Thanasis Photiou
A party leader who supports the government is publicly clashing, and in unusually strong terms, with a minister from the same political camp who also previously served successfully in his father’s government. The head-on confrontation between Nikolas Papadopoulos and Makis Keravnos clearly has political significance, has generated considerable interest, and provides plenty of material for social media commentary. One can revisit old scores, examine their personal relationship, wonder about internal party dynamics, or even consider the implications this conflict could have ahead of 2028.
Allow me, however, to suggest that none of this is the most important point. What matters most is that this confrontation has exposed a problem that concerns the government itself and, ultimately, the President of the Republic. The GSI is perhaps the clearest example. Kathimerini has repeatedly brought the project into the public debate through a series of reports, making it a subject of sustained public discussion. The President says the project will proceed. The Finance Minister continues to express serious reservations about its viability and financial terms. Nikolas Papadopoulos speaks of a government with two voices and asks how a minister can so forcefully challenge a decision that the President himself presents as government policy.
But the question could be framed differently: Why does the President of the Republic allow this situation to exist? Makis Keravnos is not an independent commentator on the government's economic policy. He is its Finance Minister. If what he says is outside the government's policy line, then someone needs to bring him back into line. If, on the other hand, his position is not outside that line, then the government needs to explain exactly what its policy is. The one thing that cannot continue indefinitely is for the President to say one thing while one of his most important ministers sends a different message, without that having political consequences.
This is not the first time the government has appeared to speak with two voices. Just a few weeks ago, the President said he did not know about the purchase of the new presidential limousine. The problem was that the decision had gone through the Council of Ministers, which he himself chairs. The following day, the deputy government spokesman was effectively forced to clarify the President's statement, explaining that what the President had not known were the technical specifications, not the decision itself. He also made the obvious point that members of the Council of Ministers are informed about proposals that ultimately become decisions.
That could be dismissed as an unfortunate incident. But when the same kind of ambiguity keeps appearing on more serious matters of government policy, it stops being merely a communications problem. And this is precisely where another aspect of what Nikolas Papadopoulos said becomes more significant. The president of DIKO was not speaking only about the cable. He referred to government agreements and decisions which, he claims, run into resistance at the Finance Ministry: provident funds, depositors and securities holders affected by the haircut, funding for local government, and agreements with livestock farmers. Put simply, he described a government that agrees, announces and promises, but when the bill comes due, Makis Keravnos' cashbox does not open.
The real political problem lies precisely here. The Finance Minister may have perfectly valid reasons for keeping the cashbox closed. After all, that is one of the basic responsibilities of a finance minister: to say “no” when everyone else wants to say “yes,” and to protect the public finances from political promises that the budget cannot afford. If that is what is happening, then Keravnos is not the problem. The problem is a government that makes commitments before making sure it can deliver on them. If, on the other hand, those commitments have been properly costed, agreed upon and adopted as official government policy, then the opposite question arises: How can a minister block them?
In either case, responsibility ends up in the same office: the Presidential Palace. There is no separate Christodoulides government and separate Finance Ministry. Nor can the Presidential Palace take credit for social commitments while Makis Keravnos gets saddled with the “no.” There is one government, and it is the government of Nikos Christodoulides. And Nikos Christodoulides is the person who sets its policy and bears ultimate responsibility for its implementation.
We therefore find ourselves facing a serious problem of government credibility, particularly for a government that has invested heavily in its social profile. A government's social credentials are not judged by the number of agreements it announces or the promises it makes. They are judged when the time comes to implement them. Who stepped on the brakes matters little, if at all. What citizens remember is what the government promised them and whether it ultimately delivered.
That is why the confrontation between Nikolas Papadopoulos and Makis Keravnos matters for reasons that go beyond whether this is simply a fight between DIKO politicians, how heated it became, or what language was used. It has brought to the surface a situation that the government now needs to explain, clearly. When the President makes a promise and the Finance Minister refuses to pay, which of the two voices represents government policy? One way or another, someone will eventually have to pick up the bill for both the two voices and the inconsistency.
