It also seems like there's a lot of corruption and irresponsible financial policy. For example, Greece's ridiculous policies around early retirement, such as that allow hairdressers, radio or television anchors, and musicians playing wind isntruments to retire at 50 for women, and 55 for men, due to "hazardous working conditions".
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/business/global/12pension....
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/15/unsustainabl...
A starting point would be predominately eliminating early retirement, and raising the retirement age to one similar to other countries. It seems like Syriza has been refusing to do that, because the Greek population is pushing them to keep these policies in place. Germany, by comparison, raised its retirement age to 67 years and Spain has done the same. They're talking about raising it to 69. It's understandable if German taxpayers are reluctant to fund Greeks' early retirement (on average, the lowest in Europe).
If Greece and the Greek government wants to embrace reforms, then they need to end corruption and put reasonable policies in place. To be fair, the current article has Greece's finance minister proposing to end early retirement. But, why is this being proposed at the 11th hour, right before default? Why is this part of their proposal to receive further loans, rather than an a voluntary sovereign action that's obviously necessary to correct their economy (independent from any loans)? The fact that Greece hasn't already taken steps like these to reform their economy, and is essentially holding the reforms hostage on further loans, is surely part of the reason why Greece's partners don't trust them. Greece should have put these reforms in place long ago by their own accord. They should have done it in a way that's clearly advertised to their own taxpayers as Greek responsibility for Greek spending, rather than positioning it as part of an agreement that, no doubt, they will say was "forced" on them. All of these facts together give the impression that Greece isn't committed to doing the right thing. Greece's irresponsible spending and financial policy are the responsibility of its government and people. If Greeks want to keep retiring early, OK, but it's understandable that the rest of the Eurozone doesn't want to provide them loans used to fund those pensions.
Because it was/is forced too. Geopolitically speaking it's very convenient (and maybe reasonable) to act as if every state is a "sovereign state", but it's not[0]. The submarine (along with a long series of obscure deals involving bribery, etc.) were strongly supported (almost imposed) by Germans as a bargain.
> It also seems like there's a lot of corruption and irresponsible financial policy.
That's true. There's no beating around the bush, since 1990 spending has been reckless. Basically the EUR gave a free-card access to credit.
The entire pension system should be re-structured but at the same time the base salary should be brought up and not down. Young people can not find jobs and they absolutely can not sustain families.
The current system is extremely twisted: Usually the elderly of the family receive (well used to receive, before the crisis) boosted pensions with which they support the younger members of the family who are unemployed or underpaid. The fact that the young population has "access" to elderly's money is the only reason you don't see riots around though.
The problem is that the reforms already made, slashed a huge chunk of the household's income while not giving anything back (not even hope!) in return. That's why in the end of the day, the majority which suffered from this cuts, is not likely to accept any more reforms.
According to the "Financial Times": "main pensions have been slashed 44 to 48 percent since 2010, reducing the average pension to 700 euros a month … About 45 percent of Greek pensioners receive less than 665 euros monthly — below the official poverty threshold."
> All of these facts together give the impression that Greece isn't committed to doing the right thing.
The problem (for Greeks) is that every single reform imposed by the Troika (or institutions or whatever) are always for the worse and never for the better. After 7 years of implementing reforms dictated from the Troika, I think we can rest assured that they're reform schedule was a failure which drove the public upwards incredibly AND creating a humanitarian crisis.
Greece needs a "New Deal"[1] or a "Marshal Plan". But there's no Roosevelt or G. Marshall around, unfortunately. Again, you're taking for granted that the Troika wanted to "help" Greece, but that's far and away from the feeling I have looking at the facts at hand. They'd rather "discuss" with the parties that made all the mistakes you say, instead of a new non-so-corrupted party.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
[0] http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/15/germany-is-bluffing-o...
Yes, but neither country had a -25% GDP cut since 2009, 30% of it's business closed, 27% unemployment (60% youth unemployment), -40% salary cuts, -50% pension cuts, 100% increase in poverty since 2009 (60% increase since 2009 in child poverty), 250% increase in households without electricity, 250.000 emigrants (most of them highly educated), the richest 10% in Greece owned 56% of total wealth in 2014[1].
