Towards a way out of the Greek crisis

INTRODUCTION: CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS AND FRACTURING SOCIAL COHESION For the past 18 months, Greece has been under the intense, and ever intensifying, media spotlight for all the wrong reasons. After the bailout of 110m euros of May last year, a new assistance package may be decided in July, designed to keep Greece afloat until 2014 or 2015, when, the hope is, it will return to the markets on its own. The price for this (or these) bailout package(s) is drastic austerity – a new instalment of measures has recently (29/6/11) been voted by Parliament. At the same time, there is growing scepticism, indeed hostility, in large portions of society to the bailouts and the concomitant austerity. The popular anger towards the Papandreou government may be construed as an implicit dialogue between Greece and its European partners. Many in Europe will be dismayed at the feelings and overall stance of the Greek ‘indignados’ – anger and refusal to accept responsibility for the country’s debts. I happen to think that the latter is rather dishonourable and in fact demeaning for Greek people themselves – the debts have been amassed by a sovereign, free and democratic state and therefore owned by the people, just like the decisions that led to them. But I have some sympathy for people’s anger, and share some of their instinctive scepticism about the overall strategy of bailout-driven austerity