Coppola Comment: Greece and the EU: a question of trust

Coppola Comment: Greece and the EU: a question of trust

Since then [2010], successive Greek governments have failed to deliver agreed reforms or have chosen to implement so-called "reforms" that wrecked small businesses and bankrupted households without addressing the deep structural problems in the Greek economy. Greece has made an immense reform effort, but all it has to show for it is a tiny primary surplus, some illusory exports and a growth mirage. It remains deeply depressed: the Economist observes that its depression is now nearly as deep as that of the US in the 1930s and more prolonged. And its debt/gdp is now a shocking 181% of GDP. However well-intentioned these reforms are, they are not working.