Restoring our good name
For an individual businessperson, just as for a country, nothing matters more than a solid reputation and the greatest blow to Greece in the past few months has been that its reputation has been tarnished. The international media, even in China and Russia, have branded Greece the black sheep of the European Union. The fact that economic data submitted to European observers had been fiddled, that so many Greek governments have lied about the magnitude and nature of their spending, that corruption is so rampant at every level of public administration and that the political system has proved incapable of purging itself of these practices, have dealt a serious blow to the country’s credibility. There are times when criticism of Greece has gone too far and too much has been laid at its doorstep, but the fact remains that it will take a lot of work and a long time before Greece can restore its good name. As things stand now, it is unlikely that foreign investors or international lenders will be confident enough to put their money into Greece, because the damage that has been done is great.
