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| MUSIC | 01:00:00 |
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| CORCORAN: Athens cabbie Christos Kyriakousis has been driving these streets for nearly 20 years. | 01:00:07 |
| DRIVING | CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Government’s abroad, you can trust them, they can help you, where as in Greece, they try to screw you (laughs) | 01:00:16 |
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| CORCORAN: This divorced father of three, spent more than a decade in New York, chasing the American dream – studying economics at college. | 01:00:26 |
| SUPER: Christos Kyriakousis Taxi driver | CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was coming back home. Ok, it was my relatives, it was my home and everybody else was here and I love the place, but the place doesn’t love its people”. | 01:00:36 |
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| CORCORAN: First stop on the taxi tour is a protest march. This economic crisis was first triggered late last year immediately following the election of Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou. He claims to have discovered that his predecessors had cooked the books, that government debt had reached the equivalent of a staggering 450 billion dollars. The government has now announced a range of austerity measures – wages and pensions will be cut, taxes increased and government spending slashed. | 01:00:51
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| But Greek workers are having none of it. Today Chrystos joins 30,000 protestors in the streets. | 01:01:35 |
| walking with protestors
| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “I have to pay more money. They ask me to pay more money and nobody knows where it goes, no money goes for education, no money goes for the medical system, no money goes for retirement. We don’t even know if we are going to get retirement some day, but we still have to pay more and more and more money every day”. | 01:01:54 |
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| CORCORAN: Communists and conservatives join forces as public servants face 10% pay cuts and an end to early retirement in their forties. | 01:02:16 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “We are all fighting for our rights. We are all fighting against European Union rules, against Greek Government rules. Actually there is a war against governments, European Governments”. | 01:02 26 |
| Police officer clapping as protestors walk past | CORCORAN: Perhaps only in Greece could you have senior police applauding peaceful protestors at one end of a march while their riot squad colleagues break out the tear gas and batons at the other. Anarchists launch a ritualised display of violence and vandalism. Despite the best efforts of the hoodie brigade, Athens certainly isn’t burning yet, but these images beamed out to a bewildered world do little to restore foreign investor confidence. | 01:02:43 |
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| “Everybody seems to be cynical about everything”. | 01:03:28 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Oh exactly, yeah. Nobody trusts nobody”. | 01:03:31 |
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| CORCORAN: These days, Athens can be a tough place to do business, particularly if your business is tourism. Chrystos takes us to meet one entrepreneur determined to succeed. Nick Geronimos is second generation Greek Australian. This Perth businessman moved here with his family 8 years ago. He’s got 15 million euros invested in serviced apartments, a backpacker hostel, a bar and the portfolio keeps growing. | 01:03:36 |
| Walk in | Nick Geronimos :“This is our Sports bar – the Athens sports bar…
CORCORAN: But unrest makes for nervous tourists. | 01:04:16
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “In the last couple of days I mean we’ve lost over four thousand euros in lost earnings from people who have cancelled from our backpackers”. | 01:04:22 |
| walking through building | “In this building here we’ve got 22 apartments and in the building next door that we are coming to, we’ve got 16 apartments. Well we’re doing some renovations - and they’ve been doing some renovations up there as you can see [points to Acropolis]. It’s only taken two and a half thousand years to finish it”. | 01:04:34 |
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| CORCORAN: “And it’s still not finished yet?” | 01:04:53 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “No, but apparently in 2020 it’s going to be complete”. | 01:04:55 |
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| CORCORAN: Half of Greece’s 11 million people call this chaotic metropolis home. Nick Geronimos says far too many of them are employed by the inefficient, corrupt public service and that, he insists, is Greece’s biggest problem. | 01:05:00 |
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SUPER: Nick Geronimos Businessman | NICK GERONIMOS: “I understand there are 1.025 million public servants. That’s the major problem here. The major problem here is the fact that these people have to justify their existence, and also they have to be paid”. | 01:05:18 |
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| CORCORAN: Nick’s team is now busily preparing for the summer tourist season, but every minor building alteration requires permission – a torturous bureaucratic process. | 01:05:41 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “When I say nonsense bureaucracy there are up to, in certain instances that I’ve had, 25 people have to vet one piece of paper to get something agreed to”. | 01:05:53 |
