Greece: Truckers Strike, Tourists Helpless

The big truck drivers meeting has started to … begin, with representatives of 60 associations  coming together to decide whether to extend the strike or not. As far as I can understand it can takes some hours until a decision is taken. It is considered quite possible that the strike will end under the threat of ‘civil mobilization” and the immense pressure from the bussiness world and tourist industry.

The government has issued an emergency “civil mobilization” order to force truck drivers to go back to work, but striking drivers defy the order. Greek media report that only 200 mobilization orders have been delivered so far to fuel tanker drivers.

The fuel supplies are better as of this morning as private fuel tankers have started to supply petrol stations. If the strike ends the situation will come back to normal within hours.

Foreign Tourists & the Fuel Strike

Thousands tourists from Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia touring Greece by car are stranded in Northern Greece. Andreas Andreadis, Chairman of Greek Hotels Federation said yesterday that bookings countries have been frozen due to the strike and that normally 100.000 bookings are planned for Greece at this time of the year.

The fuel strike affects also and  the thousands of Albanians working in Greece, who traditionally drive back home beginning of August.

Foreign tourists are quite confused and unsure about the issue most probably due to lack of adequate information and language problems.

There is the example of Hungarian family that turned to its consulate to seek fuel.

Hungarian portal Caboodle.hu reports of the family complaining of receiving no assistance from Hungary’s consulate in Athens, but Tibor Kaizinger, the consul, said at MTI’s enquiry that “nobody was in serious danger” because of the fuel shortage.