Greece in focus: a GreeSE Papers special issue

Fourteen months since the agreement for the first national bailout in EMU history, the Greek crisis keeps unfolding at a mesmerising pace. In June 2011 things took a dramatic turn, as the poor evaluation of the government’s efforts to deliver on the obligations it had undertook under the Memorandum for the €110bn loan, especially with regard to the programme of privatisations, the tackling of tax evasion, the liberalisation of closed professions and the consolidation of public bodies, triggered a new mini-crisis. The open questioning by the Eurozone and IMF officials of the continuation of funding under the €110bn loan led to an almost-farcical political crisis, with the PM announcing his willingness to step down in exchange for the formation of a coalition government and a few hours later backtracking to form a new partisan cabinet aiming to calm within-party and wider public opposition to the policies pursued by the government.