The Anglican chaplain of Athens has told Premier Christian Radio the country must make significant cuts in government spending and reform its corrupt tax and health systems for the country to return to prosperity.
The Anglican chaplain of Athens has told Premier Christian Radio the country must make significant cuts in government spending and reform its corrupt tax and health systems for the country to return to prosperity. In an interview broadcast on 6 July 2015 the Rev Canon Malcolm Bradshaw asked Christians to pray for Greece in the face of the country’s impending financial collapse. On Sunday voters rejected an austerity plan proposed put forward by the country’s creditors, making it likely Greece will exit the Eurozone. Unemployment currently runs at 25 per cent and the country has €320bn in debts — twice its gross domestic product. He told Premier’s News Hour: “You can get fifty euros from out of the ATMs, but there is now talk that that will be reduced to 20 euros per day from the ATMs. Well how long does that continue?” adding that “If the European Central Bank are unable to support the banking system here in Greece, then there is talk that by the end of the week the banks will crash.” The Greek welfare state, its government pension programmes and political culture had to change, he said. “There is a civil service here which is bloated, it has the highest ratio of civil servants to citizens in the whole of Europe. This is largely because places in the civil service are used for obtaining votes.” He concluded the “Grexit will probably feel quite good for a period of time. But unless Greece does the structural reforms that it needs to do, even the Grexit will not be a solution to its problems.”
