chance. They must lead the way toward a strong commitment to finding a lasting solution to the Greek debt crisis, and also to debt problems in other European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and even France.

What one in fact used to call the Greek crisis is actually a crisis on a European scale. A number of MEPs observe that it reflects the inability of the EU to find a solution to the issue of public debt as a whole. Rare are those who still doubt the consequences of a possible "Grexit" for the Old Continent and the domino effect which could provoke the bankruptcy of Greece.

On Wednesday, some French MEPs also called for a restructuring of Greek debt, taking up the thesis of the economist Thomas Piketty. For the author of the bestselling book "Capital in the 21st century", all sides "must find an agreement somehow."

"Everyone must do their part to ensure that Greece is sure. Intransigence, ideology and nationalism would lead us into a catastrophe. The idea that (the creditor) will get his money back by suffocating the debtor is crazy," he says.

The French economist is not the only one to advocate debt write-off for Greece, in effect following the example of Germany after the Second World War, a sensitive issue for the country of Angela Merkel.

At the 1953 London Conference, which brought together the Allies during the war, negotiators agreed to reduce German debt by 60 percent, a debt that was much higher than that of Greece's today, as it reached 200 percent of Germany's then GDP. In fact, Germany's subsequent "economic miracle" would not have occurred without erasing this debt.

The Greek people are not demanding a miracle and are aware of the need for reform. But Athens must be able to count on European leaders who once again put into practice the spirit of the EU's founding fathers and the principle of solidarity. Endi