Healing Balkan Wounds with Actual Human Rights

David L. Phillip's opinion piece in the New York Times is, sadly, an exercise in unfounded generalization. His assertion that Albanians are in favor of human rights, democracy, and free markets, whereas Serbs are aggressors, is misleading, if anything, since both peoples have at times displayed nationalistic fervor; therefore, containment of extreme elements on both sides is required. Moreover, the recipe for so-called "minority rights", collectivist in nature, seems to be the preferred solution by international institutions. Yet, upon closer examination, such rights, if granted to whole communities and not individuals, fail to reduce the tensions between different communities - instead, they lead to heightened conflicts, as they usually appear as mutually exclusive, as far as members of different communities are concerned. Furthermore, endowment of rights to communities and not individuals (very often under the pretense of respect for the community's traditions) is bound to lead to suppression of individuals' rights within their own communities. The human rights of women within the Muslim minority in Thrace, Greece, is a case in point: personal and inheritance relationships among the members of the minority are decided by religious judges applying the Sharia, which means that Muslim women are at a distinct disadvantage.

A viable solution is one that recognizes every individual's human rights. The rigorous application  of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms would suffice to that effect. Conveying local authorities with the power to handle local issues, with the absence of central planning in educational or cultural matters, would enable townships to engage in diverse activities suited to the requirements and needs of the respective residents. That would enable localities, where Serbs are predominant, to operate schools in their own language. That would mean that Albanians and Serbs would have the final saying in the running of their everyday affairs - and that the rights granted to each and every one of them would be complementary. Only treating others as fellow human beings, first and foremost, and not as representatives of their nationality, can produce the foundation for mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.

(Hat tip: Ms. Kiki Petriti)

Theodoros Pangalos Is Speaking the Truth! But Is Not Following Up on Policy.

This blog is no fan of Theodoros Pangalos, currently the Deputy Premier - for reasons too disparate to be put down here at length. However, it does enjoy his sporadic outbursts of truth, like his statement, yesterday, that the whole political system is complicit in the creation of Greece's huge public debt, as administrations by both major parties hired too many people to work at the public sector. That admission was, moreover, a direct answer to the question "Where did all the money go?", which is brandished against the political establishment by populist morning-TV-show presenters - the implication in that question was that the money was pocketed by corrupt politicians. And while it seems that many politicians did indeed enrich themselves at the expense of the public purse, a calm look at previous years' budgets would reveal that that salaries and pensions for civil servants were approximately equal to the government's tax revenues (and anything in excess of that would constitute our high annual deficit). Let me rephrase this: government expenditures on salaries and wages for the public sector are so large, as to consume all the taxes we pay. Or, to put it otherwise, those of us in the private sector work almost exclusively for the sake of those in the public sector (the inefficiency of which is almost of legendary status in Greece).

So, we now know, and the administration admits that it knows too, where "all the money" went. It also knows that it must produce, pretty shortly no less, surpluses, in order to start repaying its foreign debt. There are two ways to turn a deficit into a surplus: reduce costs and increase revenue. Cutting costs, insomuch as it would entail redundancies in the public sector, is out of the question in a political culture like the one in Greece. The Deputy Premier has presented a plan for many public agencies to merge, but any redundant personnel will be transfered to other services - the cost of their wages will still be borne by the government (a notable exception is a public-sector corporation, supposedly created for the digitalization of farmland maps, which was manned by hairdressers, professors of Theology, and other unrelated specialties, although each one of the hires could be traced to parliamentary deputies affiliated with the previous administration of the New Democracy party). Moreover, public enterprises, typically publicly-held corporations, in which the government owns the shares, have their debts guaranteed by the government. They are also hugely overmanned. The government has announced that the employees of the state-owned enterprises made redundant by its purportedly cost-cutting measures will not lose their jobs, since they will be hired by the government. Thus far, the only actual cost-cutting has come through a drastic reduction in monthly salaries for civil servants across the board.

