After five years of economic rout, Greeks are poised this weekend to reject EU-imposed austerity and vote for Syriza – a party opposed to the fiscal crackdownAfter joining the euro in 2001 – and after a profligate decade that included an $8bn Olympic Games and torrent of cheap money – Greece hit a fiscal cliff in 2010. Technically bankrupt, but without the ability to manipulate its own currency any more, it had no choice but to ask for international help. A series of bailouts agreed by the “troika” – the European commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – worth a record $240bn in total, rescued the state’s balance sheet, but at a steep price. An austerity programme unprecedented in postwar European history stripped back social spending, sent unemployment soaring and ushered in a recession so deep that it ravaged the popularity of the traditional parties of power – the centre-right party New Democracy and the centre-left Pasok. New Democracy squeaked an election win in 2012, but the vote this weekend is expected to favour the anti-austerity leftists of Syriza. Continue reading...
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