Last Tuesday, 10 December 2013, BNR News Radio had an item
on its website about the trip of the troika (IMF, ECB and EU) to Greece:
This Tuesday, the examinators
of Greece’s international sponsors go back to this country, which has been so
severely hit by the crisis. Their task is to investigate the current status of
the structural reforms that were demanded by the troika.
This has been
announced in Brussels by Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, in his role as
chairman of the Euro-group.
The Euro-group has
studied the continuing problems with Greece. Until now the international sponsors
refused another financial injection to the tormented country, dissatisfied as they were
with the Greek state budget for 2014, that had been passed in parliament last weekend.
Dijsselbloem stated
this Monday, “to be very much aware of the efforts that Greece makes to make cut
back expenses and of the difficult political situation” in the country.
How difficult the situation still is in Greece, became clear
in a
radio news item that journalist Pieter Gautier of BNR made yesterday
(click the link for the original quotes in Dutch).
Here is the transcript from Pieter’s interview with two pundits about the current
economic situation in Greece:
“Ordinary Greeks
notice very little from the recovery of the Greek economy, in spite of the fact
that the biggest slump is over and the economic data slowly improves. At the moment, unemployment
is still soaring and people are exhausting their reserves at an alarming speed.
Nevertheless, certain
industries in Greece are already growing indeed and, as a consequence of these
improvements, the Greek government is even reckoning with moderate overall growth in
2014.
This, however, does not count for the average Greek, as his personal situation
has only been deteriorating. The Greeks are not doing good at all at the moment.
The plummeting economy
has had enormous consequences for the country itself. The whole economy is busted,
as a matter of fact, and the retail industry and small and medium enterprises have
both been blown away by the economic slump.
Unemployment is
gargantuous and taxes are skyrocketing everywhere. Many, many people have
missed the boat. Many families have absolutely minimal budgets for living. Adult
children start to live with their parents again and sometimes their parents even
start to live with theirs again, in order to save as much money as possible.
People, who have been
unemployed for a long time and who started with some reserves, are now getting
desperate. There is no positive outlook for most people. Some people become
homeless and must even beg for money for necessities, like bread and milk. This
is unique in the history of Greece.
Even in the large
shopping streets there is no sign of economic recovery whatsoever. All shops
that had been closed earlier, are still waiting for new tenants. There is no
new business activity. There have been some new initiatives recently, but only at
a very small scale. Only the export industry shows some moderate growth”.
These statements by the Greek insiders in Pieter Gautier’s
interview show, how hard the crisis hit Greece and how cold and ignorant the
reaction of the European Union has been until now.
Yes of course, the rich and unscrupulous Greek citizens who
stashed their black money in foreign banks in time, the numerous tax dodgers and
the tens of thousands of corrupted politicians and state officials, all have
blood on their hands from the hard-working Greek population, who just want to
live without worries and fears. But so has the European Union…
Irrespectively whether the Greeks ‘deserved’ this economic
hardship for their economic irresponsibility in the beginning of this century or
not; the European Union did let down and even ‘betrayed’ Greece!
They did so by putting the
nearly defaulted country through a period of economic starvation, in which the
country just received enough money from the European Union to pay back the
banks in the other European countries. No money for economic rebuilding and no options for solving the enormous budget crisis.
Too little has been done about:
- making the Greek economy more sturdy and competitive;
- fighting the soaring Greek (youth) unemployment;
- helping the Greeks to reduce their massive debt via a sturdy, but viable action plan;
- seriously pushing and helping the Greeks to fight the widespread corruption and tax evasion, as a mandatory reciprocation for the aid funds from the EU/IMF/ECB troika;
- making sure that the poorest groups in Greece received a fair minimal income to live from.
Instead, the (North) European government leaders
continuously bashed the Greeks for their irresponsible financial / economic behavior in the past and their enormous state debts. The dubious role of many large European banks
in the Greek drama has been ‘swept under the rug’.
Every time, Greece has to raise its hand – as a beggar – for a
new and relatively small part of the aid funds, in return for inhumane and mindless
austerity measures that actually kick the Greek economy further in the dirt. This is a
true disgrace.
To see how the Greek economy is doing at the moment, I created
a few charts, representing some of the fundamentals in the Greek economy and based on data from Eurostat:
 |
| Greek GDP between 2002 and 2013 Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
 |
| Greek imports and exports between 2002 and 2013 Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
 |
| Greek (youth) unemployment data between 2001 and 2013 Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
 |
| M-o-M growth of food and non-food sales between 2002 and 2013 Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
 |
| Working empoverished people in Greece Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
 |
| Development of poverty in Greece Data courtesy of Eurostat Click to enlarge |
All these charts show in a different way how the Greek economy
has suffered from the economic hardship since 2008.
Experts think that it might
take until 2016-2017, until the average Giorgios-in-the-street notices the
economic growth that cautiously kicked in. This is a very long time, for a
country that suffered so hard.
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