Thessaloniki
If anything proves that he Greek crisis is essentially due to past profligacy it is the current improvement in the status of the finances of the city of Thessaloniki. And I have no doubt that it it was the entry into the European Union and the mirage which the EU creates of getting something for nothing which lay behind much of the public employees “jobs for life” attitude and the spendthrift behaviour that any self-respecting household would have eschewed. But of course the Greek crisis has been caused by just a small minority of Greeks. I suppose the analogy would be of a household where the husband was spending the family jewels on drink and a good time while his wife and family made do with whatever that was left. But what Thessaloniki is apparently showing is how to get out of the pit. And if Greece could have devalued their drachma and did not have the high value of the Euro as a millstone around their necks, the return of tourists and an escape from the depths would probably be faster.
With his craggy face, diamond earring and tattooed wrist, Thessaloniki mayor Yannis Boutaris looks an unlikely candidate to turn around the finances of Greece’s second biggest city.
But the 70-year old, who stands apart from the political mainstream, is pulling off reforms that have so far evaded the national government in a three-year-old debt crisis that has sucked in some 150 billion euros of international aid.
In contrast to the rest of Greece, this sea-front city of one million is shrinking debt, cutting business taxes to help firms and paying city employees and contractors on time.
It is saving money by holding competitive tenders for the paper, plastic bags and milk it buys – a departure from past practice of relying on a few, chosen providers. ….
…. In a country that reeks of corruption but where no politician has yet been convicted, Greece’s first big corruption trial started in the city in September. Boutaris’s predecessor and 17 other former officials are charged with embezzling 51 million euros from city coffers, about as much as Thessaloniki is spending on public construction each year. ….
…. Thessaloniki will run a budget surplus this year and is boosting construction projects such as a new promenade, said 49-year old Hasdai Kapon, a former broker whom Boutaris appointed to run the city’s finances. ….. To mitigate the crisis, Boutaris has revived tourism, drawing visitors from new markets but also the ire of Greek nationalists. In 2011 foreign arrivals rose by 37 percent. …… Arrivals from Turkey and Israel soared in the past two years after he helped lure Turkish Airlines and travelled to Israel to evoke the city’s flourishing Jewish, pre-Holocaust past. …..
…. But Boutaris’ moves to highlight the city’s Turkish Ottoman and Jewish past as well as his outspoken stance against Greece’s ultra-right Golden Dawn party, have enraged some.
…. Boutaris’s failure to deal with the city’s garbage is providing fodder to his rivals. …Boutaris admitted he has failed to deliver on a pre-election promise to clean up the streets in six months, saying that it was harder than he thought to move garbage workers from desk jobs out to the streets.
“It’s hard to clean up the city without having the people,” he said.
He also blamed bureaucratic snags for failing in some of his planned projects, such as bicycle paths and traffic changes to ease congestion, which must first be approved by government authorities.
“Dealing with them is like getting stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “But citizens, of course, blame me.”
Tags: European Union, Greece, Greek Crisis, Thessaloniki, Yannis Boutaris
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