It is in the DNA
The conservative New Democracy government’s absolute, unprecedented political domination supposedly offered it the ability to develop its program with relative ease, to move quickly and decisively with radical, overdue reforms that are necessary for the country. Indeed, given that the second half of the four-year term is marked by concerns about re-election, many expected that the 41% achieved in the last general election would immediately trigger successive waves of reforms, which would sweep through structural rigidities and parasitic practices. Five months later, those expectations have not been confirmed.
Quite the opposite. It seems that this political dominance causes negative secondary reactions. On the one hand, it seems to facilitate the manifestation of intraparty resistance and reactions. For example, the discussion on the legalization of same-sex marriage. Also, while the lack of workers is well-established knowledge (for reasons related to low wages, among others), the idea of Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis to give work permits to irregular immigrants who have lived in the country for years and have learned Greek has been indefinitely postponed, due to the “very patriotic” conservative lawmakers. The idea was initially enthusiastically applauded, and then shelved until further notice.
On the other hand, New Democracy’s political dominance seems to have favored complacency, as if the available time is plentiful and we can carelessly waste it. It is something like the “leave it for tomorrow” mentality that dominated the five-year conservative administration of the 2004-2009 period. There are few, very few ministries or deputy ministries or departments of ministries that work properly. There are others, some of which are supposed to be “productive,” which are dragging their feet. There are also ministers who go to their office at 10 in the morning, leave at midday for some very important working lunch with journalists and relax in the afternoon, so they can be ready for a difficult working dinner in the evening. Or others, who are bored in the ministry and work outside it – having it out on TV channels and radio stations.
The business community is observing the effects of government relaxation and is surprised. Others will tell you that there is no decisive force in the prime minister’s office. Others, that the rotation of ministers that followed the second general election was an unfortunate, bad idea, removing ministers who were doing good work in their ministry and putting in their place ministers who had done nothing important in theirs – perhaps only to limit their popularity and their relations with business interests.
The interpretations that are circulating about this situation start, as a rule, from the assumption that the government really wants to implement major reforms. But is this really the case? Could it be that this New Democracy government also doesn’t want to break some eggs, doesn’t want to upset its “clients,” because it doesn’t have a predisposition for reforms in its DNA, because it is used to the idea of plundering the state, because it is conservative and prefers arrangements instead of reforms?
Is this why it is enough for the government – which celebrates – that it will manage to collect 500 million euros out of the 10 billion believed to be lost to tax evasion?
