Jean-Luc Melenchon, the hard-left French presidential hopeful, will pledge to raise the minimum wage and restore the country’s retirement age to 60 when he launches his 2027 election programme on Saturday.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the hard-left French presidential hopeful, will pledge to raise the minimum wage and restore the country’s retirement age to 60 when he launches his 2027 election programme on Saturday.
Things haven’t worked out pretty well for Greece. Its purchasing power per capita is one of the lowest in the EU, still below what it was in 2007, and now way behind Poland. The EU should be ashamed of its failure to help Greece recover.
Greece defaulted because it spent so much more money than it had. They defaulted in 2012, then missed payments to the IMF in 2015. Europe then provided €256.6 billion in emergency loans, plus substantial debt relief and banking support.
To characterise this as the fault of Europe betrays a fundamental gap in your understanding of this entire event. No one is disputing that Greece continues to grapple with the problems it created. I was pointing out that it survived and is doing pretty well compared to most other examples of failed states in history.
I didn’t claim that the EU caused Greece’s decline, I claimed it should be ashamed of its inability to help Greece recover.
There’s a big difference between surviving and doing pretty well.
Greece isn’t a failed state.