After ten years of "financial purgatory", the Greeks finally overcame the severe economic and social crisis, and the world rating agencies freed the Greek government bonds from the marks of "bad" investments, and Greece has recorded an economic growth of over two percent for the second year, although the Greek population continues to live bad, according to official statistical data from Eurostat.
Only the Bulgarians live more modestly than the Greeks in the EU, because their purchasing power barely reaches 60 percent of the average in the European Union, and according to the latest findings of the EU Statistics Office, the purchasing power and gross product per inhabitant in the Western Balkans are even weaker - only somewhere around 50 percent of the EU average.
The wealthiest citizens are Luxembourg and Ireland, 140 percent and 112 percent above the EU average, followed by the Dutch, Danes and Austrians.
The French are right in the middle, and at the back, in addition to the Greeks and Bulgarians, there are also Lithuanians, Slovaks and Croats.
Greece recovered from the crisis by spending ten years on huge debts of over 360 billion euros at the expense of public expenses, salaries and pensions, while inflation does not abate, especially the prices of food, gasoline and rent are high, the cost of living is still very high .
The recovery of the Greek economy took place on the backs of the people, say dissatisfied unions and left-wing economists, but the center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis points to excellent economic results and predicts that inflation will soon fall and living standards will begin to rise.
"Greece has been moving away from the EU for ten years, and in the next decade it will move closer, because it has regained the trust of investors," says Prime Minister Mitsotakis' chief economic advisor Alexis Patelis.
He points to the fact that world rating agencies removed the "rotten" label from Greek government bonds, while the British weekly "Economist" rated the Greek economy as "the most advanced in 2023."
But how long will the Greek population have to wait for this "economic miracle" to be beneficial for the masses, not just shareholders, businesses, banks, and foreign investors.
Greeks still remember that before the European and world financial crisis in 2008, they lived quite decently, since before that the gross domestic product per inhabitant of Greece was 95 percent of the average in the EU.
However, it seems that something has started, because this year the government has increased the minimum guaranteed salary from 780 euros gross to 830 euros, although the unions indicate that the annual salary in Greece is still 25 percent below the EU average, and pensions are even somewhat reduced.
The population still suffers from high living costs, and according to data from the Central Bank of Greece, 27 percent of Greeks still live on the poverty line.
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