Special report: Eight years into the deepest economic depression that
an industrialized country has ever experienced, we are now being told
that Greece is a “success story.” Having
accepted the “bitter medicine” prescribed by the “troika”—the European
Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary
Fund—the storyline today is that Greece is on the road to recovery,
firmly within the European Union and the eurozone.
This narrative was recently echoed by Greek Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras in his annual speech at the Thessaloniki Trade Fair, Greece’s
equivalent to the State of the Union address. In this speech, Tsipras
triumphantly declared that talk of “Grexit”—or a Greek departure from
the eurozone and the EU—has been replaced by that of “Grinvest.”
Within such a context, there is seemingly no room for discussions about
whether it is in Greece’s best interest, even after so many years of
implementing the troika’s austerity diktats, to consider a departure
from the eurozone and the EU. Indeed, the narrative is that the people
of Greece overwhelmingly have never supported the prospect of “Grexit.”
