Greece PM Antonis Samaras says country is in a ‘Great Depression’
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Greece’s recession is very deep, in fact Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told former U.S. President Bill Clinton earlier this week that Greece is in a “Great Depression”, reminiscent of what the United States went through in the 1930s.
Reuters reports, by the end of this year Greek GDP is expected to have shrunk by about a fifth in five consecutive years of recession since 2008, hammered by tax hikes, spending cuts and wage reductions required by two EU/IMF bailouts. Unemployment climbed to a record 22.6 percent in the first quarter.
“You had the Great Depression in the United States,” Samaras told Clinton, who was visiting Greece as part of a delegation of Greek-American businessmen. “This is exactly what we’re going through in Greece – it’s our version of the Great Depression.”
Forbes reports today that the country which has been bailed out twice is set to run out of money in about a month, according to a British government report.
Representatives of the IMF, the EU, and the ECB are currently in Athens assessing the progress of the austerity and privatization programs which appear to have been ineffective at limiting the impact of a deep recession and helping Greece return to a path of debt sustainability.
The recession is probably deeper than expected, according to Nomura, and privatization revenues are nowhere to be found, putting pressure on the Troika to once again restructure the Hellenic nation’s debt, possibly imposing losses on public creditors such as the ECB.
