Words without action

If you wanted to look at the glass as being half-full, you could say the political system seems to have finally found some common ground with regard to the economy. Everyone appears to agree on the need for less stringent fiscal targets and the fact that Greece obviously requires investment to move forward.

However, this show of consensus is only skin-deep, as such rhetoric represents little more than a spell to ward off evil for certain parts of the political system. There is enough proof of this in the fact that major investments which were already mature in 2015 have made little progress over the past four years. It is also evident in the failure to address significant institutional shortcomings like the slow pace of the justice system.

Instead of reforms and investments, we have seen the opposite: taxes, handouts and ostensible salary hikes. Growth, however, will not come via legislation or spells. It will come only when the rhetoric turns into action.