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The "Triangle of Sin" That Rules Greece

Tsipras
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras says conspirators in politics, business and the media control Greece

Despite international aid that has made Greece dependent on bailout loans to keep its economy from collapsing and effectively ceded much of its sovereignty, the country is still being controlled by the iron grip of politicians, the rich and a mass media mostly in the hands of those using it to push their own aims, according to a report from the news agency Reuters.
In a damning indictment of the country’s intertwined leadership, the report detailed how the three prongs work together to protect and enrich each other, even as the government has imposed crushing austerity measures on workers, pensioners and the poor and made them pay for the failures of the people in power.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the major opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)  put his criticism bluntly: “In Greece the real power is with the owners of banks, the members of the corrupt political system and the corrupt mass media. This is the triangle of sin.”
Evidence of that abounded in the lengthy Reuters report, putting the blame on politicians who imposed austerity, bankers and the rich who profited from it, and much of the media charged with covering it up to keep lucrative state contracts and advertising coming to its newspapers, TV stations and other businesses that pay to keep its influence strong.
While income and property taxes have been doubled – the property taxes put into electric bills with the threat of power being turned off for non-payment – businesses are paying only half the tax rate, or not at all, according to the report.
Nikos Fotopoulos, a union leader at power company PPC, claimed they had been given exemptions. “It was a gift to the real bosses, the real owners of the country,” he said. “The rich don’t pay, even at this time,” the report claimed. He said the media covered it up “because media owners were among those favored.” Leading daily newspapers in Athens either did not mention or downplayed his claims, a review by Reuters found.
A source in the Troika of lenders keeping Greece afloat – the European Union, International Money Fund and European Central Bank – told Reuters that, “The system is extremely incestuous. The vested interests are resisting reforms needed to make the economy competitive.”
Panos Kamenos, leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks party, said: “The Greek media is under the control of people who depend on the state. The media control the state and the state controls the media. It’s a picture of mutual blackmail.”
A European Commission report on media freedom and independence, published in December 201 said that Greek media policy “has remained highly centralized in the hands of the government of the day,” and that it “has been thoroughly influenced, albeit in opaque and informal ways, by powerful economic and business interests who have sought to gain power, profit, or both.”
“Most companies in Greece are essentially waiting to get money from the state,” said Theodoros Roussopoulos, a former government press minister. “Greece is officially capitalist, but in effect socialist.”
Reuters noted that n the media, potential conflicts of interest can arise even at low levels. Tucked away inside the headquarters of the Athens union of journalists, ESHEA, is a list of its members who work for the government, for example in press offices; dozens wear a second hat as newspaper journalists at the same time.
The union’s rules ban its members from working for bodies they cover as journalists. In an effort to unmask those breaching that rule, the union obtained a list of government-employed journalists in 2005. But it was never published.
Some of those named on the list complained; Greek officials judged that publishing the list would violate personal privacy. It was a decision that Dimitris Trimis, the union president, said was a serious defeat.
“There is a triangle of political powers, economic powers and media owners, and nobody can tell who has the upper hand,” he told Reuters, sitting under the dusty portraits of his predecessors. “It starts from the top, between the minister and the publisher, and it trickles down to the press office and the journalist. It’s a pyramid.”
 
 

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