The cost of doing nothing
The past three months have seen the introduction of a series of significant changes in a number of key areas, including social security as well as labor and pension reform. Of course, the only reason that the socialist administration pushed the measures was pressure from the EU and the IMF – in other words, pressure from those who gave us loans so that we would avoid bankruptcy. It’s time that we all, and particularly the country’s politicians, sit down to examine why Greece reached the verge of bankruptcy. If PASOK had carried out the social security reforms put forward by former Labor Minister Tassos Giannitsis in 2001, if conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis had introduced tight fiscal measures on time – with the backing of George Papandreou as leader of the opposition – then perhaps Greece would not have reached this point. When politicians shy away from the hard stuff, the price is paid by the ordinary people.
