“A WEEK IN POLITICS IS A LONG TIME”, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously stated in 1964, but that intrepid leader never had to put up with European politics, after having experience of which he may have said that a week was a long, baffling bore. Current Prime Minister Davy Cameron will now certainly know all about that, having spent a European Union Summit meeting trying to convince our northern European cousins and our other amis, amigos and amici that giving more money to Greece will just make things worse and that any problem is not Britain’s fault.
TODAY’S SUNDAY TIMES, in presenting interesting opinion articles by Rod Liddle and Matthew Campbell, shares Cameron’s attitude towards the current parlous state of affairs in the birthplace of European civilization. Liddle, particularly, points out that giving money to the Greeks is like giving an alcoholic crates of beer and making them promise to stop drinking.
THE GREEKS THEMSELVES SEEM LITTLE CONCERNED about their situation, continuing, as Liddle also points out, to Bouzouki away after lunch and dinner, dancing on the plates they ritually smash instead of washing them and using them again, although I would add that for the less traditional, younger anarchist Greeks, the Bouzouki music has been replaced by this week’s number one in the Greek charts, Jessie J’s “Price Tag” and its anthem-like, ”Why is everyone so serious? It's not about the money, money, money / We don't need your money, money, money / We just wanna make the world dance, ...”
MATTHEW CAMPBELL’S MORE SERIOUS ARTICLE interviews former Greek finance minister Stefanos Manos, who despairs of Greece’s situation and cannot understand why the “Germans” (sic) do not see what the problem is and/or that there is no solution. I will not reproduce his article point by point, but, rather fashionably for me, set out the keywords and expressions: corruption at all levels, unbelievably excessive bureaucracy, well-paid “ghost jobs”, life pensions for members of parliament after only two terms of office, government and local councils building up massive, never paid utility and transport bills, freebies and perks for everyone in public administration, enormous “adaptation” payouts to politicians who return to civil society. The list goes on.
IGNORANCE BY “GERMANS” MAY BE one reason why Greece is not being sorted out by the European union, and I imagine the same lack of knowledge explains why some British politicians also think that Portugal can be saved by an injection of money. When I read this article about Greece this morning I almost believed I was reading about Portugal, as everything written in it applies to this country.
Besides this I would add 18 days of public holidays (including the days taken when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, automatically making the previous or following day a holiday), a whole month’s obligatory paid holiday for all contracted workers, fourteen month’s annual salary, universal rights to six months’ paid absence on “sickness” grounds, inability by the state to collect taxes from the professional classes and a black economy that probably outweighs the official one.
WHEN ABSENCE, DISOBEDIENCE, INCOMPETENCE AND LATENESS are not considered justifiable reasons for dismissal one can understand why there is little incentive for the people to work; contrast this with Luxembourg, where the Portuguese are considered exemplary employees, or the States of Jersey, where most workers in the restaurant and hotel business are Portuguese and are extremely highly regarded.
But in these places they are well paid, in the former, and hardly paid at all, in the latter, making their money on tips and productivity bonuses. With an obligatory fixed-wage 35-hour week, with no overtime allowed by law, even taxi drivers have no incentive to work extra hours, as they earn their wage at the end of the month (unless they work with the taximeter off), and waiters might as well look away when they are beckoned to our tables – the best thing that can happen to them is for the restaurateur to go bankrupt, as their redundancy payments would do far more than compensate them.
(My picture is an example of private enterprise at work in Portugal. This is the front door of a furniture shop in one of the busiest central shopping districts in Lisbon, the city with the greatest number of shops in Europe. It may be difficult to read, (I will get a better photo soon) but the timetable states: Opening time - 10 am to 7 pm (Entrada do pessoal, 10.00 horas às 19.00 horas); and underneath, Lunchtime – 12.30 to 4 pm (período do almoço, 12.30 às 16 horas). On Saturdays, when people might want to look at and buy furniture, the shop is open from 10 to 12.30. When I was at the shop recently the owner told me business had been very bad of late. Now why might that be?)
Interesting post, even though it made me feel quite depressed (especially when you decide to emphasize with big letters).
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Lisbon has the greatest number of shops in Europe, but now that I think, maybe that explains why some shops have such schedules. We might be facing a problem where this is too much supply\offer and not an equal amount of people with money to spend and represent the demand (something that makes nowadays more sense than ever). I do not think it would be worth for the shop to be open during a longer period: the benefits would not be superior to the costs of hiring someone to be there on the lunch time period, especially in a shop that sells furniture. Would it then be worth to change Saturdays schedule? You know very well that Portuguese people go to malls on Saturdays or if they want furniture they will rather "leave" their money in multinational enterprises like IKEA.