The Comeback: Greece is Soaring, Even as the Economic Crisis Lingers For Some 

Fifteen years or so ago, Greece was the poster child for economically backward Europe. As the Council on Foreign Relations explained, poor fiscal management, bad decisions by foreign investors, and a global economy struggling in the wake of the American financial meltdown triggered a crisis that threatened to ruin the Eurozone. 

Now Greek leaders say things are different. 

Greek Labor Minister Niki Kerameus, for instance, has been speaking across Europe in a bid to convince hundreds of thousands of Greek expatriates who fled abroad in search of greener fields to return home to work and raise their families, the Financial Times reported. 

Her pitch describes how Greek wages have increased by 28 percent since 2016, how unemployment is down, inflation is under control, and how the government will give returnees tax breaks while major foreign corporations have taken advantage of incentives to employ more Greeks. 

“All of this progress would not have been possible without political stability,” said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose center-right New Democracy political party won a second mandate in elections in 2023, at a recent event in New York, wrote Hellenic News America. 

Officials now forecast that Greece’s economy will grow at a rate of 2.4 percent in 2026, more than almost any other European economy, due to high investment and consumer spending, Reuters added. 

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg noted, Greece has already managed to regain investment grade status, has fully repaid International Monetary Fund bailout loans ahead of schedule, and plans to do the same with part of its rescue loans from European countries.  

But the old Greece still exists. 

Workers in transport, healthcare, and government offices recently held a general strike in Greece to protest new Mitsotakis-backed labor laws that would allow for 13-hour workdays, the Guardian wrote. Strikers complained that their wages are too low and the new hours would destroy their work-life balance. 

“Exhaustion is not development, human tolerance has limits,” the General Confederation of Workers of Greece said in a statement to the Associated Press. 

Such developments are one reason why former leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras might be planning a comeback, reported Ekathimerini. Tsipras led the country during the debt crisis but according to his former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and his other socialist allies, he caved to the capitalists, setting the stage for harsh austerity and brutal workloads. 

Defenders of the new labor laws counter that they allow for overtime, not mandated work, Euronews noted. Total working hours would be capped at 48 per week. Overtime hours would similarly be limited to 150 per year. Unions are demanding a statutory 37.5-hour workweek. 

French newspaper Le Monde reported that while the economic indicators are positive, much of the population continues to struggle. For example, according to the Greek government, almost one-third of Greeks are close to the poverty line, while Greece’s GDP per capita is among the lowest in the European Union. For many, making ends meet is challenging due to the cost of living and inflation. 

Stylianos Ioakim, a septuagenarian former stationery shop owner, says he lives in fear of losing his home because his mortgage rose during the past decade and is now unaffordable with his €900 per month ($1,045) pension. “The crisis,” he told the newspaper, “isn’t over for everyone.”