Sorry, we’re closed…

The latest news in Greece’s front is that all workers’ unions today are on strike. The whole country is not working today. To give you an idea, even the country’s airspace is closed today, until midnight tonight. There will be no public transportation, newspapers, news broadcasting and mostly all schools and public sector departments will be closed for the day. There are also some marches planned for today in major cities where I hope no bad incidents will happen.


All these events are not making the situation any easier. The way I see it (from the outside), some tough measures have to be taken in order to help the country’s economy. There is simply no other way. Of course it’s going to be tough. Ok, I might sound arrogant now since I’m speaking from a very safe place. However, from my point of view, the measures announced can be the nation’s only hope. If the current government manages to decrease the public deficit of 12.7% to 8.7% during 2010 alone as they pledge, it will be wonderful. Truthfully, I wasn’t a great supporter of that specific party in the past, but from what I can see, they are indeed working in the right direction.

On the other hand, the opposition broadcasts that the situation is not that bad. They claim that Greece’s been through tougher periods and that the current government is not making the right choices by putting all this pressure on the people. They argue that the bailout agreement with the rest of the EU countries was wrong, damaging Greece’s image to the rest of Europe. The fact that the country is not that popular can be proven by an article on German’s ‘Focus’ magazine displaying the following cover (that caused a major bad reaction in Greece) whose title can be translated as “imposters in the Euro-Zone”.


There is a part of the Greek population believing that there is a conspiracy against the country. That everybody is targeting it to cover their own mess and that the rest of the ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) group is not in a much better position. I don’t know how much this accusation is correct but the truth is that the country needs some drastic measures in order to start being productive and reduce its debt. What do they think has to be done in order to accomplish that? How can declaring a whole day of mass strike help?

I’m not going to talk much about what the left wing parties are saying. They are so much out of reality, I’m not sure they know what’s going on. I quote from their website: They (the workers being on strike) have shown that Greece is not in danger of bankruptcy and that the big capital is responsible for the deficits and the debts. It’s the big capital that before and during the crisis has made fabulous profits blackmailing the working and popular strata and placing the burden of the crisis on their shoulders. They also make a list of demands like 1400 euro minimum salary or Full health and pharmaceutical care for all, without of course stating how all that will be achieved.

Anyway, the whole situation is sad. What made me smile though is an article I found in Times that lists the ‘Grand resort of Lagonissi’ in Athens as one of the most expensive hotels in the world where the Royal Villa costs £21,000 per night ($32,300). It looks quite nice though:


Ok, I know I'm being all political again... Sorry