Is it?
The good news and the bad news. Reportedly...
No doubt, 6 years of austerity are down the drain as Greece received and spent ±240 bn euro and is still, no further or perhaps even worse off than where it started.
One reason for this apparent standstill was that austerity in the form of cuts in public investment and salary cuts in the public sector and pension cuts, as well as back-breaking increases in income tax brought about a sharp reduction in peoples' spending budget and cut out many organisations' livelihood: the Greek state. And this, in turn, brought about recession.
After 6 years of recession, and five months of an unconventional government by a populist and somewhat totalitarian party, Syriza, Greece is back in recession, and asking for a third bailout.
The pre-conditions of this bailout, should it be accepted, are reportedly tough, humiliating, and threaten to upset the status quo in Greece as Greeks know it.
How bad is it??
How humiliating?
While I don't have the actual text, reportedly it calls for a number of things.
First is the usual fruit of short-sighted governments: even higher taxation - in part in order to compensate for the Greek government's continued refusal to reduce the number of people on its payroll (it has actually added 10,000 civil servants in the 5 months of its governance).
As usual in Greece, some of the measures (e.g. VAT) will hit lower income earners more than others. Typically these are the people least likely to raise a stink, so the motto is, "slam them".
- It does however also include gradual revocation of privileges (not bad), taxation of shipowners (unlikely, unless one can convince them to contribute - which is not a bad idea as they can make a difference!)
- It also mentions relaxation of labour law restrictions; at the onset, not bad either especially given the ±1.45 mn unemployed in Greece
- There is also mention of liberalisation of closed professions
- Reduction in bureaucracy
...and much of this enacted asap, before bailout talks begin.
Also, reforms will be secured by EU supervision.
I.e. reforms are to be guaranteed in Greece by the Greek government and an EU supervisory team...
Which makes me think of the following positive point:
a foreign "supervisor", who is to blame for everything, is the ideal justification for quick implementation of measures which go against local pressure groups and self-serving political and business oligarchs (union leaders, tycoons, etc): "not my fault, could;t do anything. I'm with you! (Until you die out, hopefully soon...)"
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