Our lengthy economic crisis produced many disasters. Income was lost, our fellow citizens were thrown into the streets without jobs, families were literally brought to their knees without jobs, and literally hundreds of thousands of our youth were forced to emigrate so as to have a decent income and a more dignified life.
At the same time, especially in the first three or four years of the crisis, many businesses were bankrupted, others shut down, and others were sold for a pittance. Certain economic activities were abandoned, households were destroyed, and an entire country was plunged into a deep well.
Still, after the first shock, ideas were gradually born and then initiatives developed, and efforts were undertaken.
Those who operate outside a narrow political framework, and come into contact with social realities, see that we have out there well-designed plans and teams that differ from the previous, catastrophic period.
New entrepreneurs and people who produce systematically jump up all around the country, bringing with them the seeds of the new, of real change.
Armed with knowledge, relying on new technologies, and with an eye on the international market, they produce new, competitive products, which are attractive in appearance and packaging. They present new, useful services that can be provided anywhere in the world, and they highlight unique capabilities, the existence of which no one could have discerned in our country.
There is a plethora of such examples. Banks are surprised by the emerging productive forces, supported by their own strength and guided by other models, which were until recently rare in Greece.
It is of extraordinary interest that such efforts were undertaken in an environment hostile to the economy and entrepreneurship, at a time when taxes are unbearable and the state is hostile and ready to create impediments, bureaucratic and otherwise.
In the midst of the storm, many of our fellow citizens did not resign themselves to their fate, but rather took their lives into their own hands and changed course.
Now, they can be proud that they need nobody. They proved that there is another way, beyond fatalism and resignation.
Everyone should respect these people, who created and were reborn in an era of disaster. Above all our political leadership and government, which are ready to overturn everything once again, should respect them.
Those in power are obliged, if nothing else, to honour the efforts of all those who truly toiled under such conditions. After eight years of crisis and untold sacrifices, backpedaling and retreats are impermissible.
Our path has been set, and Greece must ply forward waithout second thoughts.
After all this country has been through, it needs neither passions, nor hatred, nor futile prosecution.
The country is obliged to cultivate reconciliation, calm, stability, clear objectives, and faith in its capabilities.
All the rest are ulterior motives, aiming at power and that alone.
