Greece: A Year of Clear Sailing

In Athens last week, the young King of Greece was regaling his friends with his version of an encounter at sea. It seems the sky was clear and the wind low enough so that the officer on the deck of the U.S. carrier Saratoga was able to hail the youthful skipper of the sloop Proteus without a megaphone.

“You know who I am?” said the officer.

“I am admiral of the Sixth Fleet.” “And I’m the King of Greece,” responded Constantine.

The weather ashore in Constantine’s domain last week was as calm as the Mediterranean. While tourists sunned themselves on the beaches and listened to David Oistrakh perform with the Utah Symphony Orchestra in the 1,800-year-old Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Premier Stephan Stephanopoulos, 67, celebrated his first full year in office in his cluttered quarters at the Parliament building. He had been sworn in as Constantine’s solution to the summer-long constitutional crisis provoked by the resignation of Premier George Papandreou last summer and as a way of avoiding Papandreou’s demand for a general election. At the time, Papandreou predicted that the Stephanopoulos government, like two others that Constantine had chosen, would have “an ephemeral life.” Surprisingly, it has lasted.

Tax Reform. The regime has even accomplished some things. Panic buying of gold, which threatened the drachma, was stemmed by the central bank early in the year. Since then, the economy has expanded nicely. Gross national product will be up 8% for 1966, industrial production is up 15% , and after nearly two years of inflation brought on by Papandreou’s free-spending policies, prices have stabilized. Governing with a precarious majority of 152 Deputies (out of a 300-man Parliament), in which the balance of power is held by 40-odd Deputies weaned away from Papandreou’s once-dominant Center Union Party with promises of Cabinet portfolios, Stephanopoulos has rammed through some tax reforms. Even before they went into effect, collections jumped 35% . Possibly this was because the prosperous shipowners and commercial aristocracy who sometimes take a casual attitude toward taxpaying, decided that economic stability could be in their interest as well as that of Stephanopoulos. Unfortunately, Stephanopoulos has made enemies as well as friends. He has so far enacted no social-welfare legislation at all and, in order to economize, slashed the wheat subsidies enacted by Papandreou, enraging the farm vote, which represents 51% of the total. In July, demonstrators protesting the cuts rioted in Salonika. Over 90 police and demonstrators were injured, and 140 demonstrators arrested. If an election was held tomorrow, Papandreou’s Center Union would most likely win.

Ailing Fox. Such a victory, moreover, would have serious repercussions for the monarchy. At 78, ex-Premier George Papandreou is becoming aware that life itself is ephemeral. In the past year, “the Old Fox” has become frail and ail ing, and control of the party is passing day by day into the hands of his ambitious 47-year-old son Andreas, who harangues the voters on the need for “redistribution of income to the poorer classes” and “a dash of socialism.” Papandreou the elder had his differences with King Constantine, but he nonetheless favored the monarchy as an institution, arguing only that “the King should reign and not rule.” His son is a far more outspoken antimonarchist. In an emotional speech last week, he announced that “the Center Union does not accept the King as co-ruler.” Stephanopoulos & Co., he said, “are puppets who take their orders from the King.”

There is no doubt that the King and the Premier see eye to eye on many issues. Stephanopoulos relies heavily on Constantine to keep the right-wing National Radical “Union Party, which supplies the bulk of his parliamentary votes, in line behind him—and thereby postpone the need for a general election, which need not, by law, be held before February 1968. On the other hand, Constantine clearly leaves the day-to-day business of governing to Stephanopoulos and his ministers, and felt secure enough on his throne to leave the country this summer for a holiday of yachting in Denmark and touring in West Germany.