Time
September 22, 2011
After more than a year of wage and pension cuts, tax hikes and a deepening recession that has spread a cloud of gloom over Greece, Simos Menexis hoped the worst was over. But on Wednesday, international lenders forced the government to announce that more austerity would have to come so the country could keep getting its fix of international bailout loans to avoid default. Menexis, a 36-year-old telecommunications worker, says he wasn't surprised. Bad news has become the new normal in Greece. "We're living in constant uncertainty," he says. "If there was a program to boost the economy, we might have been able to hold out some hope. But the government hasn't had anything like that."
Instead, Prime Minister George Papandreou's center-left PASOK government has been in nearly nonstop crisis mode since being elected on a mandate of hope nearly two years ago. On Thursday many Greeks responded to the latest cuts demanded by the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) by going on strike. Transport workers, taxi owners, civil servants, air-traffic controllers and teachers all walked off the job, most for 24 hours. The main private-sector union, GSEE, and the country's biggest public-sector union, ADEDY, called for further strikes next month. The civil service will shut down on Oct. 5 and a general strike will be held on Oct. 19. And on Friday, Moody's rating agency showed its faith in Greece's new batch of desperate measures by downgrading eight of the nation's banks.
The Greek government quickly accepted the E.U. and IMF's newest set of demands so that auditors can return to Athens to decide if Greece can receive the latest $11 billion slice of international bailout loans. The auditors had suspended their review in early September because they were unhappy with the slow pace of enacting reforms. Since then, markets have been fluctuating over fears of a Greek default and its potential effect on the fragile euro zone.
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