Things don't look so good in the field of increasing revenue, either. Diminished turnovers lead to diminished tax revenues, despite a significant increase in tax rates. Furthermore, the government has done nothing to make Greece attractive to investors (the increased tax rates only further discourage potential investors) and any money poured into the market comes from government (or E.U.) coffers. The government is all in favor of development and growth, but the path it has taken to reduce deficits is, in effect, stifling growth. It has become by now abundantly clear that the only way for the reduction of deficits, which would be consistent with any potential for growth, is actual redundancies in the public sector. To put it bluntly, the government needs to get rid of all redundant personnel - to get it out of its payroll. It has to reduce the bill it pays for salaries each month; not by across-the-board cuts, though (since there are civil servants who are compensated all too well for their services, while, at the same time, a number of them receive only meager wages), but by simply not paying for people, whose services it does not need. That goes for both the central government and for the local governments (municipalities, prefectures, areas, etc.). And, it goes without saying, to completely change the atmosphere for investments in Greece - but, more on that (and how Greece managed in in the '50s and the '60s), in a next post.

A New Wave of Greek Emigration? Not So, Really.

It is amazing how so many articles about Greece published in foreign papers or magazines are so off the mark - and this article in the New York Times is one of them. It purports to describe and explain a new wave of emigration from Greece to Europe or to the United States, which is completely different from the earlier waves of the '60s and the '70s (and earlier, yet, at the turn between the 19th and 20th century): this time it is mostly university-educated young people, rather than peasants or manual laborers, who go after the challenges, and the higher rewards, of mostly white-collar jobs abroad. There are fears of a brain drain in Greece, fears that its most talented and ambitious young people are leaving, never to return.

Indeed, a lot more people than in the past are considering the possibility of working and living abroad, but not so many, as to drastically alter the composition of the working force in Greece. Moreover, the article is completely wrong in presenting the causes of this surge in people's acceptance of the possibility of emigrating: it attributes this surge in the scandals that have plagued Greek political life the past three or four years and the sense that meritocracy is not to be found in Greece; moreover, the lack of private-sector jobs requiring college-level qualifications in Greece, meaning that most jobs are held by over-qualified employees; hence, if one wishes to fully realize one's potential, then emigration seems like the only solution.

These are only small parts of the explanation. An ever increasing number of Greek students has the opportunity, through the Erasmus student-exchange program, to study abroad, albeit for a semester only, prior to earning their university degree. They get to know first-hand how different life abroad is. Moreover, air travel has become relatively inexpensive - it is not unthinkable for a family of modest means to spend a week, or even a fortnight abroad in vacation. These changes are recent and result in many more young Greeks having travelled abroad and gotten to know how it is out there and even established some connections in foreign markets - coupled with Greeks' propensity to learn foreign languages (practically every university graduate speaks English and many speak at least one more foreign language) they would inevitably lead to more Greeks considering the prospect of spending a large part of their lives away from their homeland.

If there is a catalyst that might lead to spike in emigration, which the article does not mention, it is the consequences of the financial crisis: the possibility that the government might default on its debts and not be able to pay the public servants any more (except at a completely reduced rate) and the hiring freeze in the public sector. The article fails to grasp, much less present, the almost mythical status public service has in Greece - not because it is considered an honorable pursuit, but quite the contrary: because public servants, for all practical purposes, cannot be sacked. Getting a government job is a dream, on which more than one generation has been raised. College and graduate studies help, if anything, to increase the qualifications for applying for a government job and to ensure special salary bonuses. Most people think that they have "made it" by having been hired by the central government or by the local administrations or by any of a large number of smaller government bodies or corporations. Since this option has become unavailable, many more people are preparing for the possibility of finding a job abroad.

Needless to mention that these people are wanting in the qualities that would serve them well abroad: confidence, responsibility, ambition, drive to prove oneself. Many of them still live with their parents and feed on the bank accounts, that had bloated during the years, when the government could still borrow and distribute money at will. But these resources are finite - and, after they are drained, many a Weltanschauung might change.