Dead ends everywhere

There was little chance of the government changing the economic policy mix it has relied on for the past four years in the runup to elections. Instead, it remains capable only of running up excessive primary surpluses through overtaxation while failing completely to revive the real economy.

Major investments like that for the development of the former airport at Elliniko or the expansion of Cosco at Piraeus have been caught up in a quagmire even though they had been poised to forge ahead. Big privatization projects like that of the Public Power Corporation lignite mines or Hellenic Petroleum, in turn, are in limbo because of clientelist, administrative and dogmatic obstacles set up by the government itself.

There used to be a point in wondering whether this government has the drive but lacks the ability. Not anymore.