JGreekFlagSinkingust days after a European ”œdeal” on Greek debt, the signatories are already squabbling about what it means. Germany says the new Greek administration must stick with its austerity program; the Syriza ministry says it can abandon it and, indeed, is already reversing important privatization initiatives.

It calls to mind a wise precept from Henry Kissinger in White House Years: ”œA negotiation can succeed only if the minimum terms of each side can be made to coincide.” It applies here, and far more widely including to more ominous developments like the crisis in Ukraine.

The inner workings of government
Keep track of who’s doing what to get federal policy made. In The Functionary.
The Functionary
Our newsletter about the public service. Nominated for a Digital Publishing Award.

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The inner workings of government
Keep track of who’s doing what to get federal policy made. In The Functionary.
The Functionary
Our newsletter about the public service. Nominated for a Digital Publishing Award.

Negotiations can be used to reconcile differences or to paper over them. The latter approach generally only buys time for bad things to happen.

John Robson
John Robson is a documentary filmmaker, an Invited Professor at the University of Ottawa and a commentator-at-large with News Talk Radio 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D in American history from the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked in academia, think tanks and politics as well as doing print, radio and television journalism in Canada, and produced and hosted the documentary The Great War Remembered for Sun News Network in 2014. He is married to Brigitte Pellerin.

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