Euro’s policies have destroyed Greece and led to new high levels of poverty in 2016

Provision of basic goods and services, such as food and heating, it is deprived by the 39.9% of the population living in Greece with this percentage rocketing to 44.5% for the 0-17 year old population. Moreover, almost one in five households ( 17.7%) live in inadequate, unsafe houses with a leaking roof with moisture in walls and floors etc.

Overall, more than 4.512 million Greeks are at risk of poverty (Population in Greece is estimated at 11 millions) with children most at risk. This situation is reflected by the fact that 230 774 children live in households with no workers and virtually no income!

These elements are included in the final report of September 2016 issued by the Greek Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) concerning the Living conditions in Greece.

The study results show that the country’s population can not meet at least three of a list of nine of goods and services:

Payment of monthly bills (such as rent, loan installments etc)
Food, which includes meat, fish or vegetables of an equivalent nutritional value every other day
Heating
Telecommunications
Color television
Washing machine
Passenger car
Week-long vacation

For Daniel Hannan Conservative Member of the European Parliament and Brexiter, countries in Greece’s situation normally devalue. However, nobody could know for sure how the Greek economy will develop once it gets out the Eurozone.

Devaluation makes their goods cheaper, pricing them into the market and allowing them to export their way to recovery. A devaluation doesn’t solve everything – indeed, in the long-run, it doesn’t solve anything – but, it buys the stricken country time to make necessary economic reforms.

Greece, being in the euro, can’t make its currency cheaper. Unable to accommodate a devaluation in its exchange rate, it has had to suffer a devaluation in output and jobs. The results are almost indescribable: GDP is down by 24 per cent from peak, 56 per cent of young Greeks are unemployed, and there is no recovery in sight – only years more of poverty and emigration. (in 2015).

An independent Greece should deregulate its economy, undercutting its neighbours. It should make its taxes flatter and simpler, so disincentivising the avoiders and evaders who played such a big part in creating the deficit. It should privatise state assets, raising funds in the short term and boosting productivity in the long term. It should rebalance its economy from the public sector (which consumes revenue) to the private sector (which produces it).