Etudes par pays volume 2, PDF, 346 p., 1,4 Mo - Femise

11873_2002 Study D2: Poverty, Informal Sector, Health and Labour
Monetary Union was not borne by the poor since their economic conditions
had improved during the adjustment period for satisfying the Maastricht
criteria. They explained this by the increasing social expenditure that took
place, notwithstanding the efforts for the accession.
Eurostat’s findings show, however, that, apart from the redistributing impact
of pensions, any other state transfers, in the context of the welfare policies,
have very weak redistributive effects, reducing the proportion of people
below the poverty line only by one percentage point. This figure is the
lowest among the EU countries, in which such transfers reduce poverty even
up to 18 percentage points. In the same spirit, the Greek Economic and
Social Committee (OKE) has expressed the ‘’opinion’’ that the taxation
system in Greece is incapable of playing its redistributive role, on grounds
that the share of the indirect taxes in total tax revenue is high. In addition,
the great tax evasion, particularly within the extensive unregistered
economy, is not a poverty reducing factor. In the same tone, the leading
daily newspaper Kathimerini (20.11.2002), discussing the 2003 Greek
government budget, expressed doubts about its poverty relieving
possibilities. As the argument goes, the expected increase of indirect taxes,
weighing heavily on total tax burden falls unequally on the poor, whereas
the proposed income tax cut, does not in reality concern the poor without a
taxable income. On the other hand, the proposed increases in wages and
pensions or the unemployment benefits would give only a marginal relief to
the main part of the poor who are chronically in that situation.
Crime: Up until the 1980s, Greece was a country experiencing a very
limited criminal activity, mainly light offenses and minimal heavy crime,
the offenders being Greeks, without imported crime. Along with economic
development and the restructuring of the economy towards more urbanized
production, in the following years, there came higher urban unemployment,
greater income inequality and urban poverty, as well as the invasion of
drugs and the uncontrolled flocking of illegal immigrants from neighbouring
and Eastern European countries. These developments and the collapsed
regimes in the countries just referred to, have also opened up the possibility
of a lucrative business of cross-boarder trafficking of illegal workers,
women for prostitution and drugs, through established inter-country
networks of smugglers and traffickers, as well as a rising mobilization of
foreign criminals within Greece. As a result, criminal activity of all sorts
was accelerated, particularly in the 1990s. Foreigners and foreign organized
gangs – mostly from Central and Eastern Europe – have more than a fare
share in the criminal activity in Greece, particularly in homicides, robberies
FONDAZIONE CENSIS
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