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| CORCORAN: And with bureaucracy come the kickbacks. Small business permits, even basic services, such as getting a drivers license or treatment in a public hospital often require an illegal payment called fakelaki. | 01:06:12 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “You sort of sit back there and think am I going to stay in business? Or am I going to sort of play the game as the particular public servant wants. And you just have to, you’ve got no choice. We don’t call it a fakelaki, the expat Australians call it a “facilitation fee”. | 01:06:27 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: The way I look at it with the fakelaki, with bribing somebody, if somebody works in the public sector ok, he’s got a family behind him. He makes 600... 800.... 1000 euros a month. How are you going to support your family with 1000 euros a month? You can’t - so you have to find different ways. You’ve got to get your fakelaki”. | 01:06:50 |
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| CORCORAN: And with the fakelaki comes tax evasion, which Chrystos says is now a national sport, fuelling the black economy. | 01:07:11 |
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| “Do the rich people here pay taxes?” | 01:07:20 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “No the rich people don’t pay taxes. There’s an old saying in Greece – the more money you steal the better off you are. (laughs) If you steal a few euros, a few hundred euros you go to jail.... you steal thousands of euros, we’ll talk about it..... you steal a few million euros you become a hero [laughter]”. | 01:07:21 |
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| CORCORAN: With protestors on the streets, Prime Minister Papandreou has been striding the global financial capital. His message – Greece is too big to fail. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have now offered Greece a rescue loan package totalling 45 billion euros, but the fundamental problems remain unresolved. They’re the twin evils of corruption and massive tax avoidance that fuels the black economy. | 01:07:47 |
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| Among the oracles dividing this crisis is the head of the corruption watchdog, Transparency International. His prophecy is grim. | 01:08:20 |
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SUPER: Costas Bakouris Transparency International | COSTAS BAKOURIS: [Transparency International] “The black economy I used to estimate to be about one third of our gross national product. The latest information I just received from the bank – it is thirty-seven per cent so…”. | 01:08:29 |
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| CORCORAN: “Thirty-seven per cent?” | 01:08:37 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “Thirty-seven per cent, which is quite significant - which means that our undeclared gross national product is anywhere between 80 to 100 billion more than what we officially declare”. | 01:08:38 |
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| CORCORAN: Transparency International lists Greece as the most corrupt nation in the Euro zone and estimates that 800 million euros were paid in low level bribes last year, some of it to tax auditors. | 01:08:51 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “The corruption is quite extensive. I will say in one part which is what we call the petty corruption is almost endemic and it needs to be addressed. It is a serious problem”. | 01:09:06 |
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| CORCORAN: And to find the black economy, you need look no further than the streets under the shadow of the Acropolis. | 01:09:26 |
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| RENEE PAPPAS: [Walking] “They set up these little stands with counterfeit everything, from sunglasses to of course the famous fake Gucci bags. This is a huge problem because the government is losing money in terms of taxes on goods”. | 01:09:33 |
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| CORCORAN: This is Renee Pappas’ neighbourhood. A Greek-American marketing consultant from New York, Renee moved here nearly 20 years ago. But her iconic Greece is now undergoing radical change. | 01:09:53 |
| Corcoran | “So it’s quite a multicultural scene down here today”. | 01:10:08 |
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| RENEE PAPPAS: “Extremely. Greece had been a very homogenous country until about 10...12 years ago”. | 01:10:10 |
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| CORCORAN: But not any more. Greece is now home to 1.2 million official refugees and illegal migrants, 10% of the total population. They’re mainly from Africa and the Middle East. With its porous borders, Greece is seen an easy entry point to the rest of Europe. These are the foot soldiers of an illegal street trade now estimated at 15 billion euros a year. | 01:10:20 |
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| RENEE PAPPAS: “They’re left in legal limbo and then they are sort of fending for themselves, so what do they do? They have no income, they have no money you’re either going to steal or you are going to be hired by these local gangsters who bring in the counterfeit goods. I’m very happy that people come down here to enjoy themselves, but what I don’t like is this! I don’t like this. This is an archaeological site. We can’t afford to have this be the vision of Greece. | 01:10:51 |
| Police on street making an arrest | CORCORAN: As they make an arrest, police are confronted by refugees. This is one sector of the Greek economy that’s determined to play by its own rules. Tensions over the refugee problem have also spawned a far more violent side to Greece’s culture of public dissent. | 01:11:30 |
| Corcoran | “Well here, in central Athens, a bomb apparently has destroyed the offices of an extreme right political group at 9 o’clock in the morning. Apparently there are no injuries, but what’s even more extraordinary here is the lack of interest by anyone passing by. Unfortunately in Greece, these kinds of attacks are quite common and what in other parts of the world would be regarded as an act of terrorism or major crime, well for many here it’s just seen as a legitimate form of political expression”. | 01:11:59 |
