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Friday, May 25, 2012

Anti-austerity inside the eurozone: Greek voters stick to their potentially false choice

The key trend in Greek opinion polls holds steady: voters back anti-austerity parties in great numbers but  remain committed to staying in the euro in equally great numbers. The latest Public Issue poll released yesterday put the radical left Syriza as the largest party with 30% of the vote, New Democracy on 26% and Pasok on 15%. The figures suggest a surge in support for Syriza but also a move back towards the larger parties, with smaller parties falling in the polls.

Interestingly, a poll from Ipsos suggests that 70% of Greeks would vote to keep the euro if a referendum on the issue were held today, this compares to 50% of Italians, 62% of French, 51% of Germans and 55% of Spaniards. Interestingly, 38% of Italians would vote to leave the euro if a referendum was held today - that's quite high given the country's traditional support for the single currency.

On a less surprising note, from today's Die Welt we learn that fears over Greece leaving the euro has triggered yet more Greek tax evasion. Greek tax revenues between January and April were €500m lower than anticipated in the 2012 budget, while April’s takings fell by 13% on the previous year.

That is not a good sign.

3 comments:

Rik said...

For an outsider what is the most astonishing is that clearly large parts of European society (and a majority in Greece)believe that you simply can go on with spending money, that isnot earned yet, for ever.
Furthermore that somebody else always should pick up the bill for that.
What is even more astonishing that European main stream media and most of its politicians have the same opinion. Imho a clear indication of the quality, or better lack thereof, of these institutions.

The old continent but with a very adolescent view of the world.

Bugsy said...

No surprises here. No surprise also that the big beneficiary of the Euro - Germany, doesn't want to fund this absurdity but wants to continue reaping the benefit.

Anonymous said...

Greek tax revenue decreased due to the fact that the people have nothing left to give, this is not called tax evasion. German media manipulate the public opinion in such a rediculous way that have everyone believe that the Greeks are a bunch of thugs that sit on their butts all day long, do nothing, make money from nothing and evade tax as a profession. How ingnorant a person can be to beleve such bull..?? German banks earn a pile of money from the Greek bailout loans by mediating between the ecb and greece with a hefty interest! And they have their people believe that the german tax payer pays for the greeks! We're talking billions of euros here. In fact Germany not only it doesn't lose from contributing to theGreek bailouts but in reality earns a big pile of money. So much for German morality then.. their only concern is the money they are going to lose in case Greece violently defaults. They only care about money, everything is money for them, there are no people, no history, no global contribution in just about everything developed on this planet...its just about money, nothing else..