The reduction in incomes which Greece’s new economic program brings would make sense only if we could hope that the problems of recession and the country’s excessive debt could be solved in a reasonable period of time. Unfortunately, the new program deals with neither problem. The recession will deepen and the debt will remain unviable.

By Grigoris Nikolopoulos

For the adoption of the wrong measures, two groups of people bear responsibility: Primarily, Greek politicians and, secondarily, our foreign partners and international creditors.

Regarding the first group, it is now abundantly clear that their sole aim was and remains the protection of their “buddies,” that is, the party cadres that staff the public sector. In order to protect the public sector, they adopted the wrong measures from the start, mercilessly taxing all incomes, property and consumption. The result was recession, the withering of businesses, the destitution of a large segment of the population and unemployment over 20%. At the same time, the tax hikes led to a decline, rather than an increase, in public revenues due to falling income, business profits and consumption.

 As regards our international creditors, the so-called troika, they only bear indirect responsibility. I am afraid that we misunderstood its role. The troika did not come to rehabilitate our economy and contribute to growth. It came to secure the repayment of our debts. In the beginning, its involvement was mild and in the right direction. It told the government to reduce the public sector by shutting down useless organizations and loss-making public enterprises, sell idle assets, open up closed-shops so as to fight unemployment and let prices fall, and deregulate markets so as to attract investment. The government did nothing, or rather, the only thing it did was to try to deceive the troika by just promising to take action. It preferred to let incomes bleed dry rather than touch the privileges of the party State.

 When our creditors realized that “the Greeks are fraudsters,” they naturally changed their attitude. They gave top priority to getting their money back in any way the Greek government would choose. This resulted in a further tax clobbering of incomes and property. At the same time, the idea started gaining ground in Europe that Greece should be treated in a way that would deter other “undisciplined” members. We have thus reached the point of being penalized with an inapplicable and particularly harsh economic program. We have been set up as a scarecrow for the Portuguese, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Irish, the French and other “problematic” Europeans. This is not a program of economic recovery, but rather, an example of exemplary punishment.

 The misunderstanding is that it was imposed from the outside.