Greece is almost like it was after WWII. Never in history a country received such a strong cut in such a short amount of time.
While all this happened the debt to GDP ratio went from 120% to 180%...
I've heard Merkel saying time and again that Ireland, Portugal and Spain did 'well' and now everything is fine and they're back for good! That's absolutely not the feeling I'm getting talking to Portuguese, Spaniards or Irish people. They have the exact opposite feeling: Austerity doesn't work.
[1] http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/02/18/greek-humanitari...
SOME FACTS
The "bail-outs" Greece received where the largest ones, but they were never meant to help Greece. They were made in order to save German and French banks. Less than 10% from the money received so far stayed in Greece. These money were issued in order for Greece to pay high-yielding bonds to Franco-German banks, until these banks were able to dump their bonds to the ECB. Basically they made a private debt (held by bankers) public (now is held by the ECB and by extension by EU tax-payers.). The result for Greece was that the public debt rose and sacrifices went largely unnoticed.
The German's gov choice for a Greek technocrat PM was, Loukas Papademos. He acted as a middleman between the Simitis government and Goldman Sachs. Isn't that a weird choice, from a country who accuses Greece of false statistics? I'd say it's weird.
Christoforakos was not extradited to Greece[1] from Germany. I'd say that this again is a weird choice from someone who is taking a "moral" stance towards Greece, wouldn't you?
I think Germany exploited Greece in every possible way, like getting paid for non-working submarines. Bribing politicians to get corporate contracts, etc. Add to that 1945 (second WW) German atrocities to all that, which is a theme revived by far-right and far-left political and social groups and you see the pictures. Some say that WWII doesn't matter, but I'd say that it's hard to swallow for people who saw their entire families annihilated and they're still alive[3].
You could say that in the end of the day, it's Greece fault. But that's partly true. Greece has it's own faults, of course, who doesn't? But in many situations, it was never given a real choice, because in the bigger picture, Greece "matters" way more than it would be optimal.
Also here, we have to understand, that Greece has 400 years of Turkish occupation that left an incredibly strong cultural sign. Greece is literally a mix between western and eastern culture and this is something that takes many generations to change.
By all means, Greeks work more hours on average than any other European[4]. Yet they are mostly seen as "lazy". Again that's not the EU's fault. Greece has a prime minister who literally took a tour of around Europe stating that "Greeks are lazy, tax evaders" (George Papandreou).
ABOUT GERMANY
Angela Merkel's 2009 victory was largely based on the promise that "Greeks will pay" for their "bad attitude". This "hate speech" (she literally called Greeks "lazy" among other negative terms) let to the largest CDU victory in their history. And she delivered, I mean Greece has already collapsed, the only who doesn't know are people getting informed from the TV.
At the same times - as other people noted - German exports boomed. Unemployment in Germany became record low, because having countries like the PIGS inside the EU drove the EURO exchange rate down and Germany exploited the situation. It even borrowed money to Greece with a "lower" interest rate (which morally speaking, it's like raping a dead woman.. but anyway).
After SYRIZA came to power, populist German media (mainly Bild, but not only) fueled the feeling that "Greece is a household of people who party day and night and pass the bill to them". Merkel found herself against the wall because IMHO she would very much like to end this crisis with a debt-restructing and a New Deal for Greece... Because the numbers are not that big and ultimately the Euro is very positive for Germany, but how do you explain to your voters that you were lying all these years? That's impossible. Every time Merkel (it's Brussels but the quarrel is perceived between Germany and Greece mostly) gives away something the opposition attacks, every time she stands 'firm' she risks finding herself in uncharted waters bringing Greece closer to default.
In the end of the day the problem was never financial. The problem is/was political. SYRIZA is in the same position: If it blinks it looses the majority overnight, if it doesn't it will have to manage an extremely difficult situation (at least in the short-term, but will it survive?).
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Christoforakos
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/10895239/Greece-su...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/dec/08/europe-...