A New Narrative For Greece. Again?

The article from the Ekathimerini about building a fresh narrative for Greece made me wonder what the old narrative was/is. Since I couldn't remember any, I thought what kind of a narrative I would like to see. These are some of the thoughts which came to mind.

The first question I asked myself was what exactly is it that I would like to see achieved? And here is the answer I came up with: "We will seek to build a modern and prosperous Greece: a Greece characterized by economic opportunity and social equity, and served by an efficient administration with a strong public service ethos."

As I pondered this statement, my first reaction was that it basically says everything there is to say. But, of course: stating a goal alone will not do the trick. There has to be a discussion about how this goal can be achieved.

"We will create an obsession with exports!" This proclamation will have to be heard in all walls and halls of Greece. What is it that we could possibly export? Where do we have comparative advantages? Where would be good export markets? How can we move our products up the value chain before they leave Greece? How can we get assistance in pursuing this objective? And why, exactly, should we do all that? Well, because through exports we achieve financial inflows which we can then use to pay for imports, i. e. to increase our living standard. Not to mention the fact that many new jobs will be created.

"We will create an obsession with import substitution!" Now why would we want to do that? Because with imports, all the jobs along the production chain (product development, manufacturing, marketing, selling) are in other countries. We want to 'steal' those jobs from other countries by no longer importing products which could just as well be produced in Greece. Questions are: Which products which we are importing now could be just as well produced in Greece? Can we get any foreign manufacturers to manufacture in Greece? Where should we import from? (presumably from those countries which can reciprocate in one way or another). Import substitution is a job creation program!

"We will create an obsession with tourism!" Tourism is actually another form of exports and through tourism we achieve financial inflows which we can then use to pay for imports, i. e. to increase our living standard. We are first class in the luxury segment but in the rest of the industry we leave quite a bit of money on the table. Either because we have cheap tourists from cheap countries or because rich tourists from rich countries pay cheap all-inclusive prices. We will put the focus on improving quality. Quality of the infrastructure and quality of the service.

"We will create an obsession with foreign investment!" Every Greek will have to understand that there are only 3 options to get out of our economic crisis: foreign investment, foreign investment and foreign investment, again! We will pursue very aggressively foreign investors who take a long-term view with their investments. Who plan to add value to the Greece. And we will de-emphasize any kind of financial investors because such investors are principally interested in short-term financial gain. The key question will always be: Does the foreign investor promise know-how transfer, further investment and expansion. Put differently: Does the foreign investor accomplish something which we could not accomplish by ourselves. Or: Does the foreign investor contribute to the increase in exports, in import substitution and in improving the tourism infrastructure and quality of service?

And, finally -

"We will turn the Greek state into an efficient administration with a strong public service ethos!" Meritocracy will the the buzzword reverberating in the halls and walls of our public administration buildings! In the future, it will be very difficult to get a job in the public sector because the required qualifications will be very high. Patronage or nepotism will no longer be qualifications!

Our guiding policy will be that anything which hinders the above described measures or even makes them impossible will be reformed with great speed. We invite our critics to remind us forcefully should we deviate from this policy.