Own the reforms
A lot is being said about the “ownership” of the reform measures Greece needs to adopt for its creditors to release the next tranche of bailout funding. The term has been used in all the memorandums signed by Greece but the Greek political system has repeatedly failed to take any ownership of the measures or to defend the reforms that it knew had to be implemented. Many of these never went beyond promises on paper made by a series of administrations that were never implemented.
Since the start of the crisis Greece’s politicians have preferred to blame their own failures on the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund rather than anger powerful vested interests and unions.
If the present government has the courage to take ownership of the needed structural reforms, it would be the beginning of an important maturity process both for the political system and society as a whole.
