Leadership and unity are waning
Prime Minister George Papandreou’s meeting with foreign academics and members of Socialist International surely serve a good purpose and may even prove to yield useful results. However, while the premier is away from his office, here in Athens members of his government seems unable to work in concert. We continuously see an administration that appears to be lacking the collective team spirit and drive to pick up the pace and push through the reforms that are so necessary to pull Greece out of the rut of recession. This sense of disunity breeds uneasiness among the people and that is heightened further when the prime minister talks about heralding a new form of socialism while at the same time espousing the stringent measures of the International Monetary Fund. The image of an absent prime minister with an unclear vision of what he sees for Greece’s future, in combination with government ministers’ reluctance to make the necessary changes to the out-of-date structures and inefficient procedures of the state raise doubts about whether there is anyone at the helm of this deeply troubled country.
