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Detail of a metope that forms part of the Parthenon sculptures, sometimes referred to in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, is displayed at the British Museum in London, Britain, January 25, 2023.
Everything is political™: Ancient sculptures edition
Sometimes life imitates art. Sometimes art imitates life. And sometimes — sometimes — art actually screws up a summit between two European heads of state. This week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak abruptly canceled a meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis after the Greek leader demanded the return of the so-called “Elgin marbles” in a BBC interview. London says the Greeks had promised not to raise the issue publicly. Athens denies this.
What are the Elgin marbles? A set of sculptures from the Parthenon, the famous ancient Greek temple in Athens. They have been on display at the British Museum since the 19th century, when the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire – Lord Elgin – plucked them off the badly neglected and half-wrecked Parthenon, which at the time was under Ottoman rule.
The government of modern Greece has long demanded their return to Athens. In 2009 the government even opened a swanky new museum to house the treasures. But the British have refused to hand them over. For one thing, London points out, Elgin had Ottoman permission to remove the artworks, which would otherwise have suffered further neglect and destruction.
But more importantly, a 1963 British law meant to shield artworks from politically motivated decisions actually prohibits the British Museum from repatriating works of art altogether. That law has come under fresh scrutiny amid wider debates about whether European museums should return items taken from former colonies.
Is Sunak OK? Using the marbles dispute to cancel a meeting that was meant to focus on “Gaza, Ukraine, climate, and migration” seems distinctly artless. It’s true that Sunak’s Conservative Party is especially adamant that the sculptures should stay in England. And yes, the PM is struggling with a sluggish economy and an intra-party split over immigration. But the Parthenon sculptures are hardly red meat for his base, and in any event, Athens has reportedly been nearing a quiet compromise with the British Museum.
The best explanation we’ve seen: a text message that someone on the EU Commission evidently sent to our Eurasia Group pal Mujtaba Rahman: “Has Sunak lost his marbles?”
Face mask couture: Which world leader wore it best? Global leaders in the COVID era
Fashion has always gone hand-in-hand with global politics, and mask-wearing during the COVID-19 era is no different. Ian Bremmer investigates on GZERO World.
Historic EU COVID recovery fund deal; Turkey and Greece Aegean dispute
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on this week's World In (More Than) 60 Seconds:
How will the EU coronavirus recovery fund work and are there winners and losers?
How it's going to work? Hundreds of billions of euros being distributed between, its collective redistribution from wealthy countries to poor countries. And that money has been now unanimous agreement between all 27 members of the European Union. Not 28, the Brits are no longer a part of the table. And it's historic. It's by far the biggest political success that we've seen anywhere around the world in providing real multilateral leadership to help make it easier for those countries that are suffering the most. In the case of Europe, that means the poorer countries that don't have the ability to bail out their devastated economies. Again, you are seeing double digit contractions across Europe economically this year. Now you're seeing hundreds of billions of euros, half of that will be grants, don't need to pay back, half will be loans. That was a big part of the of the debate, of the controversy.
And who's it going to go to? It's going to go to the southern Europeans, like Italy, like Spain. It's going to go to the Eastern Europeans. And part of that, that's where you have some of the problems that some of those East Europeans do not actually support. All of the mandated rule of law, independent judiciary that you're supposed to, to be a part of the EU, the EU has not been able to sanction them. Countries like Hungary and Poland precisely because you need unanimity to do so and it's hard to get unanimity. Some of the wealthier countries are saying, "well, we're not going to give that money unless we can ensure that everybody that gets it actually is aligned politically." Well, that didn't work. So, countries like Poland and Hungary will continue to have their political systems diverge from those of the west and the north. That's bad for Europe long term, but for the short term, Euroscepticism is actually on the decline, not on the rise, because even if you're a Eurosceptic in a country like Italy or Greece or Hungary, if they're saying they're going to give you money to help bail you out, mutualized debt, something that no one thought could have happened before the pandemic, you're reasonably happy with that. I mean, you know, you're not going to give up free money. That's how I like Ayn Rand Institute accepting cash from the US government. You know, I mean, you read "Atlas Shrugged." I mean, I suppose, though, it was horrible, but that doesn't mean you won't take free money from the government. That's just your ideology. Who cares about that?
What is going on with Turkey and Greece in the Aegean Sea?
Well, the Turkish government is now sending a bunch of military vessels, looks like towards this Greek economic exclusion zone, which is where the Greeks are saying they have the right to exploit resources in the Aegean Sea. The Turks are contesting that. It's kind of like the dispute you've seen in the South China Sea, where the international community clearly supports one set of norms in the fishing and mineral rights that are off of countries borders. But the more powerful country militarily in the region, China, is trying to subvert that. That is what we are potentially now seeing with Turkey and the Greeks. With the Turks saying they have the right to exploit and providing licenses for doing so and suddenly a bunch of military ships showing up. Very interesting because Greece and Turkey are both NATO allies. The Americans are supporting the Greeks, as the international community broadly does here, in terms of their definition of what their territoriality actually implies, where it expands to. But that doesn't mean the Turks are going to listen. And the fact there's been a bit of a bromance between President Trump and Turkish President Erdogan complicates this. So, we should watch this very closely. Big win for the Greeks in terms of the EU deal, potentially big problems in terms of the fight with Turkey.
Finally, is Russian influence in UK politics really the "new normal?"
I'm going to say no. I think people continue to exaggerate what the Russians are actually able to accomplish. It is true that they provided lots of disinformation and certainly weren't saying, they weren't open about it, they weren't saying "this is coming from Russia." It wasn't state propaganda. It was pretending to be local actors with the Brexit referendum, with the Scottish independence referendum, and of course, in the United States with the US elections. But the amount of money is relatively limited. And the outcomes, I would argue, are much more divisive because of problems in these countries themselves. The Russians tried to have that same kind of impact on the German elections and it failed. Why did it fail? Because the German people were generally happier with their social contract, generally weren't prepared to listen to crazy extremist conspiracy theories. In the US, in the UK, where lots of people increasingly feel like their own systems are delegitimized and rigged, they're more willing to listen to wackos. And so, they're more susceptible to delegitimization efforts, whether they're domestic or international. So, if you really want to fix this, I mean, yes, the US needs to respond and show that if the Russians hit us on cyber, we're going to hit them on cyber. That tit for tat is completely understandable and appropriate. But you're not going to fix the problem until you actually build your own resilience at home and that's what we need to be doing. Certainly true for the UK.