Name of the country: Elliniki Dimokratia (Ellas, Ellada)
People: Ellines (Hellenes) Women: Ellenides Men: Ellines
Size: 131.940 sq. km (land 99%, sea 1%)
Coastline: 13,676 km
Population: just under 11000000 (46% men, 54% women)
Language: Greek (Ellinika)
Coordinates: 39 00N 22 00E
Borders to: Albania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Bulgaria, Turkey
Highest mountain: Mt Olympus, 2917 m
Capital: Athens
Natural resources: petroleum, marble, hydropower, magnetite,
lignite, bauxite (and gold)
Natural hazards: earthquakes
Currency: EURO €
Religion: 98% Greek Orthodox, 1,3 Muslim, 0,7 Other
Literacy: 95%
Population growth: 0,14 %
Life expectancy: 82,21 (women), 76,98 (men)
Work branches: 8,3 % agriculture, 27,3 % industry, 64,4 %
services
Unemployment: According to data from the European Statistical
Office, Greece recorded the highest increase in unemployment in
one year 21% in December 2011 from 14.3% in December 2010,
in particular: men 18%, women 25%, young people under 25
years 50.4%.
.
Industries: agriculture: food, wine, tobacco, dairy products,
olives, tomatoes, potatoes, meat, corn, wheat, barley, sugar
beets Tourism, textiles, Chemicals, Metal, Mining, petroleum.
Government: parliamentary republic, until 1974 monarchy
Administrative divisions:51 prefectures (nomoi, singular -
nomos) and 1 autonomous region*; Agion Oros* (Mt. Athos), Aitolia
kai Akarnania, Achaia, Argolis, Arkadia, Arta, Attici,
Dodekanisos, Drama, Evritania, Evros, Evvoia,
Florina, Fokis, Fthiotida, Grevena, Ilia, Imathia, Ioannina,
Irakleion, Karditsa, Kastoria, Kavala, Cephalonia, Kerkyra
(Corfu), Halcidiki, Chania, Chios, Cyclades, Kilkis, Korinth,
Kozani, Lakonia, Larissa, Lasithi, Lesvos,
Lefcas, Magnisia, Messinia, Pella, Pieria, Preveza, Rethymnon,
Rodhopi, Samos, Serrai, Thesprotia, Thessaloniki, Trikala,
Voiotia, Xanthi, Zakynthos
National Holiday: 25 March (1821 Day when the war of
independence broke out.)
Chief of State: Karolos Papoulias
Prime Minister: Lucas Papademos, coalition government consisting of Socialist party (PASOK), Nea Democratia
and LA.O.S since
November-11-2011.
Update: from 6 April 2012 until the national
elections on 6th of May 2012, Greece is under a caretaker
government .
Elections: every 4 years
Parliament: 300 seats, the MP's are voted by the people for four
years.
Last election (4 October 2009): PASOK 43.92% 160 seats NEA DEMOKRATIA
33.48 % (91 seats) , KKE 7.54% (21 seats), LA.O.S 5.63% (15), SY.RI.ZA
4.60%
(13). source www.ypes.gr.
Budget:(2010) Gross Domestic Product 318.1 billion $ Gross
National Product 310,8 billion $ world rank 39 Gross National
Income per capita $29,600 $ world rank 47,
National external debt: $394 (2011) billion $. Annual inflation 2.99 (November2011)
Electricity: 91,24% hydro, 8,26% fossil fuel, 0,5% other
Ports and harbours: Alexandroupolis, Eleusis, Irakleion, Kavala,
Kerkyra (Corfu), Chalkis, Igoumenitsa, Lavrion, Patras, Pireus,
Thessaloniki, Volos
International organizations: Australia Group, BIS, BSEC, CCC,
CE, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, ECE,
EIB, EU, FAO, G- 6, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IEA,
IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat,
Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, MINURSO, NAM (guest), NATO, NEA,
NSG,
OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR,
UNIDO, UNIKOM, UNMIBH, UNOMIG, UPU, WEU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO,
WToO, WTrO, ZC
Trade partners: Germany, Italy, UK, France, Netherlands, US.
