Sweetening the pill
Surely there must be some kind of limit to the over-the-top populism that so often taints political debate in Greece. Just look at all the fuss that is being made in regard to the salaries and benefits of lawmakers in next year’s budget, which will be submitted to Parliament next week.
The fact of the matter is that MPs have already seen their salaries, pensions and all of their benefits drastically reduced and they cannot take any more cuts. Right now the jobs of lawmakers and ministers are no walk in their park. They are jobs that are full of difficulties and very often entail extremely difficult decisions.
If we go to extremes and completely debase the position of minister or deputy, we can be sure that no one in their right mind, no one qualified and with experience in the real professional world, will ever bother to enter politics. It is either that, or the politicians that do assume an active role will be those who have no compunction about boosting their incomes in some other way.
Whatever the case, making politics a job nobody wants will ultimately do more harm than good.
