One law will not fix all ills
It’s so disheartening to see Greece’s competitiveness rating slide down the charts. Yet there is some hope in the government’s decision to introduce a draft law that will help pave the way for large investments by streamlining bureaucratic procedures and making them much easier to expedite. However, such an «express» process will only work in the interest of the country as a whole if it is not permitted to become the exclusive privilege of a chosen few who have either personal or political affiliations with whichever administration is in power. There is also the serious question of foreign investors having been frightened away from Greece by horror stories from businesspeople who have been blackmailed into greasing the palms of tax and zoning officials, barons of local administration, unionists and so on. These stories are aggravated, meanwhile, by concerns about frequent legislative changes and bizarre tax regulations. In short, one new law will not bring investors to the country in droves; what we need is a complete reversal of mentality.
