(συνέντευξη στην Katarina Kovacikova)
1. What
consequences left the crisis in Greece in real life?
In May 2010, Greece entered a new-established financial support scheme
backed by the Euro area, the ECB and the IMF and accompanied by a
conditionality-led adjustment program. The main pillars of the program were (and still are) front-loaded fiscal
adjustment, internal devaluation and liberal structural reforms, banks’ recapitalization
and restructuring, and public debt’s “haircut” (private sector) and
re-profiling (official sector). In a few words, it is a “twin-surpluses” self-funded adjustment model as
high surpluses in fiscal and current account balances would shrink funding
dependence from the international markets. In 2016, Greece has managed to “correct” its initial and structural
“twin-deficits” problem, with heavy, however, economic and social losses. Total output is decreased by 26% during the adjustment era. Unemployment rate was 23.6% in 2016, while in 2013 it reached 27.5%,
affecting significantly the younger people that feed the “brain-drain”
phenomenon. The share of people at risk of poverty or social inclusion was at 35.6%
in 2016 (from 27.6% in 2009), while inequality also increased during the
adjustment era.
Unfortunately, during the adjustment era some people were faced with a
greater decrease of their living standards than others, i.e. families and
citizens working in the private sector. The extremely high levels of unemployment and poverty represent the
negative developments in the private dimension of the economy, while the wider
public sector is in better position. So, taking into account the deficiencies and the fiscal limitations of
the welfare state in Greece, the “safety net” seems to be the family, which
remains a fundamental unofficial pillar of the (traditional) state-led growth
model of Greece.
3. Is there an estimate of the extent to which the standard of living
can fall to keep the state from spreading?
After a long recession period that started back
to the end of 2008, there is no room for considering a further fall in the
living standards of the Greek society. On the contrary, the main objective, after 7
years of adjustment and 3 bailout programs, is the country’s gradual return to
economic and social normality through a path of strong and substantial growth. So, in order to achieve this Greece must focus
on the implementation of structural reforms and the reorientation of the country’s
old-fashioned growth model.
(το σύνολο της συνέντευξης, μέρος του οποίου αξιοποιήθηκε εδώ)
