Head of industrialists warns political system
The head of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), Dimitris Daskalopoulos, criticized the entire political system and issued a warning that the specter of bankruptcy continues to loom over the country. Addressing the federation’s general meeting, Daskalopoulos said the political parties of the last 35 years are «entangled with the social and economic model either organically or ideologically» and argued that «today it is plain to see the reluctance of all parties to saw off the branch they sit on,» because «they feel that the shrinking of the state and the unhindered growth of private initiative would decrease their power and hence their privileges.» Daskalopoulos went on to pose the question of whether a state-supported political system is able to privatize the economy and society and forecast that «if our political system views the [EU-IMF] support package as a means to maintain the state as created after 1974, it will not be able to rein in the crisis, resulting in it becoming another one of its victims. In other words, the political system needs to overcome itself. If it does not change, it will be overcome.» He further suggested that only the fresher production forces can mobilize Greek society and radically renew the drive toward production, adding that «business knowledge and daring, the creative spirit of the Greeks, can still surprise us,» and that «politically this is the only sustainable challenge to the developments the future will bring.» Daskalopoulos finally warned that «a possible nationalistic return to the relic of the drachma would entail poverty and abjection for all of society.»
