01 June 2012

Greece at last or new beginning

After nine months of letting this blog pretty much slowly die, I have decided that my personal circumstances were justifying a relaunch. Due to private reasons, I just relocated to Greece, in Nea Ionia (Attika). Many friends and relative have been a bit shocked or at least surprised by this decision, considering that Greece is going currently through quite difficult times. The country is experimenting a dreadful economic crisis, while the political crisis is raging at the same time. I thought it would be interesting for readers to hear from me what it means to live this daily.

It has definitely a very strong link to the main topic of this blog, as, if you want to believe most media, Greece issues are now European ones and the solutions and problems we are experimenting here are dealt with at the European level. More generally, it seems to me and many other observers that the crisis which is so acutely felt here is also a symptom of the more general problems that Europa is currently experiencing. It can be seen through the local prism of the budget and debt issue, but it can also be described as a growth crisis of the European concept. Solidarity, economic rationality, democracy, federalism and nationalism are all being tested simultaneously and how we (citizens) are going to answer this is going to determine the future of this continent, not just the price of bread in Athens.

2 comments:

Nicolas Leroux said...

You need to adapt the blog sub title as well I believe. Where you not at one point in Egypt as well?

Jean-Baptiste Perrin said...

Good point! But I was never in Egypt...