Trust in the markets is no substitute for trust in your own government
The reason the nightmare of Greece defaulting doesnât seem to end isnât quite so mystifying as reading too many statistics and financial newspapers might have you think. The painful reality is that numbers do matter but the realistic truth is that not a single state reform can bare results while citizens refuse to comply with it. In the case of Greece, itâs not because itâs full of anarchists â far from it - but because the average Greek simply doesnât trust the government and consequently, the measures it imposes.
Trust is a vital parameter in the Eurocrisis but thus far it has been mostly addressed in relation to the markets and the banks. Back in January, Michel Barnier, the EU Commissioner for internal markets and services, was right to urge Greek MPs to âwin back its citizens trustâ. Without it, any austerity measure would be, and has been, inefficient.
While the government announces belt-tigheting policies, groups like âI Donât Payâ urge people not to pay for public transport tickets or toll roads and the black market continues to thrive all across the country. For a nation desperate to collect taxes, Greece shows an impressive tolerance to illegal street vendors or to gas station owners who still ask you if you want a receipt.
The Papandreou government is right to say we âhave to put our house in orderâ but fails remarkably in turning theory into practice. Not just because of the black market still having a field day, but because âputting our house in orderâ would mean first and foremost bringing into account whoever caused this mess in the first place.
A group of activists calling for an international and independent audit commission on the Greek public debt appears to address this issue by asking what the government keeps on avoiding: transparency. More than 47.000 people have signed the online petition thus far,asking for concrete evidence of the financial exchanges that ultimately led the whole world the present state of class conflict, economic instability and morale crisis.
After years of multi-million scandals, one of which even implicated a monastery and a procrastination that verges to unwillingness by the state institutions to bring those involved under scrutiny, accountability in Greece remains a myth.
For the time being, the government rhetoric seems to finger-point two extremely big and vastly diverse groups of people. The civil servants for overbloating the state budget and the rest of whatâs left of society by insinuating everyone is a tax evader or even worse, a plain conman. It was after all the Vice-President Theodoros Pangalos himself who enraged public opinion almost a year ago by not-so-eloquently stating: âWe ate it togetherâ. To this day, most Greeks wonder about the meaning of that âWeâ. They have no doubts however, about the fact that âitâ was not referring to food.
In a state of democracy vague and unsubstantial incriminations addressed to the conveniently obscure âmanyâ, should not be part of the public debate and on the part of such a political figure, are totally unacceptable. Surely, the last youâd expect from the people you vote for is turn a gun on you and tell you itâs all your fault. Youâll surely not wait for them to pull the trigger to lose your trust in them.
The next group of scapegoats hides an even bigger paradox. According to the recently debunked myth, the public sector was the ideal job because once you got in you could never get fired. Some would-be civil servants turned to politicians for a hand in finding a way in and occasionally the respective party members extended that hand asking for a vote.
This bilateral relationship was by no means the norm, but its mere existence highlights the outrageousness of the announced laying-off of thousands of civil servants. Some of them voted for the current government with the promise of the job security theyâre now deprived of.
Drastic times call for drastic measures and Greece is in grave need of reshaping its fundamental structures. What matters though, itâs not just the decisions themselves but how these are implemented. Are we for example, to trust whoever appointed people to specific positions based on their political allegiance to decide who stays and who leaves on a different basis? Can anyone actually say with a straight face that the days of nepotism are over?
The latest announcement of massive-scale civil servant lay-offs could be the ultimate fracture not just between society and state, but also within society itself. People are looking for a sign of social justice to cling to while the government is offering nothing more than unpersuasive witch hunting.
But if the Euro is to be saved, Greeks have to regain their trust both in the Eurozone and their government. Someone has to pay â and not just literally.
