The late premier Costas Simitis is very likely to win the one battle that no politician gets to see the outcome of: the battle for his legacy.
Simitis governed in a manner reminiscent of Konstantinos Karamanlis – the notebook he used was the continuation of a way of governing that was practical and based on meeting goals. He was also a politician who had ambitions for Greece. He was never particularly liked by the people because, like Konstantinos Mitsotakis (father of the current premier, Kyriakos), he seemed like the bitter medicine that Greeks had to swallow to recover from the frenzy of waste and “debauchery” that had preceded in the country. As a friend said, “the Greeks would like someone to govern them like Simitis, but who speaks like [the late Archbishop] Christodoulos.”
Simitis himself produced a way of thinking and operating, but also a large “school” of state officials who, to this day, hold key positions and contribute to public life. He put Greece in the euro area and, together with late Cypriot president Glafcos Clerides, Cyprus in the European Union. He left behind significant public infrastructure, and he took the role of a statesman after his tenure ended, making significant public interventions that were not always popular.
I confess that I had almost no contact with the late prime minister while he was in office. I was bothered by the overprotective circle around him and the close associates that sought absolute control of information in the era of extreme and arrogant economic “bliss.” However, I had the opportunity to talk to him several times in recent years. I thought it was important for him to provide some answers to critical questions concerning his two terms.
When asked why corruption and the vested interests and corrupt relationships across the hierarchy of power boomed during his time in office and whether he knew about it, his answer has remained etched in my memory: “I think I had undergone an expansion of consciousness. I was hearing so much that I did not know what to believe and how to verify it.” When asked why he did not proceed with some crucial reforms, such as in social security, the answer was given to me, in Simitis’ presence, by his close associate and author Nikos Themelis: “Sometimes we felt that we were governing, but from up there Andreas [Papandreou] was governing with the old PASOK.”
For the 1996 Imia military crisis, his answer was expected, as he believed that he did not yet have the levers of power in his hands and that the main mistake was the uncontrolled escalation of the crisis. When asked why the painful compromise of the 1997 Madrid Declaration with the acceptance of Turkish “legitimate, vital interests and concerns” in the Aegean was not followed up with the completion of the deal, which was supposedly ready, Simitis’ answer was that the political time for this to happen had expired.
He was, however, blunt when asked whether the removal of religious affiliation on identity cards “was a mistake, a secondary issue that swallowed up valuable political capital and alienated him from a significant part of the Greek people.” He did not believe it was a mistake and insisted that it was a matter of principle.
My conversations with Simitis were always extremely interesting because they did not concern what the websites wrote on the day, but important international issues, in which he was sometimes prophetic. Like when he described to me a NATO summit at which he himself was present. US President Bill Clinton had invited Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whom he got drunk and turned into a clown who ate with his hands, entertaining Western leaders. “At that time I felt that this was a big mistake,” he told me, adding, “One day the West will pay for it.”
History will judge him when the dust and the ephemeral hubbub settle. It would perhaps have been even more positive toward him if he had dared to do the one thing he did not: self-criticize.