I am beginning to wonder whether Greece can or should stay in the eurozone, even if the troika on whom it depends for fresh financing to roll over the maturing part of its massive national debt play ball. It is not enough that the political class has approved the measures imposed by its lenders as a sine qua non condition for fresh loan finance.

Logically the only way forward for Greece at this juncture is to default on its debts- Lino Spiteri

It remains to be seen whether that wretched country can survive the social stress that is being caused by wave after wave of austerity measures. Angry crowds are out in the streets, protesting – even rioting – against the sacrifices they are being forced to bear.

The question to ask is, who is responsible for the plight of the country, the huge debt burden racked up? That question has to be followed with another one concerning the protesters: Who are they? They do not seem to be the ones who milked the public finances dry and nonchalantly evaded taxes and salted money abroad.

There is much talk about the fact that workers receive two bonuses per year, each equivalent to a month’s pay. The reality is that these bonuses have surely found their way into employers’ calculations of wage and salary rates. Call them what one will, they have become part of the basic pay.

There is much talk about the lack of competitiveness in Greece, latching that to its minimum wage. Our very own Finance Minister fell into the trap of focusing on that minimum wage as a cause for deficient competitiveness. He would have been more proper had he analysed our own level of competitiveness, rather than haughtily scolding the Greeks.

It is an economic fallacy to suggest that weak competitiveness is due to a high minimum wage which, our Finance Minister regurgitated, was the highest in the EU. He did not take into account that accession to the EU by Romania and Bulgaria had brought down the average minimum wage. In any event competitiveness is tied to the unit cost of labour, productivity, the efficiency of equipment and the managerial class.

The minimum wage accounts for a small fraction of that formula. Eurozone bashing workers on the minimum wage, which is to be cut by an astonishing 22 per cent, is hardly the way to mobilise the working class in favour of the acute efforts that must be made to restructure the Greek economy, without driving a chunk of the population into the arms of a resurgent Communist movement, and without creating a disgraceful socio-economic tragedy.

Before the new round of austerity measures was imposed by the rest of the eurozone on Greece, poverty and hardship had already gripped the country’s society. The following is a liberal lift from an analytical quote in the UK Guardian, some weeks back:

Greece’s social safety net is already strained, with official unemployment at 21 per cent and benefits available only for a 12-month period. A streamlining of the healthcare system launched last year means that state clinics now charge for medicines that used to be free.

During Greece’s boom years, the government doubled social spending to about 25 per cent of national output, but higher-paid workers – civil servants, university teachers and the judiciary – saw the biggest increase in pensions and allowances. “The system was stacked in favour of people at the top and there was a considerable amount of wasteful spending,” said Yannis Stournaras, director of Love, an Athens think-tank.

“We are now seeing the consequences – a growing percentage of the population having to get by on an income of €600 a month,” he says.

Many pensioners themselves find it hard to make ends meet as prices have risen steadily during the crisis. Contrary to forecasts of rapid deflation as the economy contracts, inflation has persisted at about 2-3 per cent annually. Several sharp increase in taxes on heating fuel, imposed as the government tries to meet revenue targets, have added to the problems. For the young unemployed, facing a bleak future with an official jobless rate of 48 per cent, the resilience of the elderly is a quality to be envied.

I would think that the fresh round of austerity measures, reducing disposable income and pushing up unemployment, will worsen the socio-economic situation. It will aggravate the recession, which has already lasted several years in Greece. Thereby government revenue will fall, making it more and more difficult for Greece to service the huge public debt.

In brief, austerity measures impact directly such that economic activity is weakened and growth is nowhere in sight, while social hardship rises.

Logically the only way forward for Greece at this juncture is to default on its debts. Thereby it will lose its place in the eurozone, which will initially have devastating consequences. Whether they will be worse than the impact of the burden of austerity measures on civil society and on the economy is a question that is not easily answered.

It is certain, though, that the choice does not lie far into the future, with consequences for all those who have lent to the Greek state or to its private sector, including Malta.