May 13 2010, Hellenic-Swedish Chamber of Commerce event

presentation by Dr. Kostas Botopoulos, former MEP, member of the PASOK directorate

Invited, along with Prof. Christoforos Sardelis, at the wonderful house of the Swedish ambassador Hakan Malmqvist, I talked to the members of the Hellenic-Swedish Chamber of Commerce and to business executives about the recent developments in Greece and Europe, as well as the potentials of exiting the current crisis. I tried to identify some rays of hope in these hard times, while acknowledging that there is a big question mark over each and every hope:

a. Greek governance has been so bad the last few years that it cannot but change for the better. I brought up as examples the tripling of the debt and the doubling of the non-development state expenditure during 2007-2009; the conversely proportional performances of our country in the areas of corruption and competitiveness as well as the unjustifiably high number of convictions of Greece by the European Court of Justice (22 only in 2009) which have cost us another 6 million euros in fines.

b. Greek society has understood that it can no longer remain quiescent, that the political system, now matter how deeply it reforms, can no longer keep operating in place of society, and that the society itself now has the potential – and the opportunity – to demonstrate its energy, its earnestness and its artfulness. I mentioned the maturity with which the social body has so far handled the crisis; the grassroots direction in which the civil society is moving as well as the government’s commitments to a more representative system of voting and governance.

c. there is a new national development plan which may have not yet started being implemented (as it should) but which has the power to produce substantial changes in the fields of production and business. I brought up as examples the new development law; the commitment to set up a body under the Prime Minister’s chairmanship which will be responsible for the facilitation of big investments as well as the first practical measures to boost green development.

d. the European Union has, however belatedly, grasped the graveness of the situation, the need to protect the economies of the member-states, the need to protect the social rights and the inevitability of an “economic governance”. I examined in detail the 750 billion euro package as well as the accompanying measures to enhance co-ordination on a fiscal, supervisory and macroeconmic level.

e. despite all the constraints of the enforced austerity program, Greece still has a choice to make regarding its path to recovery: either to succumb to austerity and to end up in economic and social decline (like Hungary and Romania, a solution to be avoided) or to acknowledge its inability to fulfill its obligations (e.g. debt restructuring) and renegotiate with its lenders (like Argentina and Iceland, a plan not immediately feasible under the Eurozone) or to do what Sweden did when it was in a similar position back in the beginning of the nineties: place emphasis on the liquidity of the banking sector, on investments, on political consent and on the preservation of the social fabric.

To put it in a nutshell: hope dies last… even when things are done the Greek way.

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