EU peers step into the breach
Greece’s European Union peers have stepped into the lingering crisis, dispatching aid in the form of firefighting aircraft – in fact, water-dropping planes sent by various European countries are still dousing areas of the Peloponnese. Meanwhile, relief aid is also forthcoming from the other EU member states to help reconstruct and regenerate the devastated regions. The generous response from European governments is the latest vindication of the prudence of the late statesman Constantine Karamanlis who pushed Greece’s membership into what was then the European Economic Community, or EEC. Greece’s euroskeptics would do well to think again: A disaster of such magnitude would certainly have had a devastating effect on the national economy were it not for the EU aid packages.
