Greece is sinking even deeper in the Financial Crisis. [Swedish reporter] Kajsa Ekis Ekman visited this misunderstood country with a broken social contract where... everybody agrees with each other. How would it feel if all that belong to us were sold to pay back loans, from which we never received any benefit? If our salaries were cut down to half and the money went directly to foreign banks? And if, while we were preparing ourselves to struggle for a bare living, on top of that we were called "lazy" and "spoiled"? If someone can feel what this is like, then one can get an idea of what it means to be a Greek at the moment. I've just returned from Greece. In a country that is in crisis there's a special atmosphere. A certain misery and despair, mixed with the political awakening that follows major events and causes euphoria. Suddenly, low wages and the difficulty to pay your bills transformed, from a private issue, into something with common political content. Some are thinking about emigrating. Others to overthrow the government. A necessary gas-mask hangs in many homes, as a souvenir from the riots of the 28th and 29th last June, when the Parliament voted in favor of the financial Aid Package to Greece. I don't think I've ever been to a country where every single person I met agrees with the rest. They are all fed up with the euro, with Germany, with their government and with themselves for electing them. After a week in Athens, I can say that if I were Greek, I would be fed up too.

What we learn about Greece from the swedish press is that all Greeks work very little and get paid very well. Our Minister for Finance, Anders Borg, said that "Greeks retire when they turn 40". In an article titled " Questions and Answers About Greece" in Dagens Nyheter newspaper of 17/6 one reads that the salaries in Greece have risen vertically. The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel pleaded with the Greeks to work more and not take so many vacations. All these, spiced up with the usual bullshit of a bloated and ineffective state. Now the European Union will take over, and will lend them even more money; this should settle things, so why are they still complaining? What a tragic mess-up of misinformation! And what a tragic lack of solidarity to a country that we should now support! The Greeks work for the most hours in Europe - 42 hours per week, according to Eurostat, the statistics service of the EU. The per capita income there is 803 euros. The real retirement age is not 40 years, as Anders Borg claims, but 61,4. In other words, we're talking about one of the most hard-working and less well-paid people in Europe. But here we have a country that depends on tourism and not on any domestic production. And also a country with a broken social contract. Where the people don't trust the State, and the State doesn't provide to its citizens not even the basic welfare services. And which, on top of everything else, is caught in the tightrope of the euro. One could say that every national currency is like a garment. Until recently, every country would wear the garment that suited her. She could make it wider or tighter if it was necessary. For example, she could devaluate her currency in a time of crisis, or adjust her interest rates according to her needs. But when the euro was introduced, all [EU] countries were suddenly asked to wear the same garment. Only that the measures for the garment were taken on some countries - like Germany and France. To other countries, like Greece, the garment didn't fit. Greece has been governed for decades by two "dynasties" - the conservative "Nea Dimokratia" party and socialist-democratic "PASOK" party, with two families on top, one in each party. Both governments have taken huge loans, but very few know what happened to the money acquired by those loans. Much of that money disappeared with corruption and dark contracts. It is said that to construct a road in Greece costs more than in any other european country, because of the many middlemen involved. The people don't want to pay their tax, since they get nothing back from the State. A great part of of the tax money is spent to support a state bureaucracy that exists only to serve itself. At the same time, basic welfare services are a sad story for the people. A patient has to "give the envelope", that is to bribe the doctor in order to receive treatment, while the Greek students need to pay for

private lessons to cope with their school exams. And in the middle of all that came the 2008 financial crisis. Greece, whose economy was heavily dependent on tourism, was hit even harder. Under any other circumstance, the government would just devaluate the national currency to lead the country out of the crisis. But after introducing the euro, that is impossible. Greece is restricted by its garment and she can't take it off. So the garment is destroyed - only that this is not allowed to happen, since the same garment is worn by all the other EU countries. So it is better to hack and cut the one who is wearing it. This is called "internal devaluation" and it means that simply instead of devaluating the currency, you reduce the income of the people. After the demand of the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, the Greek State bureaucrats have launched a plan. Wages will shrink and large expanses of land will be sold. Beaches, airports, national highways and half of all public services will be sold. There's a rumour circulating on Syntagma square that the Acropolis will be bought by a german corporation. I stayed in the house of some young people who belong to the "700-euro generation". Soon they will be transformed into the "500-euro generation". They are my age - in their thirties- not that young anymore, but they feel younger than they actually are since they're still wondering what they should do in the future. None of them has kids. Having children is something inconceivable to them. They are welleducated, have many years of university education on their backs, but they work occasionally as wedding decorators. The safest way to find a stable job used to be the public service, but that's about to change. This situation is not totally foreign to us; the same applies to our generation across Europe. Only that in Greece the wages are compressed to the minimum, with the crisis as an excuse. On Syntagma square is held every afternoon a public assembly. When I was there in mid-July, the initial enthusiasm had subsided somehow. The participants didn't number thousands, but hundreds. Anyone could address the assembly, and the subjects varied, from proposing a general strike to asking for not to steal things from the people gathered in the square. Some greek words still are in my head. One of those is "Isimerinos", which means Ecuador. The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, was a great hero on the square. Three out of four Greeks want their country to follow the example of Ecuador and Argentina: stop paying back their debt. One out of four want their country to leave the euro-zone. What one needs to understand is that the Greeks are not angry with a necessary evil - rather they're angry with an unnecessary evil. The Aid Package that was given to Greece doesn't solve the crisis, but rather it forces the country to sink deeper in it. Instead of investing on the country-side, to generate some domestic production that is not dependent on tourism, to improve

state welfare and give people hope, they cut back people's salaries. The IMF, notorious for its pillaging policies in the Third World, has packed and left from South America. Now is devouring the edges of Europe. Are we going to allow this to happen? Kajsa Ekis Ekman [email protected] Translated from Greek, as posted on http://taxalia.blogspot.com on the 19th of September 2011.

You can find the original swedish article at http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/debattessa/kajsa-ekis-ekman-nar-eurokostymen-inte-passar