Bailout country

In a theatre in central Athens, over a thousand tax inspectors have gathered to shout crossly about the latest cuts to their pay and pensions. Eventually the argument, between the government-affiliated union leader and his members, spills out on to the street. The rank-and-file feel betrayed: they were persuaded to accept the first wave of pay cuts earlier this year, and now they are being asked to take even more. This does not feel to them as if they’re being bailed out by kindly neighbours. It feels to these tax inspectors, and to Greeks in general, like humiliation. They feel trapped in an inescapable relationship with sadistic Germany. As the wife of one inspector puts it, Greece is being ‘treated like Hector, being dragged around and around by Achilles’ chariot’.

This is the front line of the euro crisis: resentment all round. Perhaps you’d imagined that Greek taxpayers were out working their fingers to the bone, collecting every euro cent? Not so. When even the tax collectors are starting to urge non-payment of tax, you can be sure everyone else feels the same way. The tax inspectors tell me they’re soon to go on strike. They are even advising fellow Greeks to defy the new ‘emergency taxes’ on property.

I speak to Franteska, an Athenian tax inspector whose husband has been unemployed for two years and whose son is joining the flood of Greeks leaving their homeland. ‘My paycheck keeps getting smaller,’ she says. ‘I used to have a salary of €2,000 a month, now I barely earn €800. It’s not even enough to cover our basic needs.’ Government ministers, she says, warned her against investigating the tax affairs of the Greek elite.

This is what a country near default looks and sounds like. There’s not just a collapsing economy, but a failing tax system and a broken social contract between Greece’s people and its rulers.