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| Anarchists claim responsibility, declaring war on the government and anti-immigration groups, they accuse of inhumane treatment of refugees. In the following days, two more bombs are detonated. | 01:12:31 |
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| “So the taxi drivers are on strike?” | 01:12:51 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Yep, a 24 hour strike… this time”. | 01:12:54 |
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| CORCORAN: “How come you’re not driving a taxi today? We’re in a civilian car today. | 01:12:57 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Oh come on, thanks to you guys!” (laughs) If they see us in a taxi they are going to break it up, beat us up! Last time I get beat up, I got my shirt ripped off, my taxi was kicked off...a few dents on the doors. They get pretty violent”. | 01:13:01
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| CORCORAN: The drivers march on parliament, outraged by a government demand that they now issue receipts, keep books and pay more than just a flat tax rate of 1200 euros a year. Hell hath no fury like a cabbie short-changed. | 01:13:25 |
| Corcoran | “But 1200 euros a year doesn’t seem an awful lot to pay in tax. Do you think maybe cabbies should pay more? | 01:13:45 |
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SUPER: Christos Kyriakousis Taxi driver | CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Well if they make more they should pay more, but they also pay fuel tax, taxes on repairs and everything else”. | 01:13:52 |
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| CORCORAN: Then amid the standoff, a surreal moment. The guardians of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stride through the masses, impervious to potential rioters or the threat of tear gas. Today it seems, they’re about the only workers still on the job. | 01:14:01 |
| Corcoran | “Everyone agrees yes, it’s terrible, cuts must be made but nobody wants to be the one who makes the sacrifice”. | 01:14:31 |
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SUPER: Costas Bakouris Transparency International | COSTAS BAKOURIS: “Absolutely yes, that’s true. That’s the problem that basically everybody agrees except for himself and now we have to say that no, this has to apply to all of us. The basic issue of course in our society is that traditionally there was not a lot of confidence between the governments and the citizens. The trust wasn’t there”. | 01:14:38 |
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| CORCORAN: This is a city of ruins, full of memorials to past glories, both ancient and more recent. Many Athenians believe their economic downfall began with the 12 billion euros spent hosting the 2004 Olympic games. | 01:15:02 |
| Corcoran | “Do you think the Olympic Games was worth it?” | 01:15:21 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: No! (laughs) I guess it was worth it for advertising the country but not as far as money goes, because generations and generations will be paying for them”. | 01:15:24 |
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| CORCORAN: These world-class sporting facilities now lie largely abandoned. | 01:15:39 |
| Corcoran | “So they don’t like us filming them Chris? They’ve got security guards everywhere. Why is that?” | 01:15:45 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “Mystico pathia. | 01:15:53 |
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| CORCORAN: “What does that translate as?” | 01:15:54 |
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| CHRYSTOS KYRIAKOUSIS: “That you want to keep the secret to yourself”. | 01:15:55 |
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| CORCORAN: Before his current incarnation as a corruption watchdog, Costas Bakouris ran the Athens Olympics Committee. | 01:16:00 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “I have seen many assessments of what it takes to make, let’s say, a 15,000 seat stadium and I have seen how much it cost Barcelona and Atlanta and how much it was in Sydney and the estimate we used to have in Greece for some of those, it was anywhere between 50% more to four times more”. | 01:16:07 |
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| CORCORAN: “Four times more?” | 01:16:29 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “Oh yes. It was four times more. So therefore I knew that there was probably a lot of corruption and other things and therefore it cost a hell of a lot more”. | 01:16:30 |
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| CORCORAN: Athens is a beguiling mix of chaos and culture. Under the gaze of the goddess Athena, protesting public servants and police take up their usual positions. | 01:16:45 |
| with protestors | CORCORAN: So far, being civil servants, it’s a fairly civil affair but whether that continues tonight, well we’ll just have to wait and see. At the back end of the parade are of course are the hard men of the protest movement, the anarchists and the communists. They’re the ones that cause the real trouble with these kinds of marches. | 01:17:01 |
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| CORCORAN: Everybody sticks to a choreographed script, ending with the inevitable rough and tumble with the riot squad. A few bruises and some property damage, but the rest of the city barely notices. | 01:17:20 |
| fashion show | Five hundred metres away, on the next night a very different tribe struts its stuff. Here the prevailing scent is not tear gas but Chanel No.5. There’s not a hoodie or helmet in sight as the Athens A-list comes out to play. | 01:17:48 |
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| Renee Pappas is a mover and shaker on the social scene and she’s keen for us to experience what she calls the other Greece. | 01:18:12 |
