Greek Crisis Is Burdened by Lack of Political Consent

by Thanos Dimadis

Huffington Post
February 7, 2011

Two of the "P.I.G.S." group members, Spain and Portugal, seem to have a strong likelihood of avoiding any kind of European and IMF external funding assistance, through the same mechanism imposed in Greece and Ireland in exchange for the implementation of a tough austerity measures program. Contrarily, debt-ridden Spain and Portugal are likely going to become examples of how the responsibility of a country's government and opposition as well as that of its social partners, constitutes a precondition for the potential successful conclusion of the efforts made by a nation for rescuing itself from a potential default on its debt.

Spanish government and labour unions came up together with a broader social agreement to promote those reforms which are needed in order for the country to reverse the bond markets' suspiciousness and, furthermore, to not be subjected to the painful IMF's financial supervision. The same happened in Portugal when its Prime Minister and the head opposition found common ground to get their country out of the crisis by building a bilateral consensus. What's now occurring in Spain and Portugal is what should had happened in Greece before the Greek Prime Minister Mr. Papandreou surrendered his country to IMF's hands and, of course, before the head of the main opposition party Mr. Samaras claimed that he can reduce the budget deficit in just one year. However, both Greek parties' leaders keep losing an opportunity to rewrite their own page in the modern political history of Greece by doing what these crucial moments require and what the Spanish and Portugal handling of the crisis showed.

More