It is not hard to understand why the Greek prime minister’s office might have chosen the eve of Alexis Tsipras’s meetings in Berlin to remind Europe of his standing invitation to visit Moscow. Nor was it a standing invitation any more. Tsipras, it has been announced, is to visit Russia on 8 April – exactly a month before he had been expected to go to Moscow.
The original plan had been for him to attach bilateral meetings to his attendance at the Kremlin’s second world war Victory Day celebrations on 8 May. Tsipras may well go to Moscow for the festivities in May – another occasion that could underline the distance between Germany and Greece, as Chancellor Angela Merkel has already said she will sit this particular jamboree out.
As to why Tsipras’s visit to Moscow has been brought forward, there should be little mystery there. He will meet President Vladimir Putin just weeks before the money from Brussels is due to run out. There have been reports that Russia has offered, or could offer, a bailout if the European Union declines. Both in the timing of the trip and its presumed purpose, Greece is saying to Europe, and specifically to Germany: be careful, Athens has a choice.
In Moscow, it would not be hard to find some symmetry between the predicaments of Greece and Ukraine. From the Kremlin’s perspective, both could be regarded as countries where a battle is on, not just for their future orientation, but for their very soul. Each is perched at the edge of its traditional bloc; each is on the brink of bankruptcy. If Moscow fears it has lost (most of) Ukraine, might it have designs on the allegiance of Greece, as some sort of recompense?
This is the alarmist scenario that is being held out in some quarters, including Germany’s Bild tabloid. The argument goes that if Athens and Berlin cannot come to terms that would allow Greece to remain in the euro, then Greece could flounce out, accept a bailout from Moscow, and make a new start as the western outpost of an Orthodox world, rather than soldiering on as a poor relation at the eastern edge of the EU.
Such thinking, however, ignores a host of realities. The first, and most basic, is Russia’s present situation. Of course, Moscow has an interest in courting possible new allies, at a time when it finds itself quarantined by the EU and the US. More elementary even than this: it is probably grateful for anyone to talk to, at a time when few people want to go to Moscow unless it is to make representations about Ukraine.
But it has to be asked whether Russia could actually afford to bail Greece out, even if it thought the price worth paying. Russia faces severe economic difficulties of its own, in part because of western sanctions, but mostly because of its ageing infrastructure and the fall in global oil prices. There might also be hostility from ordinary Russians, if they were told to accept hardship, while money was being shovelled towards Greece. The subsidies that go to pacify Chechnya are already an unpopular drain on the Russian exchequer.
The second reason for hesitation is the idea of a cohesive Orthodox world. Yes, Greeks and Russians are both nominally Orthodox, and yes, Russians flocked to church after the fall of the Soviet Union, partly because the collapse of communism was also a rebirth of Russia. But Greek and Russian Orthodoxy are distinct branches of one family, and this particular family has been as dysfunctional as any. There may be a cultural affinity around religious rite, but too much else aside from religion draws Greeks and Russians apart.
And third there is the zero-sum fallacy: that if Greece left the euro, it would defect to Moscow – or anywhere else. Leaving the euro would not automatically entail Greece leaving the EU, still less the western bloc. As shown by the visit to Athens of assistant US secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, the US might be even more concerned than the EU if Greece made a move to the east, because it would diminish Nato and western defences.
So far, this is all about signals and bargaining. In its current position of weakness, Greece can be forgiven for playing the Russia card – just as Moscow, in its semi-isolation, can be understood for its overtures towards Greece, and not just towards Greece, but towards other European critics of the EU, including some of the parties on the far right. But there is a big difference between diplomatic signals and action. Putin may be smiling a big come-hither smile at Greece, while snarling at the EU, but the time for a Greater Orthodox bloc has not, and will not, come.