GREECE: A cost-of-living crisis in Greece that affects wages is at the forefront of mind for voters ahead of an election on May 21. It involves voting for anyone besides the opposition socialist Syriza or the current conservative New Democracy, according to Klaoudatou.
A single parent frets about the monetary inflow during the present times more than during the years of Greece’s financial turmoil.
She says, “I’m going to vote for a small party to demonstrate my dissatisfaction with the larger parties. Even throughout the crisis, and this is the joke, I didn’t think twice before spending a single extra euro.”
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, had augmented the minimum wage and pensions and had mentioned that he would cater to more deeds if he got reelected. His main rival, the left-leaning Alexis Tsipras, who held the post from 2015 to 2019, has also promised to increase pensions as well as the minimum wage and index wages to inflation.
Even though Greece is no longer officially under the European Union’s fiscal watch, the country’s massive debt load has lenders on its side.
Yannis Stournaras, Greece’s central banker, mentions, “Fiscally, we’re still a long way from a primary (budget) surplus, which is required for long-term debt sustainability.”
With the termination of the bailout procedure in 2018, it was a difficult task to strengthen the country’s monetary inflows. Market access was taken into consideration by Greece, and as well as growth was established to cater to the average of the eurozone.
During a ten-year financial meltdown that culminated in 2015, Greece was stopped from exiting the Eurozone by three multilateral bailouts. But the austerity measures that were imposed as a condition for financial aid had a detrimental effect on millions of Greeks’ standard of life as taxes rose and wages and pensions were modified.
Vlassis Missos, a fellow researcher at the Greek Centre for Planning and Economic Research, mentioned, “For workers and retirees, the last ten years have been stagnant. Any increase in growth has not yet been passed on to them.”
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