Parliament’s act of voting through the new pension reform bill has opened a new chapter for Greece, and the government will have to face a series of significant challenges. On the one hand, it will have to persevere with its reform agenda in education, in the privatization of ports and in loosening the Gordian knot of Olympic Airlines. On the other, it will also have to deal, quickly and effectively, with mounting social problems. Increasing funding to the Social Cohesion Fund is one of the measures it will have to adopt right away to help the weaker sectors of society who have been hard hit by a combination of the rising cost of living and unemployment.

We have repeatedly expressed the need for a dynamic and reliable opposition. Our political system as a whole requires it to control and offer alternatives to the current administration. PASOK, unfortunately, is experiencing a deep structural crisis. The sooner it becomes a party with a platform again, the better.

The country needs a government that will persist with change, but it also needs an opposition that is not just a sounding board for the discontented.