Greece submitted a diplomatic protest against Slovakia’s Finance Minister Peter Kazimir, news agency TASR reported. Reason for the Greek protest were several comments by Kazimir who described the tough Brussels agreement as “a punishment” for the “Greek spring” – in fact confirming many critics who said that the euro leaders humiliation of Greece was politically motivated and had little or nothing to do with fiscal issues.
Furthermore, Kazimir’s statement had also an international impact due to his diplomatically ‘unfortunate‘ – to say it very very polite to – reference to Czechoslovakia Spring of 19 against Russia occupation and the Arab spring of recent years against dictators.
On July 13th Kazimir tweeted:
After a storm of reactions with mainly but not only Greek Twitter users calling him ““stupid”, “bastard”, “Nazi” and “moron” among others, Kazimir deleted his tweet and replaced it with:
The Greek compromise, reached on Monday, is considered to be tough and harsh. If it’s so, it is the unfortunate outcome of ´Syriza Spring’
— Peter Kažimír (@KazimirPeter) July 14, 2015
However Twitter is not the Eurogroup where things can remain nicely secret and many users had screen shots of his initial tweet. Also his “Syriza Spring” triggered a lot of reactions. Yet Kazimir insisted on his line:
In tense situations, some tweets can trigger anger. Our intention to be straightforward about our perspective, not to insult or offend— Peter Kažimír (@KazimirPeter) July 14, 2015
Greece submits diplomatic protest against Kažimír’s comments
SLOVAK Finance Minister Peter Kažimír’s comments on Twitter concerning the results of July 13 talks of eurozone leaders on providing the third bailout to Greece have outraged the Greek government, which has submitted a diplomatic protest in Bratislava, a diplomatic source told the TASR newswire on July 16.
According to the agreement on the bailout package amounting to €86 billion, Greece has to implement tough reforms of the tax and pension systems, the labour market and prepare a major programme of privatisation of state property.
“The Foreign and European Affairs Ministry does not comment on diplomatic communication,” responded ministry spokesman Peter Stano when asked by TASR about the piece of information.
Kažimír after the talks wrote in English on Twitter: “#Greece compromise we reached this morning is tough for Athens because it’s the results of their ‘Greek Spring’ #eurozone”.
The statement caused a commotion on Twitter, with users with mainly Greek names calling him “stupid”, “bastard” and “Nazi”, among other things, TASR reported.
The critical comments on Twitter were not directed against the Greek nation, but only against the country’s irresponsible government, Kažimír later told TASR, adding that if the information is true, he is sorry that he has added to Slovak diplomats’ work by his statements.
“Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that – as of now – I’ll begin walking on my tiptoes concerning the situation in Greece,” Kažimír told TASR. “I’m not being offensive and I’ve never intended to offend the Greek nation.” (full story Slovak Spectator)
During the crucial eurogroup and EURO Leaders Summit, Slovakia has been followed a line devoted to Germany.
To call it “compromise” is much more nasty, just like giving Tsipras the “victory” to let the sell-off-fund be located in Athens and not in Luxembourgh makes no difference, neither is it a compromise.
But hey, so a “Greek compromise” is no compromise at all
Very interesting news about the “political kitchen”.
Whatever side one took – the Greek or German side – the drama made many of us much more euroskeptical , reduced confidence in euro and the EU. But maybe it is good to be skeptical ? Maybe it will prevent new mistakes in the future.
Secret diplomacy is an evil, but twitter diplomacy is a sickness that contaminates the water in the river.