ISSUE: The Human Cost of Austerity Policies In Greece
COUNTRY: Azerbaijan
Since 2009, Greece has been perplexed by debt crisis so far. The investors concerned Greece’s ability to repay the debt, and in 2010, the downgrading of Greek government debt to junk bond. This reform astonished the whole financial markets. Greece had the first bailout loan in 2010 and started the austerity policies. The large sum of bailout loan didn’t remain a long time, due to the fact that the growth of the Greek economy worked too slowly, Eurozone leader agreed to offer Greece the second bailout loan in 2011.In August 2013, IMF (International Monetary Fund) pointed that Greece is close to getting the third bailout found, and this time Eurozone’s other creditors might need to ratify this case. Without others ratification, the economy problem in Greece would be even serious. However, German urges to end austerity policies and considers that the voice of against will increase if Greece still follows the austerity policies to win the bailout, and this conduct would cause more and more social unrests.
In May 2010, IMF and the Eurozone countries agreed on a €110 billion bailout loan for Greece, and Greek government had to implement the first austerity policy to bring its deficit under control by follow up:
1. Implementation of austerity measures, to restore the fiscal balance.
2. Privatization of government assets worth €50bn by the end of 2015, to keep the debt pile sustainable.
3. Implementation of outlined structural reforms, to improve competitiveness and growth prospects.
However, Greece didn’t deal with this debt crisis well. Greece needs the second bailout, and it was ratified by all the parties in February2012. They would cover the Greek financial need from 2012-2014.
Greece has implemented the austerity policies to obtain the bailout loan for several years, and these policies also bring about lots of evident social problem. For instance, the