National Service: Obligatory, 1 year.
Military branches: Hellenic Army, Hellenic Navy, Hellenic
Air Force, National Guard, Police.
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN GREECE
(Article by George Synodinos webmaster in2greece.com)
In 2004, Greece was amongst the top 29 most developed countries of the
world. Today, in 2011 it has a debt of over 300 billion Euros. What has
happened to the economy to cause such a catastrophic turnaround? This short
article will attempt to outline the main factors that led to this financial
meltdown.
The economic crisis that Greece is currently suffering began around two
years ago but its roots go much further back than 2009. Many agree that it
derives partly from the mismanagement of the economy from the two main
political parties of Greece,( the conservative Neo Demokratia and the
centre-left party, PASOK). These two parties have alternately governed the
country since the collapse of the junta in 1974. But also from the fact that
a huge amount of Greece's debt arises from the expenses incurred by the 2004
Olympic Games where Greece spent billions in the development of
infrastructure to meet the requirements of this event (including stadiums,
bridges, highways, subways, airport etc). Entering the Euro zone was a
further problem when suddenly goods that where costing lets say 100 drachmas
went up to 1 euro (300 drachmas), while there wasn't a corresponding
increase in salaries.
The global economic crisis that spread around the western capitalist
countries in 2007/08 arrived in Greece in 2009. However, Greece (unlike many
other countries) had not made investments in the Icelandic banks nor in any
of the so-called toxic investments of sub-prime loans, structured investment
vehicles (SIVs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). So how did it
find itself becoming so much in debt that it is on the verge of bankruptcy
and has to be bailed out by the European Union and the IMF?
One factor that began the downward slide was due to the introduction in 1981
(by the PASOK government of Andreas Papandreou) of a policy of massive
recruitment into the public sector, thereby considerably reducing
unemployment at a stroke. Whilst on the face of it this may have seemed a
good thing it had devastating repercussions. Thousands of executive and
non-executive Party members, as well as other organizations without any
obvious political connections began to recruit all the public services of
the State. This policy was repeated by the incoming conservative Nea
Demokratia Party when they won the elections some years later.. Today the
public sector of Greece employs almost 10 % of the working population of the
country, this number has to drastically be reduced in accordance with
European directives.
Since the inception of the Greek state there has existed something called "
rousfeti" which, roughly translated means "spoils". Basically, "rousfeti" is
a form of firmly entrenched and accepted nepotism and corruption, whereby
the relatives, friends, Party supporters, and so on, are appointed to
positions in the public services. This can occur as a permanent or temporary
position in any of the public services without any mediation from a higher
government official or a lower party member. This has been the case
throughout most of the history of Greece and is still very much alive in
today's modern Greece.
A second factor was the further political corruption and
opaqueness of transactions. These transactions occur when large
economic projects between business, governmental organizations
and various individuals are given the green light by an official
government mediator who is then rewarded with large sums of
money "under the table" This feature is not unique to Greece
but occurs in many countries.
Political corruption scandals in Greece have been in the
headlines for at least the last three decades and have led
sometimes to ministers being dismissed. In more recent years
several corruption scandals have come to light. For example, in
May 2008 there were allegations of bribery against the German
company, Siemens, who had paid large sums of money to government
officials and other companies to win contracts. These contracts
included the security for 2004 Athens Olympics and the new
Athens subway. It was alleged that almost 100 million euro of
money was exchanged as bribes to win the contract. The money was
paid into a foreign bank account so it could be used for PASOK’s
election campaign. A few months later, in September 2008,
another corruption story broke. This involved a Minister and deputy ministers who were
accused of land swap deals which involved the fabulously wealthy
Vatopedi monastery (read article in
BBC).
It was alleged that more than 100 million euro of taxpayers
money was used to finance these land deals. Further
investigations uncovered a land swap between a Minister and the
Vatopedi monastery with the minister’s wife acting as an agent
in the transaction. A final example to illustrate the extent of
political corruption can be drawn from the controversy
surrounding the ferry contracts in April 2009. The Party
Deputy's name was involved in a scandal involving
bribes from a private ship owning company to grant them ferry
routes around the Aegean islands. Another former minister of Pasok was involved in financial scandals
regarding the brand new German submarines that Greece bought
from the German company HDW (read the German article in
Spiegel Magazine
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-78954528.html ) and the 2 billion euro that was
spent for the ASPIS II (self-protection systems for the F-16
military airplanes) . In all the cases quoted above, the "mud
didn’t stick’ and the ministers involved escaped indictment.
