It was the winter of 1978, the temperature read minus 17 degrees Celsius in the Red Square in Moscow. The Soviet leadership was hosting the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, who had just arrived at the Kremlin. The Greek side was hoping that by approaching the Soviets it would strengthen its position in relation to the Cypriot dispute.

It did not take long for the Greek delegation to div out that the talks for informal partnerships and friendship with Moscow had a limited scope. The delegation also realized that “public friendship” is one thing and what goes on in the background is another. The Greek side had the impression that since Moscow had sent Chernenko, a full member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, there was an intention for opening and changes (?) in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean.

In his talks with the General Secretary at the time Brezhnev, the Greek Prime Minister quickly realized that the Soviet leader was speaking about the need for peace and stability in the world…

A month later the Greek Prime Minister had the opportunity to hear out the Chinese. Beijing bluntly urged Karamanlis to protect and support… NATO!

It is typical for government to present developments in alignment with their public proclamations.

One such example are the America bases that are always meant to leave, but yet they remain in Greece. Everyone can remember the absurdities at the time.

Now we are experiencing a similar case. The government is celebrating the automatic adjustment mechanism as a major win in our relations with the European Union. It is presenting the fact that our country will be under supervision as a Greek triumph.

In essence we are called to applaud giving the European Union the right to monitor our country’s treasure, whenever and however it desires. Also, to disallow passing laws that are not approved by the European Union.

The prospect of remaining under supervision for years is depressing. But we can’t have it another way. Since we are unable to keep our house in order, then we will have to have others do it for us.

If our partners did not impose the automatic adjustment mechanism, we would have had to come up with it ourselves!

Stavros P. Psycharis

Originally published in the Sunday print edition