Authority and the Greeks - a recipe for disaster (News Feature)

By Christine Pirovolakis May 3, 2010, 12:33 GMT

Athens - If driving offenses, building code violations, tax evasion and negligence of smoking bans have shown one thing, it is the Greeks' intuitive disregard for authority.

Greece's Socialist government rushed on Monday to push a fresh round of spending cuts through parliament in defiance of public anger at the price of paying for the 110 billion euro international bailout.

Prime Minister George Papandreou met with President Carolos Papoulias and requested a meeting of the heads of the country's political parties to inform them in detail about the austerity package and seek their support.

'With the consent of the political and social forces we will make the changes that are needed to the political system and the economy that should have been made years ago,' Papandreou said.

'Now is the opportunity to make these changes.'

Papandreou has insisted that painful budget cuts and tax increases are necessary the secure the joint eurozone-IMF emergency loans.

In exchange for emergency loans, Greece has agreed budget cuts of 30 billion euros over three years with the aim of slashing the public deficit to less than three per cent of output by 2014, from 13.6 last year.

The measures will target the country's bloated public sector, which makes up roughly a third of the workforce.

Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said the government would scrap holiday bonuses, totalling two months salary, for public sector workers and pensioners; raise the retirement age for women from 60 to 65, bringing it in line with that for men and raise the sales tax from 21 per cent to 23 per cent this year.

But the Greek government now faces the even bigger task of convincing Greeks to accept the draconian measures at a time when the country is already in the midst of a recession.

The resentment of authority and dislike of being told what to do runs deep in the Greek psyche and is evident in tales of the country's ancient history.

Leonidas of Spata set the example at the Battle of Thermopylae against the invading Persian army in 480 BC.

After the King of Sparta's army was told to surrender its weapons by a much larger Persian army sure to defeat them, the response from the outnumbered Spartans was a bold 'Molon Labe; Come and Get Them.'

To this day it remains on the emblem of the Greek First Army Corps.

Greeks also commemorate the day 70 years ago when Italian dictator Mussolini gave the Greeks an ultimatum - to allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy certain strategic locations or face war.

Even then the Greeks preferred to go to war. 'No' or 'Ohi' day is celebrated every year on October 28.

Greek anger this time around is directed at years of wasteful spending, corruption and profiteering by the government.

They say that while they will struggle to pay their bills under the new austerity measures, the rich are being let off the hook and the government will continue to fund costly military weapons programmes instead of vital social services.

Union leaders have vowed to battle the drastic round of measures, calling general strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Smaller protests by garbage collectors and teachers on Monday are expected to offer a first glimpse of the extent of the anger with government plans.

'The measures are totally unfair. How do they expect us to live?' asks 65-year-old pensioner Mario Granousis.

'The government should prepare itself that people will not take this sitting down.'

Newspapers across the country said the day after the harsh measures were announced marked the end of an era in Greece and years of sacrifice.

Center-right Eleftheros Typos said the government was telling Greeks that they must die in order to live, describing the economic medicine as more harmful that a disease.

Ta Nea, a centrist daily, said the way of life Greeks had become accustomed to had to come to an end while independent left-leaning Eleftherotypias headline read 'Four years without a breath...'

European government endorsed the 110 billion euro bailout of Greece during a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels Sunday, although the parliaments of some of the 16 eurozone countries involved, namely Germany and France, still need to approve it.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the EUs Economy Comissioner Olli Rehn described the programme in a joint statement as unprecedented in the scope of the national effort required and the scale of financial support being provided by eurozone countries and the IMF.

'We believe that the programme is the right thing to do to put the economy back on track,' they said, adding that 'the authorities have also designed their programme with fairness in mind so as to protect the poorest and most vulnerable, and ask for a fair sharing of the burden across Greek society.'