Financial Times
February 20, 2012
In May 2010, when European finance ministers emerged from a weekend of emergency meetings to present a €110bn bail-out for Greece, there was a palpable sigh of relief and a belief in many quarters that the crisis had been arrested.
But as finance ministers descended on Brussels on Monday evening to sign off on a second, even larger bail-out – this time €130bn – the prevailing mood in Athens was one of despair.
Any illusions about the depth of Greece’s problems have been swept away by two years of recession. Citizens now accept that even with the new money they will be forced to endure years of sacrifice and hardship just to put the economy back on reasonably sound footing. Even that is not guaranteed.
“If you have a choice between bail-out and death, of course you should choose the bail-out,” said Loukas Tsoukalis, a well-respected Greek economist, and president of Eliamep, an Athens think-tank.
That sense of disillusion has been on display during the days of negotiations leading up to the bail-out when thousands of Greeks took to Syntagma Square, opposite the parliament, to vent their anger. It is also visible in the blackened facades of banks and other downtown buildings set ablaze by rioters.
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