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| RENEE PAPPAS: “You know life goes on. I mean there might be a crisis but women still buy clothes”. | 01:18:20 |
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| CORCORAN: There’s a saying that Greece is a poor country full of rich people. Tonight, many of them are in the room. As the good times rolled through the 1990s and soft loans and grants poured in from the European Union, fashion was just one industry that boomed. | 01:18:27 |
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SUPER: Rene Pappas Marketing consultant | RENEE PAPPAS: “I see Greek women and girls and teenage girls and they really care about what they are wearing. It’s really changed an enormous amount”. | 01:18:49 |
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| CORCORAN: Even here, Government austerity measures are starting to bite, though there’s still been time for some last minute bargains. | 01:19:01 |
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| RENEE PAPPAS: “On the news today they said you know they started that new luxury tax today.... Well I think last week 14 Porsches, 2 Bentleys, one Aston Martin and one Ferrari were sold in Greece”. | 01:19:11 |
| Corcoran | “How’s the show?” | 01:19:26 |
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SUPER: Vrettos Vrettakos Fashion designer | VRETTOS VRETTAKOS: [Fashion designer] “I think it’s good, what do you think?” | 01:19:26 |
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| CORCORAN: “Oh it was terrific, but I’m probably not the right person to ask about fashion”. | 01:19:31 |
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| VRETTOS VRETTAKOS: “This period, this economic crisis, we try to be calm and we’re waiting”. | 01:19:36 |
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| CORCORAN: Where some see beauty and style, others view a society living beyond its means, bankrolled by a line of easy credit. | 01:19:45 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “Back in the beginning of the 80s we have new and political changes and we start having a lot of money come in from the European Community, it was the issue that you can become rich very easily. You don’t have to work hard, you can wheel and deal yourself and there was that kind of mentality and in a way we have lost what I would call probably a generation, if not more. Now for these kind of people it will be hard for them to understand that it is hard work, it is consistent, it is competitiveness, it is efficiency, it is innovation that you have to apply and not just fooling around and trying to wheel and deal yourself through”. | 01:19:56 |
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| CORCORAN: Far from the glitz, is a place that epitomises the lifestyle of the Old Greece. With Nick Geronimos, we make one last stop on our street tour of the crisis. | 01:20:46 |
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| “So is this fairly typical? It’s one o’clock in the morning out at a club?” | 01:20:58 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “It’s early, this is early, it’s just started. I mean this will go on to five o'clock in the morning... five or six o’clock in the morning. The locals use them. They’re the sort of places where they go to expel their angst from the day of you know, listening to the world cave in on them, of the economic crisis and all that sort of stuff”. | 01:21:03 |
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| CORCORAN: This is rembetika, Greek blues, that emerged a century ago from the bars and brothels at the bad end of town. | 01:21:40 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “You hear the guys and girls in the band singing about the hard life and the stories and the hard luck stuff and the romance and the broken hearts and all that sort of stuff. You go there and you listen to their problems and they make your problems feel a lot less”. | 01:21:50 |
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| CORCORAN: Perhaps this laid-back philosophy explains a lot about Greece’s economic predicament but it may also offer a way out. Fuelling rembetika is a force the Euro bankers and economists would have trouble quantifying, the Greek passion for life – Kefi. | 01:22:08 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “Kefi is enjoying your life, enjoying today, enjoying the moment. I suppose the Greeks do it better than other people because they’ve had a lot more experience at it”. | 01:22:28 |
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| CORCORAN: As always, there’s a morning after the night before and a head-splitting economic hangover to be endured. The Europeans are prepared to put 45 billion euros on the table to pay Greece’s tab, but if there is no fundamental change here is this just throwing good money after bad? | 01:22:53 |
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| COSTAS BAKOURIS: “They have to recognise that the party is over and we now have to start working very hard. So for those it will be a big shock. For the older generations, I think it’s not a big surprise because they have gone through hard times before”. | 01:23:18 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “It is broken. It needs to be fixed. It is not working”. | 01:23:35 |
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| CORCORAN: “And if things don’t change and they continue on now, what happens?” | 01:23:39 |
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| NICK GERONIMOS: “There are 12 Gods... I suppose we go up to the Parthenon and wear our togas and have a bit of fun”. | 01:23:45 |
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| Credits: Reporter - Mark Corcoran Camera -David Martin Producer – Greg Wilesmith Editor- Nick Brenner Research – Eleni Bertes |
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