Euro Crisis Has Decimated Greek Private Sector

Spiegel
June 23, 2011

Consumption has plunged in Greece and so too have the profits of several small and mid-sized companies in the country. Many say that the government isn't doing enough to help -- and a new round of austerity could make the situation even worse.

Jannis Papagrigorakis is a man of the world. On his business cards, he uses the English translation of his name: John. Foreign business partners should not be confused by unfamiliar words.

His office in the Athens diplomatic district of Kolonaki is one of dapper prosperity: marble slabs on the walls, a huge map of the Balkans -- an historic original -- behind the desk. Neatly-pruned orange trees grow outside.

The 56-year-old is the founder and chief executive of JEPA, an engineering firm that designs electronics for major projects. The list of projects he has worked on is impressive, ranging from the new Acropolis Museum to London's Heathrow Airport. But the list is no longer growing much. "Over the past two years our business has shrunk by 95 percent," says Papagrigorakis. "We are an office with 43 people -- and not a single phone is ringing!"

The culprit is easy to find. The Greek private sector, which accounted for 97 percent of JEPA's orders three years ago, has collapsed . Back then, the company had business from banks, hotels and restaurants. "The private sector was going well," says Papagrigorakis. But then the Greek state was plunged into financial disaster . And now the government , as so often in the past 30 years, is making a terrible mistake, Papagrigorakis says. "Instead of shrinking the public sector, it is raising taxes."

Greeks like Papagrigorakis find their own state as alien as many foreigners. While some state officials head home even before their lunch break, most private entrepreneurs work hard. At JEPA, 15-hour days are the norm, as is weekend work. Many state enterprises, however, simply have "no reason to exist," complains Papagrigorakis. He refers to the famous example of the office to oversee the reclamation of a lake which vanished way back in 1957.

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