Introduction

Summary

Since 2008, Greece has been at the centre of European current affairs due to the financial crisis that has affected its public finances and shaken the whole of the old continent – even the entire world – by threatening the stability of the European Union's monetary system and the economy of all its partners. The development of what is commonly called the ‘sovereign debt crisis’ is not country-specific, but the reforms that followed in Greece resulted in very significant impoverishment for a large part of the population now living in stark poverty. In recent years, the images that have encapsulated this situation have been widely circulated in the world's media to the point of becoming familiar: strikes and protests, street demonstrations turning into riots, a political crisis, last-chance agreements, misery and violence. The different figures released from the Greek state's statistical services, and estimates from international organisations such as the World Bank and the IMF, or associations fighting against poverty in the country, like Clandestino, Mèdecins du Monde, Smile of a Child, etc., often seem hard to believe when we realise that this is happening to a state that has been part of the European Union since 1981. The levels of poverty and distress that are suggested seem unbearable. Unemployment has risen to 27 per cent of the working population, but double this figure for young people. The minimum wage has been reduced to 456 € net and may be 10 per cent lower for those under 25. In such a context, the standard of living has dropped by 50 per cent owing to falling incomes and rising public costs, despite there being a reduction in rent and certain other prices. This has put nearly a third of the Greek population below the poverty line. In particular, such an impoverishment followed a period where the high development of consumption was accompanied by rapid economic growth, known as the ‘second Greek miracle’, and was characterised by an annual increase in the GNP of 6.75 per cent between 1948 and 1962 (Dallègre 2011).

The abrupt end to the improvement in living conditions that had accompanied this growth, their marked deterioration and, especially, uncertainty and the absence of perspective have hit the Greek people for the most part since the end of the 2000s.