Monday, February 8, 2010
Will they do it?
The Greek government is desperately putting together an austerity plan that might be approved by the European Commission and might reduce the deficit, usually described as "ballooning". There is, however, a fly in the ointment that is filling the balloon: the public sector unions, who have vowed to fight any attempt to bring the budget under control and will call an all-out strike if they do not like what is in the package (and, almost certainly, they will not). The rest of the eurozone and the financial world at large will be watching with interest.
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Will they? You betcha'
ReplyDeleteThe customs and tax officials already have been on strike, protesting farmers have cut off most of Greece's commercial road traffic for the last couple of weeks, and they intend to continue until the gov't caves in. They don't want to hand back their (ill-gotten) subsidies to the EU. And today Papandreou presented a new bill on immigration which according to the Greek papers is controversial - as if he hadn't enough on his plate as it is.
/Mikgen
Sorry, forgot one(?).
ReplyDeleteFrom 0.00 on Wednesday 10th February all flights to and from Greek airports are cancelled. The air traffic controllers are on a 24 hour strike. Mr Papandreou will have to start his travels earlier than planned if he wants to get to Brussles in time.
Surely the Greeks will reform their economy. Anyone can see that, can't they?
Maybe they will wait untill the French reform their public pensions first!
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of other countries in the wings, watching and waiting, and they do not seem to be getting very far with reforms: Spain and Portugal. This could be a bumpy ride.
ReplyDeleteFasten your seat-belts, to quote the great Bette Davis.
ReplyDelete/Mikgen
We're about to find out if the folk that said you can't have a single currency if you don't have a single country were right or not.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the EU will effectively take over the running of the Greek economy (which is pretty much what's happening today anyway - where do think these new tough policies came from?). They'll use this as PRto hoodwink the Germans into funding it. When that trashes the German economy - the EU willstep in and take the reins there as well.
Voila - "ever closer union" without the bother of any more of those nasty referendum-voting-thingies