Post by Bozur on Apr 10, 2005 0:49:49 GMT -5
Greece gets wake-up call
The inflation estimate for January released yesterday by the EU statistics office Eurostat is a wake-up call, if not an alarm bell. Greece’s estimated 4.2 percent rate placed our economy near the bottom of the list of the 25 nations.
Latvia was found to have the highest inflation rate at 6.7 percent, while Greece and Estonia followed with 4.2 percent. Greece’s dismal performance took place against an upbeat overall backdrop as in the full, 25-member European Union inflation fell to 1.9 percent — a figure that was below the European Central Bank’s 2 percent target rate.
The danger is clear. For two decades we have grown accustomed to the idea that the so-called Med club — Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy — are the bloc’s laggards in terms of microeconomic indices. Greece was merely expected to alternate with Portugal in the last position.
When the Union ballooned to 25 members, taking in states with weaker economies and lower living standards, it was widely held here that Greece would come to occupy some place halfway on the EU table. The Greeks were deluded.
Greece is in danger of being relegated from the club of Mediterranean states to the group of the poorer Baltic countries and then to that of Central European nations, or worse, the Balkan ones. That is, unless it changes course.
As the new members absorb a big share of economic aid, EU funds going to Greece will shrink. The threat is real, not fiction.
A combination of high inflation and low productivity would seriously harm Greece’s position in the global economy, downgrading Greece among the EU laggards.
Greece must change course. That is a feasible aim, provided there is the political will to take the necessary measures. In the context of global competition, boosting competitiveness is the only path to economic progress.
Should we fail to take action, profiteering, political and business entanglement and inflation will become endemic as we try to extract profits from an economy that produces too little wealth for sustainable growth.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=53529
The inflation estimate for January released yesterday by the EU statistics office Eurostat is a wake-up call, if not an alarm bell. Greece’s estimated 4.2 percent rate placed our economy near the bottom of the list of the 25 nations.
Latvia was found to have the highest inflation rate at 6.7 percent, while Greece and Estonia followed with 4.2 percent. Greece’s dismal performance took place against an upbeat overall backdrop as in the full, 25-member European Union inflation fell to 1.9 percent — a figure that was below the European Central Bank’s 2 percent target rate.
The danger is clear. For two decades we have grown accustomed to the idea that the so-called Med club — Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy — are the bloc’s laggards in terms of microeconomic indices. Greece was merely expected to alternate with Portugal in the last position.
When the Union ballooned to 25 members, taking in states with weaker economies and lower living standards, it was widely held here that Greece would come to occupy some place halfway on the EU table. The Greeks were deluded.
Greece is in danger of being relegated from the club of Mediterranean states to the group of the poorer Baltic countries and then to that of Central European nations, or worse, the Balkan ones. That is, unless it changes course.
As the new members absorb a big share of economic aid, EU funds going to Greece will shrink. The threat is real, not fiction.
A combination of high inflation and low productivity would seriously harm Greece’s position in the global economy, downgrading Greece among the EU laggards.
Greece must change course. That is a feasible aim, provided there is the political will to take the necessary measures. In the context of global competition, boosting competitiveness is the only path to economic progress.
Should we fail to take action, profiteering, political and business entanglement and inflation will become endemic as we try to extract profits from an economy that produces too little wealth for sustainable growth.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=53529