Greece is sinking even deeper in the Financial Crisis.

[Swedish reporter] Kajsa Ekis Ekman visited this misunderstood country
with a broken social contract where… everybody agrees with each
other.

How would it feel if all that belong to us were sold to pay back loans, from which we
never received any benefit? If our salaries were cut down to half and the money
went directly to foreign banks? And if, while we were preparing ourselves to
struggle for a bare living, on top of that we were called “lazy” and “spoiled”? If
someone can feel what this is like, then one can get an idea of what it means to be
a Greek at the moment.

I’ve just returned from Greece. In a country that is in crisis there’s a special
atmosphere. A certain misery and despair, mixed with the political awakening that
follows major events and causes euphoria. Suddenly, low wages and the difficulty
to pay your bills transformed, from a private issue, into something with common
political content. Some are thinking about emigrating. Others to overthrow the
government. A necessary gas-mask hangs in many homes, as a souvenir from the
riots of the 28th and 29th last June, when the Parliament voted in favor of the
financial Aid Package to Greece. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a country where
every single person I met agrees with the rest. They are all fed up with the euro,
with Germany, with their government and with themselves for electing them. After a
week in Athens, I can say that if I were Greek, I would be fed up too.

What we learn about Greece from the Swedish press is that all Greeks work very
little and get paid very well. Our Minister for Finance, Anders Borg, said that
“Greeks retire when they turn 40″. In an article titled ” Questions and Answers
About Greece” in Dagens Nyheter newspaper of 17/6 one reads that the salaries in
Greece have risen vertically. The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel pleaded

with the Greeks to work more and not take so many vacations. All these, spiced up
with the usual bullshit of a bloated and ineffective state. Now the European Union
will take over, and will lend them even more money; this should settle things, so
why are they still complaining?

What a tragic mess-up of misinformation! And what a tragic lack of solidarity to a
country that we should now support! The Greeks work for the most hours in Europe
- 42 hours per week, according to Eurostat, the statistics service of the EU. The per
capita income there is 803 euros. The real retirement age is not 40 years, as
Anders Borg claims, but 61,4.

In other words, we’re talking about one of the most hard-working and less well-paid
people in Europe. But here we have a country that depends on tourism and not on
any domestic production. And also a country with a broken social contract. Where
the people don’t trust the State, and the State doesn’t provide to its citizens not
even the basic welfare services. And which, on top of everything else, is caught in
the tightrope of the euro.

One could say that every national currency is like a garment. Until recently, every
country would wear the garment that suited her. She could make it wider or tighter if
it was necessary. For example, she could devaluate her currency in a time of crisis,
or adjust her interest rates according to her needs.

But when the euro was introduced, all [EU] countries were suddenly asked to wear
the same garment. Only that the measures for the garment were taken on some
countries – like Germany and France. To other countries, like Greece, the garment
didn’t fit.

Greece has been governed for decades by two “dynasties” – the conservative “Nea
Dimokratia” party and socialist-democratic “PASOK” party, with two families on top,
one in each party. Both governments have taken huge loans, but very few know
what happened to the money acquired by those loans. Much of that money
disappeared with corruption and dark contracts. It is said that to construct a road in
Greece costs more than in any other european country, because of the many
middlemen involved. The people don’t want to pay their tax, since they get nothing
back from the State. A great part of of the tax money is spent to support a state
bureaucracy that exists only to serve itself. At the same time, basic welfare services
are a sad story for the people. A patient has to “give the envelope”, that is to bribe
the doctor in order to receive treatment, while the Greek students need to pay for

private lessons to cope with their school exams. And in the middle of all that came
the 2008 financial crisis. Greece, whose economy was heavily dependent on
tourism, was hit even harder.

Under any other circumstance, the government would just devaluate the national
currency to lead the country out of the crisis. But after introducing the euro, that is
impossible. Greece is restricted by its garment and she can’t take it off. So the
garment is destroyed – only that this is not allowed to happen, since the same
garment is worn by all the other EU countries. So it is better to hack and cut the one
who is wearing it.

This is called “internal devaluation” and it means that simply instead of devaluating
the currency, you reduce the income of the people. After the demand of the EU, the
IMF and the European Central Bank, the Greek State bureaucrats have launched a
plan. Wages will shrink and large expanses of land will be sold. Beaches, airports,
national highways and half of all public services will be sold. There’s a rumour
circulating on Syntagma square that the Acropolis will be bought by a german
corporation.

I stayed in the house of some young people who belong to the “700-euro
generation”. Soon they will be transformed into the “500-euro generation”. They are
my age – in their thirties- not that young anymore, but they feel younger than they
actually are since they’re still wondering what they should do in the future. None of
them has kids. Having children is something inconceivable to them. They are well-
educated, have many years of university education on their backs, but they work
occasionally as wedding decorators. The safest way to find a stable job used to be
the public service, but that’s about to change. This situation is not totally foreign to
us; the same applies to our generation across Europe. Only that in Greece the
wages are compressed to the minimum, with the crisis as an excuse.

On Syntagma square is held every afternoon a public assembly. When I was there
in mid-July, the initial enthusiasm had subsided somehow. The participants didn’t
number thousands, but hundreds. Anyone could address the assembly, and the
subjects varied, from proposing a general strike to asking for not to steal things
from the people gathered in the square. Some greek words still are in my head.
One of those is “Isimerinos”, which means Ecuador. The president of Ecuador,
Rafael Correa, was a great hero on the square. Three out of four Greeks want their
country to follow the example of Ecuador and Argentina: stop paying back their
debt. One out of four want their country to leave the euro-zone. What one needs to
understand is that the Greeks are not angry with a necessary evil – rather they’re
angry with an unnecessary evil.

The Aid Package that was given to Greece doesn’t solve the crisis, but rather it
forces the country to sink deeper in it. Instead of investing on the country-side, to
generate some domestic production that is not dependent on tourism, to improve

state welfare and give people hope, they cut back people’s salaries. The IMF,
notorious for its pillaging policies in the Third World, has packed and left from South
America. Now is devouring the edges of Europe. Are we going to allow this to
happen?

Kajsa Ekis Ekman

kulturdebatt@dn.se

Translated from Greek, as posted on http://taxalia.blogspot.com on the 19th of
September 2011.

You can find the original swedish article at

Source: http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/debatt-essa/kajsa-ekis-ekman-nar-eurokostymen-inte-passar