ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The leaders of Russia and Greece produced a grand pageant of solidarity,
friendship and supposed economic cooperation at Russia’s annual gathering for global business executives
Friday, but the embrace seemed mostly about thumbing their noses at Europe.
For President Vladimir V. Putin, giving the Greek prime minister a high-profile
international platform served to eclipse the issue of the war in eastern
Ukraine, which was all anybody could talk about at the St. Petersburg International
Economic Forum last
year.
“There was an obsession about Ukraine, headlines all
the time — Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,” said Charles Robertson, managing
director and global chief economist at Renaissance Capital.
“Now, how many people died in the
Donetsk region yesterday? How much shelling was there? Does anyone know?” he
asked. “Greece has become the European story, rather than Ukraine and Russia.”
Alexis Tsipras, the leftist Greek prime minister, made
a surprise appearance at the forum’s main event, emerging from the audience in
the packed convention center to deliver a speech immediately after Mr. Putin.
It was a chance for him to bathe in warm applause
while he denounced the European Union, to show that he had friends and to try
to pressure Brussels to give a little ground in crucial debt talks next week.
Yet he received no Russian money and limited investment pledges.
The result was perhaps best summed up by statements
from the Kremlin and Mr. Tsipras after bilateral talks. They agreed to produce
a joint memo about future plans for cooperation — by November. There was no
discussion of financial aid, Russia said.
Mr. Tsipras himself recognized the incongruity of
appearing in St. Petersburg while the economic fate of his country is
uncertain. “Many are asking themselves the question, why am I here?” he said,
acknowledging the urgent debt talks in Europe. “Why am I not in Brussels?”
For too long, he said, Europe has thought of itself as
the fulcrum of the global economic order, while real weight is shifting to
Asia, Russia and elsewhere.
About the closest thing to an
actual deal was a memorandum of understanding signed by Greece and Gazprom, the
Russian state energy giant, on the construction of a gas pipeline, an extension
of one that will carry Russian gas to Europe through Turkey. Russia committed
to pay for the pipeline and hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees.
There are myriad bonds uniting
the two leaders and their countries. Greece and Russia share the Orthodox
Christian faith. Mr. Tsipras was a staunch Communist in his youth and has long
been critical of the United States. He has opposed the West’s economic
sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
For months, there has been the
tantalizing possibility of a grand bargain that would be a stick in the West’s
eye: that Greece would provide the one vote needed to block European sanctions
in exchange for a financial crutch from the Kremlin.
But the hard reality voiced by
leading economic figures in Russia was that it was not about to lend Greece
money; that it was not even going to buy Greek bonds; that its businessmen were
as reluctant as the rest of the world to get involved in such an economic
morass; and that the main question was whether the German chancellor, Angela
Merkel, would decide in the crisis talks next week to extend the European
Union’s lifeline.
At a post-speech session on
Greek-Russian economic cooperation, political and business leaders continued to
mouth odes to partnership, even noting that the countries shared a love of
poetry.
But the numbers present a
different story. Because of the Western sanctions and Russia’s blockade of many
food imports from Europe, trade between Greece and Russia dropped 40 percent in
2014 and another 40 percent this year, officials said. Twenty percent fewer
Russian tourists flew to Greece because of the collapse of the ruble against
the euro.
Dmitry Razorenov, who presented
himself as an enthusiastic Russian investor in Dodoni, a major Greek producer
of feta and yogurt, provided a reality check. Outside investors are dismayed by
the lack of predictability and transparency in the Greek economy, he warned,
and are alarmed by the amount of debt companies there carry.
Mr. Putin echoed that
sentiment. After arguing that Russia’s economic problems were receding, he
shifted the focus, drawing laughter and applause by noting that the solution to
the Greek conundrum lay elsewhere.
The Greek problem, he said,
“is not just a problem for Greece, but for all of Europe.”
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