The history of the Greek crisis

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The history of the Greek crisis

15/01/2014 | Héctor Aja Muñoz (Alumno UC)

In this essay I will talk about the Greek crisis because I think that it is a very important event in the European financial and economic crisis because is the most important country in all of Europe that was affected.

According to whom I read, the financial Greek problems started in 2001 when Greece was accepted in the European Union because they didn´t pass some financial and economical expectations of the UE. When Greece was accepted in the UE, it emitted a lot of debt but by January, 2010 Greece´s debt in the entire world was very high because the Karamanli´s government had hidden the real macroeconomic results during eight years which meant that the real debt was greater that the Greek government had said.

On April 23, 2010 the Greek government requested a “bailout” from the European Union because they couldn´t pay the public debt. The European Union gave 110€ billion, the European countries paid 80€ billion and 30€ billion was paid for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With that help, the Greek government was required to reduce its expenses in all areas but the effect was the opposite that they had intended because there was less and less money for the Greek people.

Because of that, Yorgos Papandreu became the new Greek president. That government made a lot of financial changes (increases in all the taxes, reducing the salaries, increasing the retirement age, etc.). Those acts were not pleasing to the trade unions and on February 11, 2010 there was a general strike in Greece.

According to the facts, on September, 2011 Greece told the European Union that they needed another “bailout” but were forced to include new conditions. For example, they needed to increase lot of controversial taxes and to reduce a lot of the public employees´ wages.

On November 1, 2011 the Greek government suspended a military coup but the November 11, 2011 Yorgos Papandreu resigned from the Greek government. On that date, Lucas Papademos was named the new Greek president but in the following days the same thing happened all over again. But in this time, many important countries in Europe said that Greece needed leave the European Union and start again with their own money.

My own opinion about this is that Greece needs go out and start again with their own money but if that happened, some countries with great financial problems (Spain, Ireland, Italy,…) could also leave the euro and that would cause the euro to lose value against other currencies (dollar, Pound, Yen, …). But I think if Karamanli´s government had told the truth about the macroeconomic problems Greece wouldn´t have so many poor people, kids going hungry, etc. And my conclusion is: even if the government, the politicians, etc. told the truth for once, would this world be any better?

Nota: Este artículo ha sido elaborado por Héctor Aja Muñoz, alumno de la Universidad de Cantabria, como una de las actividades enmarcadas dentro del programa de capacitación lingüística, dando su permiso para la publicación del mismo en FxM.

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