;)
tagged: Angela Merkel, France, George Papandreou, Germany, Greece, Nicolas Sarkozy, realnews.gr, reform delays, tele conference callGreece’s “Reformers” Without ….Reforms
Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Editor
Everyone who follows the Greek governmental efforts to comply with the Troika dictates like opening professions and cutting state spending has been knowing this for long: Reforms are been voted, but reforms are not been implemented. The government is afraid to break with the guilds and powerful unions that fed for decades. The government delays to sanitize the public sector, while continuing the waste of public money. Just today, I read about the Water Company in Volos (Central Greece) where primary and secondary education employees enjoy salaries of €32,000-45,000 per year. Wages that those currently working in the private sector can only dream about and thus in their next life. The government lingers to proceed with the privatization – a painful, shameful and insulting for the country measure which however is necessary to pay back the huge loans. Privatization target was 1,3 billion euro until end of September. Nothing has happened yet. The target of getting taxes by the systematic dodgers limits in publishing the names of the tax evaders. The opening of closed professions for taxis and trucks and sectors like the energy are been slowly chewed between the teeth of a greedy monster of clientelism and favoritism. Civil servants’s wages decreased by 13% and yet the public spending for wages is down only by 7%. State institutions with diffuse duties apparently merge and yet, 70 new arise, as I hear.
As important structural reforms and changes remain on the agreement papers, the government has found only one way to meet with Troika’s demands. And this is taxes, levies and special contributions. Not to mention the absence of measures for development.
The same complains come also from the side of the Troika technocrats in Brussels. According to Sunday newspaper Real News, the technocrats complain about bureaucracy, labyrinthine procedures and the delay strategies while even the appointed Greek ‘contact persons’ refer them to other officials when it comes to provide information. “We didn’t get it when the pharmacists’ profession was open, neither when the taxi license price was voted” told an anonymous source the newspaper. “It is as if they don’t want to be rescued”.
In Real News I found also an interesting comment written by a columnist who in fact defends the governing party line in television and radio programmes.
“Reformers” without … Reforms
Since signing the MoU [Greece - Troika Loan Agreement], the Papandreou government announced all the reforms to be made, while many of these have already been voted. Announcements and legislative initiatives have caused damage to PASOK and have created social unrest. Once, indeed, the government reached the brink of collapse.
All these are reasonable. What is absurd? That in fact this is a government of “reformers” without … reforms. Because while they announce them, they vote them and bear the political costs, they don’t apply them! The “labor reserve” bill approved by the parliament in June is a clear example. The opening of closed professions, a second example. The privatizations, the third. Meanwhile because of the above bills the country has been paralyzed with strikes 10 times and the government has lost 50% of its popularity on public surveys. If the measures were announced, voted and implemented, the p;otocoa; ost for the government might have been minor. For sure, however, the benefit for the country would have been bigger.
Will Merkel and Sakrozy ‘buy’ Papandreou’s committments to implement the agreed during the conference call this evening? Will Papandreou finally proceed to do something under the pressure of bankrupting the country?
By the way, the tele-conference will take part one hour later, at 8 pm local time or 1700 GMT.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
“That in fact this is a government of “reformers” without … reforms. Because while they announce them, they vote them and bear the political costs, they don’t apply them!”
I think this is the single most important thing that drives me absolutely NUTS. And it has become very clear that this is the way it has gone for a very long time. 10, 20, maybe 30 year? I can not, for the live of me, understand how this functions.
Sometimes I tell this to my friends abroad. Most of the time I get back a total empty look. That look that says: “I haven’t the faintest what you are talking about.” I then start to sum up the same list that commentator gave and people get mad at ME! No, not Greeks, foreigners. There is a total shutdown in communication when I start with that list of things that were announced, voted through parliament and never implemented.
I don’t think the nomenklatura, but also a large portion of the general public here, has any beginning of an idea how this is perceived outside of Greece. It is madness. And it isn’t even Sparta!