Charalampos Economou writes: The structural adjustment program in Grrece has failed to deliver the expected results. Indicative of this is the fact that government deficit in 2013 reached 12.2% of gross domestic product (GDP); debt went up to 174.9% of GDP; unemployment reached 27.5%; more than a third of the population (35.7%) is at risk of poverty or social exclusion; and the inequlaity of income distribution increased. Public health expenditure decreased by €4.2 billion between 2009-12, and more than 2.5 million people lost their health insurance.
In this context, Syzria’s election win came as no surprise. Based on an alternative policy proposal of a national reconstruction plan, the party put forward an optimistic vision that was desperately needed.
The plan focuses on four major pillars to reverse the social and economic disintegration, to reconstruct the economy and exit from the crisis. The four pillars are: confront the humanitarian crisis; restart the economy and promote tax justice; regain employment; and transform the political system to deepen democracy.
The plan includes free electricity to households under the poverty line and meal subsidies to families without income. Syriza has also promised to provide free medical and pharmaceutical care for unemployed people without health insurance — a big problem in Greece that impacts on access to care.
Housing guarantees, rent subsidies, transport discounts for long-term unemployed and those under the poverty line aim to tackle issues related to poverty along with the restitution of the €12,000 annual income tax threshold and restoring the minimum wage to €751.
The health sector will be one of Syriza’s priorities, with an emphasis on securing access for the uninsured to health services, staffing the national health service with the recruitment of the necessary number of medical and nursing personnel and increasing the budget for health.
Deliverying health care will be done through an increase in public spending to be covered by decisively combating tax evasion and smuggling, and by establishing a public development bank as well as of special-purpose banks financed from the so-called “comfort pillow” of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund and other specialized European instruments.
The most difficult task the party has will be to convince the EU and troika that a new European deal for Greece is needed in order to secure a socially viable solution to Greece’s debt problem.
