Reforms: A dirty word

by Emmanuel Bouhalakis
Image: Reuters

As the negotiations between the Greek government and its creditors reach their final and most crucial phase, the German chancellor Angela Merkel has once again used a familiar phrase of hers: Greece ought to implement more reforms. Others call these reforms "structural".

The word "reform" as a verb means, "make changes in something, especially an institution or practice in order to improve it". Thus, reforms aims at the improvement of a situation. Worsening a situation does not signify any betterment. In this case, a reform that worsens something is a failed reform. 

When Greece entered, in 2009, its worst financial crisis since World War 2, its debt was at approximately 120% of GDP and its unemployment at 7-8%. After 5 years of reforms implemented according to the IMF, ECB and European Commission directives, the debt is now at 170% of GDP and unemployment at 26%. 

The private sector has received monumental blows as thousands of small businesses have closed and those operating have considerable difficulty in paying salaries and social security taxes. There are employees that have not received payment for several months. Others receive deposits or food coupons. There are approximately 2 million people who do not have access to health insurance and who struggle hopelessly to make ends meet each month. When the current Greek government spoke about a "humanitarian crisis", the statement was not far from the truth. 

The main argument that Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and other countries pose against Greece is that for years it lived beyond its means and that a country with an all pervasive tax evasion culture should make its citizens pay their taxes.

In this area, indeed reforms are needed. Many of them have been implemented already. The previous two governments imposed an unprecedented barrage of taxes that indebted even unemployed people with taxes they cannot possibly pay. Paraphrasing a verse from the Bible, judgment fell upon the godly and the ungodly alike. Nonetheless, there was no change whatsoever in the scornful attitude of some European media who anyway enjoyed permanently labelling the Greeks as lazy and tax evaders. 

Undoubtedly the new Greek government promised unrealistic things to its voters. However, the Greeks did not vote Mr. Tsipras to turn the country into Switzerland overnight. They voted him primarily to restore the country's dignity. 

Sadly, the same hardline group of countries have fiercely opposed any attempt to ease the "reforms" which have been proven to be utterly detrimental to the lives of many Greeks. These "reforms" have already caused more than 100,000 brilliant minds to leave the country.

Ultimately, staying in this fabled Eurozone could mean that the country will turn into Bulgaria when, before it entered the common currency, Greece was already a much more prosperous country than its Balkan neighbours. It is more than evident that, collectively, Greeks will massively rise to fight such a degrading future. And this message ought to be clearly received by all and especially by the insensitive Poul Thomsen of the IMF who allegedly confessed to a Greek official that salaries of 300 euros would be just fine for the Greek people. 

Against such colonialist views, no EU or Eurozone have any meaning.