After five months of negotiations between the Greek government and the European “institutions,” things may be finally boiling over. The dramatic situation has captured international headlines and perhaps overshadowed domestic efforts at reform by the Syriza government.

Jacobin recently sat down with Dimosthenis Papadatos, a Syriza central committee member, to talk about what the left government has done, in particular, to thwart the extreme right. We discussed the social polarization produced by the economic crisis and how it legitimized Golden Dawn, as well as Syriza’s efforts to transform key parts of the state apparatuses to diminish the far-right party’s power.

Finally, we discussed the outlines of the radical reforms implemented by the government on the crucial issue of immigration. The measures in this area have the potential to challenge the European Union’s cynical posture towards the migrant crisis, which has turned into a humanitarian disaster. Similarly, their efforts to counter Golden Dawn can have implications for the battle against the far right in Europe more broadly.