Can Greece thrive with a shrinking population?

Greece’s population decline, its need for growth and the imperative of a balanced budget are taxing government ingenuity

(Photo: John T Psaropoulos)

With its 2025 budget, Greece has come full circle from the financial crisis that bankrupted it in 2010. It will, if all goes as planned, regain a GDP of €242bn at current prices, similar to that of 2009. Unemployment will once again fall below 10 percent. Minimum wage, which only last year was restored to €730 euros a month, has risen to €830 to absorb some of the intervening inflation. Taxes have climbed down to levels similar to those of 2009, though not completely. It has taken a generation for the Greeks to more-or-less win back the standard of living they had when Barack Obama became president.