Protests in Greece
Bu’s Dr Roman Gerodimos blogged for the Independent today with a post entitled: ‘The day that will define Greece’s future’
Roman starts by stating that the biggest success of contemporary Greece has been the establishment of a stable parliamentary democracy since the collapse of the military junta in 1974, but the combination of an unfeasibly large debt and stubbornly high deficit with continuous measures of extreme austerity has lead to a social and political collapse within the country.
Citing the cause of Greece’s problems in the roots of the inflexible and unresponsive governance structures and the inability of the state to collect taxes from traditionally advantaged groups, such as self-employed professionals. This has meant that even further austerity measures (hitting the same demographics of pensioners and employees) have been used in order to make up for the failure of other needs, also facing strong resistance to its efforts to carry through vital reforms.
The parliamentary majority of the governing socialist party is thinning, Roman discusses prospects of Greece defaulting, or even having to leave the euro, concluding that Greece is experiencing a make or break moment.
You can read the full blog post here.
