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The past, present and future [InTime News]
Welcome to the weekly round-up of news by Kathimerini English Edition. As the country marks one year from disaster at Tempe that led to the death of 57 people, leading political and economic figures, both past and present, met at a conference organized by Kathimerini, the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, the Delphi Forum and the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics to discuss the 50th anniversary of the return of democracy to Greece. President Katerina Sakellaropoulou discussed the railway disaster during the conference. She also noted that Greece is a “state of laws” with democratic institutions, noting that it “would be dangerous to ignore the achievements of the last 50 years”. The President also emphasized that the country has made advances in terms of rights, both with the recent law that legalizes same-sex marriage as well as measures on issues such as gender equality. The conference also included discussions with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and several former prime ministers. The prime minister emphasized the importance of reforms to his government’s political agenda, stating his aspiration that it will enact “profound changes that will never be reversed”. “People may approach things differently, but the direction needs to be focused on reforms,” he added. Former prime minister Alexis Tsipras discussed the tumultuous days surrounding the referendum of 2015, stating that “not even for a moment did it cross my mind to negotiate the country’s presence in the EU and use of the euro”. He also reflected on the legacy of his SYRIZA government but also looked to the present, noting that “a democracy without strong institutional counterweights, with a very weak judiciary, is definitely one that is suffering” when alleging efforts by the government to cover up potential responsibilities over the disaster at Tempe. Former premiers Antonis Samaras and George Papandreou also looked back on their time at the helm of the country in the midst of the financial crisis, one of the Greece’s most challenging times in the last 50 years. Papandreou bemoaned the lack of unity between the political parties at the time, while Samaras discussed his interactions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Samaras also used the podium to decry the Prespes agreement as a betrayal of “generations and generations of fighters”, and criticized calls for consensus between Greece’s parties to strengthen any potential discussions between Greece and Turkey. “When I hear the word consensus with all three parties, it smells like compromise in the air”, he said. The calls for consensus were made during a panel on Greece’s foreign policy, which included three former influential former ministers such as Dora Bakoyannis, Evangelos Venizelos and Nikos Kotzias. “But if a real opportunity arises, should Greece go ahead? This is where the condition of national consensus comes in,” noted Bakoyannis. Spotlight
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OPINION
 [InTime News]It’s one of those times when the final result exceeds expectations. The three-day conference that Kathimerini organized, on 50 years since the restoration of democracy in Greece, to a large degree ended up being what we all hoped for. A gathering of some of the most influential people of this period, including numerous former prime ministers, and the most important ministers – of foreign affairs, finance, social security, environment – discussing in depth the numerous crises the country has gone through during the past fifty years, as well as the issues facing it in the future. The discussions were substantive and can only prove useful to both policy makers as well as the average citizen. A few crucial conclusions stand out: Greece’s liberal democracy is far from perfect but is strong and standing; many of its shortcomings, like the problematic justice system and institutional framework, should be overhauled and modernized as soon as possible. The generally positive assessment of the political cycle, is not necessarily the case with respect to the country’s economic performance over the same period as the rate of development is around half the EU average. There was also a broad agreement on the need for national consensus on major issues, with foreign policy topping the list. Only former PM Antonis Samaras took a different view noting that asking for consensus looks to him more like preparing for capitulation. Another healthy development was the fact that, despite the participants’ wide spectrum of ideological backgrounds that naturally resulted in differing prescriptions being tabled, at the end the conference proved a place of ideas and policies converging on many major issues. Last but not least, for a country where very seldom politicians accept responsibility for their shortcomings and mistakes, there were numerous cases where major political figures offered their “mea culpas”. |
| CHART OF THE WEEK |
 Even as Greece moves further away from the bailout memoranda and the financial crisis, with the country exiting the Third Economic Adjustment Programme in 2019, salaries in the country are still much lower than they were prior to 2010. Almost one in three households have a monthly income of less than 1,450 euros (from one in four in 2008) while just 11.46% have an income of more than 3,500 euros (almost half the number of those in 2008). This directly impacts the country’s consumption, with the monthly expenditures of households being both drastically reduced and focused on basic categories of goods like food and housing (with spending on clothing and other goods constantly contracting). |
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| ECONOMY IN A NUTSHELL |
| “The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 1,422.75 points this week, an increase of 0.67%. This marks the sixth successive weeks of gains for the benchmark.” |
| “The export footprint of the majority of Greek companies, and particularly of the country’s SMEs, remains low despite an increase in the number of businesses who sell their products abroad. Indicatively, 19,154 companies exported a total value of 51.75 billion euros but 29.6% of this total was carried out by just five businesses.” |
| “Real estate remains one of the prime drivers of Foreign Direct Investment in Greece with a share of 45%. Without real estate, the total FDI in Greece for 2023 would be less than 2.5 billion euros. Even with real estate investments (a total of 4.48 billion euros), the performance of 2023 is a marked decrease (40%) from the record 7.53 billion euros of FDI in 2022.” |
| WHAT'S ON THE AGENDA |
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Editor's Pick If Greece had a few more people like Costas Apostolidis, it would be a very different countryAlexis PapachelasRead the article |
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