Europe’s financial crisis: a Greek tragedy

The cradle of European civilisation, Greece in 2011 became a symbol of its fall.
 
And for the Greek people, the pill is very hard to swallow.
 
Whatever their age or background, the dominant feeling amongst all those we met this year, was anger.
 
Anger from a shop-owner who could no longer pay his suppliers and after 40 years in business was about to close his store, like so many others in the heart of Athens.

Anger from a young graduate in finance, who sold fish on the market for lack of job opportunities, and thought, as so many like him, of leaving the country.

Anger from businessmen to whom banks no longer wanted to grant loans.
 
Anger and despair, from the increasing number of homeless queuing at a food kitchen, who’d lost their jobs and then their homes, because they couldn’t pay the mortgage.
 
The Greek quality of life has taken a serious blow, in a country where people no longer believe in either their own political establishment, nor that of Europe…

Copyright © 2012 euronews