EU Task Force for Greece

Frankly, Greek politicians, media, academia and opinion leaders should be ashamed for more or less ignoring (and hiding from the public) that this Task Force has been at work for nearly 3 months. It has published its 1^st Report recently. The Task Force had been established by the EU so that its resources can be used by Greek authorities to meet 3 great challenges facing the country and Greek society:

1. Supporting growth, employment and competitiveness.

2. Enabling growth through reform of Greek public administration.

3. Maintaining progress towards fiscal consolidation.

The Task Force’s 1^st Report outlines a multitude of initiatives which have been started already. Reviewing them, one can come to the conclusion that the noble goal which the Task Force sets out for itself in the Executive Summary can realistically be achieved, namely:

The Task Force is a resource at the disposal of the Greek authorities as they seek to build a modern and prosperous Greece: a Greece characterised by economic opportunity and social equity, and served by an efficient administration with a strong public service ethos.

I am certain that the vast majority of Greeks would love to hear that there is hope for a Greece characterized by economic opportunity and social equity, and served by an efficient administration with a strong public service ethos. I am even certain that the majority of Greeks would enthusiastically support such a project and contribute to it where they can.

How should the Greek public find out about this project when neither politicians, media, academia nor opinion leaders discuss it intensively?

Let’s assume for a moment the worst-case-scenario happens in Greece: complete collapse of the economic, financial and political systems. The return to a standard of living of decades ago and mass emigration above all of the younger generation would be consequences.

If that happened, how would the present Greek generation justify to the younger one that they did have the opportunity to avoid that but they didn’t take advantage of it?