A weak government

The Daily Telegraph blames Greece's political parties for their lack of concerted action: "Neither of the main political groups has emerged with credit from the crisis. New Democracy, under Costas Karamanlis, has failed to contain the rioters. And the socialists, under George Papandreou, have cynically used the violence to call for the resignation of the government and new elections, neither of which is likely to take place in the immediate future. Greece is tearing itself apart at a time when it desperately needs to alleviate a huge burden of public debt and a drastic loss of competitiveness. The weakness of Mr Karamanlis's administration revealed over the past five days suggests that it is not equal to the challenge of imposing budgetary discipline, further deregulating the labour market and reforming the pensions system. And the same goes in spades for [the socialist party] Pasok. The sight of a Nato and EU member hopelessly adrift is indeed cause for alarm."

» full article (external link, English)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » Greece

» To the complete press review of Thursday, December 11, 2008