Let Greece stand on its own feet

Financial Times
Editorial
February 10, 2012

At five minutes to midnight, it still seems open whether the eurozone and the Greek government can agree on terms for a new rescue package. The terms, however, are less important than whether Greece can agree with itself. The metamorphosis that the country desperately needs will happen only if the Greek people want it.

So great is the exasperation on all sides that it is worth recalling what the programme has achieved. Large-scale privatisation was always unrealistic; special interest groups have paralysed most structural reforms. But Athens shrank its primary deficit by eight percentage points from 2009 to 2011 – a radical austerity effort.

The savings measures hit those Greeks hardest who are least able to block them – that is, those who were least privileged by a captured and dysfunctional state to begin with. With greater statecraft, the majority held down by the old system might have rallied behind a vision of reform. But from the start, the eurozone’s approach to helping the country has been to infantilise it. This allows leaders to blame outsiders for self-inflicted woes. It stunts any political process that could offer a peaceful outlet for suffering from the economic adjustment and engage the Greek people in transforming the system.

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