However, there is no doubt that for the Greeks, this way of
behaving seems to be the norm and when the knowledge becomes
public, the ranks close and the guilty invariably escape
prosecution.
Serious as the above causes are, it can be argued that they are
not the principal causes of the current financial crisis. This
principal role goes to the existence of massive tax evasion.
This evasion of fiscal levies has basically been occurring since
the inception of the Greek state. Furthermore, the vast bulk of
such evasion comes from the upper echelons of society, in
particular the business class, entrepreneurs and professionals
from all disciplines. Overnight, offshore companies have been
created with billions of untaxed Euros being deposited in
foreign banks. Moreover, various developers and construction
companies have received millions of Euros from the EU for a
variety of developmental projects. Many of these remain
unfinished, the money having found its way into the pockets of
the powerful individuals involved or, equally shocking, have
been completed using the cheapest materials and shoddiest of
workmanship and are today, only a few years later, in serious
need of maintenance and repair.
It should be remembered also that Greece is still a
predominantly rural country and the inclusion of Greece into the
European Union has had a damaging effect of the Greek rural
economy. Of course, there were (and are) EU subsidies to Greece
but many of the conditions set by the European Community
regarding exports of many products have had a negative impact on
the Greek producer. Fishing, for example, is one of the main
branches of the rural economy and has suffered unprecedented
setbacks in recent years as a result of the various laws imposed
to protect marine wealth
In addition, since the 1980s, a new generation of nouveau riche
has been created in Greece, flaunting their luxury villas,
expensive cars, yachts and other trappings of their consumerist
lifestyle. Illegal holiday homes have uncontrollably sprung up
in beautiful forest sites, beaches and other public lands. In
fairness, the various authorities across Greece have sent in the
bulldozers to demolish such unlawful properties but, to date,
this has only been successful in a small percentage of cases. On
the contrary, vast areas of public land of supreme natural
beauty have been sold off to private individuals, without
transparency and mediated in one case by monks. (see above
Vatopedi monastery).
Another factor that can be said to have a function in the
current crisis is the uncontrolled borrowing from banks. With
the introduction of the credit card to the masses, Greeks have
been wildly overspending, becoming one more nation of hapless
victims of consumer frenzy. The unsurprising result is that many
of these naive and unlucky citizens have had their homes, cars
and other goods and chattels repossessed due to their inability
to repay the loans.
As well as the internal mismanagement of the economy, Greece
along with the rest of the advanced capitalist world has been
negatively affected by the phenomena of globalisation of labour
and markets. The consequence of this is that many domestic and
foreign businesses have relocated their more labour intensive
sectors to countries where the cost of labour is minimal and the
existence of trade unions is either banned or negligible.
Ironically however, the average wage in Greece remains one of
the lowest in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the vastly
populated, non-unionised countries of the Asian continent and
the Balkans have spawned a multitude of workshops and factories
with employees working under sweatshop conditions.
For example, many Greek businessmen created factories in the
Balkan countries and thousands of local businesses in Greece
closed. The Greek shipping lines and the merchant fleet, that
was once the most important industry of Greece, today flies
under the so-called "cheap flags’ with 90% of the crew
consisting of foreigners mainly from Asian countries. Although
still the largest shipping industry in the world, much of the
financial benefits of such an industry do not end up in Greece.
A final factor to consider is the influx of illegal (and legal)
economic immigrants over the last twenty years or so. Unlike the
factors above which have been considered as influential to the
current economic crisis, the existence of immigration into
Greece, it can be argued has had a positive impact and not, as
claimed by the media and sections of the right-wing, a negative
one.
(You are welcome to send your comments for the financial crisis of Greece at our email info@in2greece.com , articles will be publish after review)
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