Institutional Blitzkrieg and Growthless Employment: Aspects of a New Developmental Paradigm for Greece

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This paper serves a dual objective. First, it examines the severe consequences of the 2009 deep socioeconomic crisis that erupted in Greece under conditions of a national de facto bankruptcy. Second, it explores an alternative approach that contrasts with conventional policies being applied, resulting in poor domestic development-related performances in the country. Α series of unbalanced negotiations among European partners led to a neoliberal mix of fiscal consolidation, internal devaluation, and labour market deregulations. Infrastructural attainments depreciated, molded with deficient linkages in sustaining developmental capabilities. These conditions are influenced by Europe’s broader strategic interests within the context of power-driven integration efforts. Three key economic realities can be highlighted: (i) risk variations fueled by overlapping socioeconomic crises, (ii) conditions imposed by systemic lenders, and (iii) increasing external sector deficits. These factors hinder sovereignty domains while causing leakages of valuable developmental resources. Specifically, they result in the emigration of human capital, the outflow of accumulated household and corporate wealth, together with a significant de-Hellenization of ownership and of control over major productive sectors.