To ask how Greece is today, the answer is direct, it is bad as our guest, the Greek journalist Maria Denaxa, says. After the financial crisis of 2008, which ruined the country and therefore the people, after the Covid crisis and today the war in Ukraine, Greece has suffered for more than a decade from successive shocks which have plunged the country to the brink of poverty.
With the onset of shortages, future restrictions and rising prices, including energy, due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Greeks are not at the end of their troubles with an average salary of 300 or 400 euros. Today, Greeks are taking to the streets of Athens to express their anger.
For now, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has returned to world news by asserting his membership in NATO, appearing as a mediator in peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. The opportunity for him to restore the image of his power one year before the Turkish legislative and presidential elections, and especially at the dawn of the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic, 2023. Thus, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan left aside his targeted on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, and gas drilling in the economic, exclusive, Greek and Cypriot zones. For Maria Denaxa, it is a lull for Greece. Tripartite negotiations, Greece-Cyprus-Turkey would be considered regarding drilling.
Orthodox people, the Greeks feel concerned by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Firstly because Greeks had been settled in Russia and Ukraine on the shores of the Black Sea for a very long time, as in Mariupol (Marioupolis in Greek), then because some Ukrainians are Orthodox, just like the Russians , which made Greece react for a rapid resolution of a conflict between brotherly peoples. But this conflict reappeared differences and tensions between the different Orthodox patriarchates.
It should be noted that many Russians have invested and settled in Greece and Cyprus, and that many Ukrainians and Ukrainians work in Greece. This area of the Orthodox Eastern Mediterranean is a mosaic weakened by war.
If the Greeks remember during the financial crisis the harshness of the Brussels authorities with the Troika, as well as that of Angela Merkel, they are not ready to forget it. Brussels’ position towards the current conflict and the sanctions imposed on Russia are worrying Greek consumers who see it once again as a sign of impoverishment. For Maria Denaxa, the Greeks feel like betrayed Europeans. As for the Greek government, it is repaying its debt of 1.85 billion euros to the IMF two years in advance, but at what price for the Greeks?