by Emmanuel Bouhalakis
French president Nicholas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that by the end of October they will have come up with a solution for the stability of the euro and the "Greek problem" which they now see that it is anything but Greek since rating agencies keep downgrading EU countries and banks at an alarmingly increasing rate. This downgrading barrage, apart from further painful fiscal measures, denotes that the common currency will not have an easy road ahead and that sooner or later, the larger and more heavily industrialized countries of the EU will become the focus of the ruthless money markets.
As the IMF, EU and ECB representatives keep pulverizing the middle class of Greece with further demands for taxes and cuts, the Greek people see that day by day they are forced to abandon whatever prosperity they once had and live with less wealth and more insecurities.
Thousands of young Greeks, mostly university graduates, apply for jobs in Australia, Canada and other countries. The Albanians and Bulgarians that once came to Greece in throngs, now flee the country in haste and go back to their homelands due to the dramatic decrease in job opportunities. Young people who now enter the labor market will be forced to live with less than 550 euros a month. On top of these, billions of euros have been lost from the salaries of civil servants and pensioners.
Greece is now at the most crucial crossroads of its modern history. Perhaps this crisis will activate the most creative parts of its people and they will seek to rebuild a new country with realism and free from any bonds with the politicians. In the same way, it would be a monumental opportunity for the politicians of the 2 biggest parties, PASOK (socialists) and New Democracy (conservatives), to once and for all look upon the interests of the whole population instead of their voters' interests. If this happens, then corruption will be a lot less and only the best politicians will enter the parliament, instead of the popular ones.
While Greece is at this crossroads, however, the EU probably needs to realize that it is at a crossroads itself. The central issue in this crisis is whether exports, profits and banks will continue to rule in the European continent, or finally steps will be made into the direction of a common European identity with emphasis on the welfare state, job opportunities and support among the member states. After all, leaving the fate of the EU in the hands of accountants, financial advisers and "experts" who only care about numbers, is a sure "recipe" for social unrest, anger and violence in some cases. And if today it is Greece, no one can guarantee that tomorrow it won't be Spain or Italy.
Sometimes, then, making the right decision when at crossroads may not depend entirely on intuition or wisdom but on the feeling that once you make this right decision, you will have someone to back you up and assist you with the burden of choosing the road of virtue, as Hercules did. Needless to say, Greece in its present state does not have the power of Hercules to do everything by itself.
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