Once, I believed in the European dream. I was proud when Greece joined the European Union. I believed the EU was about solidarity, shared prosperity, and mutual respect. I believed we were equals in a family of nations.
But after everything we've endured these past 17 years, the lies, the humiliation, the exploitation, I can no longer cling to those illusions. The European dream? For Greeks, it has become a living nightmare.
Just recently the main architect of Greek decline, Angela Merkel, visiting Athens to sell her book, laughably entitled “Freedom,” she spoke honied words and twisted the whole story to make herself look good, though tellingly, speaking at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in conversation with Kathimerini director Alexis Papahelas, she firmly stated that she would not offer an “apology” to the average Greek. Instead, she highlighted the extraordinary efforts she made to convince her Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who advocated for Greece’s exit from the eurozone, to underline her commitment to keeping Greece within the euro. A moment she described as the most unpleasant of her political career was when then-Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras informed her by phone of his decision to hold a referendum. She was clearly shocked at him doing this without permission and went on at length on how, if Greeks voted ‘no’, it would mean leaving the euro. The Greeks duly voted Όχι’ (no) but almost certainly on Merkel’s orders, the Greek people were ignored and the ‘bailout’ package forced upon us.
Last month, I listened carefully to an economic presentation by Dr. Kosmas Marinakis and Achilleas Mantes. I wasn't surprised by what they said. Every average Greek citizen already feels it in their bones, but hearing the hard, cold numbers only confirmed what we all know: Greece is a country in decline, gutted by so-called "European solidarity" and stripped bare by the ruthless economic machine led by Germany.
Marinakis and Mantes laid it out with brutal honesty: while even the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, are catching up to European standards, Greece is drifting further away. Our debt remains monstrous. Our so-called "economic growth" is nothing but inflated numbers, driven by rising prices, not real progress.
I don't need economists to tell me that. I see it every time I go to the supermarket. I feel it when I fill my car with fuel. My neighbours know it when they open their electricity bills or try to pay rent. Our wages are frozen in time, but the cost of living is exploding.
We were promised prosperity under the euro. Instead, we got poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. And the young? They flee. There are no real jobs here. Engineers serve coffee. Architects drive taxis. Graduates emigrate. The "lost generation" isn't a phrase from a research paper, it's our reality.
And through it all, the same faces in Brussels and especially in Berlin, lecture us about responsibility, about reforms, about rules. Spare me the sermons. Angela Merkel, the self-proclaimed "protector" of European unity, orchestrated the biggest daylight robbery Greece has ever seen. Under the guise of "aid," Germany and its banks got rich while Greece was stripped to the bone.
Let me remind you where those hundreds of billions in "bailout" money went. Not to Greek hospitals. Not to Greek businesses. Not to Greek families struggling to survive. No, it flowed straight back to German and French banks, the same banks that irresponsibly flooded Greece with cheap loans, knowing full well they were fuelling a bubble.
And the cherry on top? Many German companies, Siemens being only the most visible, secured juicy contracts in Greece by bribing our corrupt politicians. When the scandal broke, did Merkel or the EU help us prosecute those criminals? No. They shielded their own, while shaming us.
Our airports? Snapped up by German investors at bargain prices. Our ports? Auctioned off to foreign giants. Our utilities? Our public assets? Sold for a fraction of their value because the EU, with Germany pulling the strings, demanded it. They called it"reform." I call it looting.
And if being economically shackled wasn’t enough, Greece has been left as Europe's dumping ground for illegal immigration. I used to be pro-immigration. I believed in helping refugees. But what is happening now isn't humanitarianism it's abandonment. While Germany, Austria, and other wealthy EU states tighten their borders, we are told to absorb wave after wave of illegal arrivals, many of whom disappear into the shadows of Athens and Thessaloniki. Crime has risen. Our once-safe neighbourhoods feel unrecognizable. The EU lectures us about human rights, but ignores our right to security, stability, and national integrity.
Everywhere you look, it's clear: our economy has no complexity, no depth. We build houses. We serve tourists. We sell souvenirs. Meanwhile, countries that once envied us, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, are building industries, exporting technology, and creating real prosperity. The numbers don't lie. Greece now ranks second-to-last in purchasing power across the EU, just barely ahead of Bulgaria. For a country with our history, our educated population, our resources, that is very humiliating.
And the worst part? We've done everything Brussels demanded. We slashed spending. We sold our assets. We accepted the indignity. And still we're poorer, weaker, and more vulnerable than ever.
I’ve known Tom Armstrong for about twenty years. I’m a naval architect and worked on several projects with him. From the beginning he never lost an opportunity to tell me that the EU was against national sovereignty and would ruin Greece. I laughed at him, and dismissed him as a bit of an obsessive, lamenting the days of British greatness.
Now I see he was right. Sorry Tom.
Eleni Papadimitriou