Greece Suffering From The Economic Crisis

Online, May 11, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Greece is going through an economic crisis. George Papandreou took over as Prime Minister of Greece in October 2009. Now he has the tough job of bringing the country back from the brink. The country has a budget deficit of 12.7 per cent and a public debt of €300 billion, plus it is struggling to pay its bills as interest rates on debts rise.

Papandreou has tried to rescue the Greek economy by increasing taxes on fuel, tobacco and alcohol, raising the retirement age by two years, imposing public sector pay cuts and applying a tough new tax evasion regulation, which has not gone down too well with some sectors of society. Also VAT has been increased from 19 per cent to 21 per cent, which has angered most of the population.
Farmers have begun blockading roads to demand greater government subsidies and workers have been staging strikes.

"As a result of this we are all seeing fuel prices going up which in turn means the food prices are increasing too, so the cost of living is rising," said Pauline. "While all this is happening I still have no regrets about moving here and on the whole it is still cheaper to live here than in the UK.

"We're learning to shop more wisely and to shop around. We use two or three supermarkets as certain things are cheaper in one than another. If it is saving money then it's no problem to visit different supermarkets to do our weekly shop."