ATHENS: Greece is not out of the woods yet and the fragile balance created as the coalition government tries to implement reforms to tackle the economic crisis could easily be overturned, experts say.
“When we are dealing with such a crisis, which is the most serious crisis Greece has experienced since the Second World War, any sort of accident... could prove fatal for society and institutions,” former minister of the interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos said.
Currently a lawmaker in Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s conservative New Democracy party, Pavlopoulos was interior minister during the riots that shook Athens in December 2008, sparked by the death of a 15-year-old student killed by police.
“Political and social conditions remain very fragile,” Pavlopoulos said.
This week, thousands of state workers are on strike protesting an overhaul of the public sector, part of the austerity programme imposed by Greece’s so-called troika of EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank creditors.
Public sector unions have called demonstrations around the country on Wednesday.
Hard hit by the economic crisis, Greece is experiencing a sixth year of continuous recession and has a staggering 27-percent unemployment rate.
Meanwhile, Greece’s conservative-socialist coalition government is “squeezed” between radical leftists Syriza and neo-Nazists Golden Dawn, says a lawmaker of socialist party Pasok who chose to remain anonymous.
Golden Dawn, which ranks as the third most popular party according to polls, “is eating away voters from New Democracy,” added the same deputy. The coalition currently has a very narrow five-seat majority in parliament.
According to the same deputy, Samaras’ criticism of political extremes earlier this week was an effort to restrain his party’s overtures to the neo-Nazi party.
It will take many months for the public to appreciate the benefits from his government’s austerity policies, Samaras said.
AFP
