After 12 years of austerity measures and bloody victims, Greece’s debt crisis officially ended today – August 20th. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has indeed officially announced that the EU’s period of “enhanced surveillance” of Athens’ public finances has ended; a similar announcement was made by EU Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni. As of today, the Greek government has full control over its economic policy with greater room for maneuver and no longer has to subject its decisions to Brussels’ approval. This closes a chapter in which, on the one hand, the population suffered cuts in wages, pensions and public services in exchange for help to survive; on the other hand, inteta Europe risked seeing the single currency project fail.
* The Athens and Brussels announcement – “We have had to endure unbearable taxes and cuts in wages and pensions, banking and mortgage controls on public goods, the downgrading of national defence, public education and healthcare, and the marginalization of Greece’s position in Europe and in the world,” Prime Minister Mitsotakis said in a video message. “Fortunately, all that is now a thing of the past,” he added, then underlined the “four years of demagogy” (referring to the government of his predecessor Alexis Tsipras) that would have delayed the country’s reconstruction, the symbolic conclusion of the most difficult period that the eurozone has experienced”, commented Commissioner Gentiloni from Brussels” Our strong collective response to the pandemic has shown that Europe has learned the lessons of this crisis “.
* The crisis in figures – Since 2010, Greece has struggled with 3 debt rescue programs and received a total of €280 billion in aid. These served largely to repay Athens’ creditors while the real economy was subjected to a series of “blood and tears” measures. At the height of the crisis, GDP had fallen by 25%, government spending by 34% and pensions by 14%. Unemployment had fallen to 28%. Although the country’s fundamentals are far from optimal, the situation has changed significantly today. GDP grew by 8.3% in 2021 and will close at +4 in 2022, the unemployed make up 11% of the population, while the rise in prices, which has reached 11%, is a cause for concern.
* Chronicle – The Greek debt crisis officially began in 2010 when then Prime Minister Papandreu had to admit that the state budgets had been falsified. A crisis of confidence erupts, elevating government bonds to the status of “garbage” as early as April of that year, forcing the Troika to prepare a 110 billion bailout plan in exchange for radical reforms, followed by a second “package” in 2012. However, the results are still a long way off: in 2014, Greece’s growth was only 0.7% while the country was in an unprecedented social crisis with an exponential rise in poverty. Specifically, Greece has left the euro several times and there is a risk that the contagion could spread to other highly indebted countries, including Italy. In this context, the new Syriza party, led by Tsipras and on a collision course with the policies imposed by Brussels, won the 2015 elections with 36.4% of the vote. Athens is becoming a continental symbol not only of the opposition to “technocrats” and “bankers” On July 5, a referendum called by Tsipras himself rejected the new measures demanded by the EU with 62 percent. But surprisingly, on the 13th, Tsipras follows with a 180-degree turn, Tsipras accepting the nth “package” that envisages Brussels’ strict vigilance over Hellenic economic policies.