Chaos in Greece, unemployment boom, queues for medicine
While pro-Nazi MP assaults colleague on live TV
Sunday, 10 June 2012
(ANSAmed) - ATHENS - Ten days ahead of the June 17 election that will decide the country's European future, chaos is spreading in Greece. The rate of unemployment has soared to 21.9% and income from tourism has slumped by 15%, as the streets become the setting for nightmarish scenes that would have been unthinkable a year ago. Long queues continue to form outside chemists, with people hoping to buy medicine that is increasingly difficult to find for those unable to pay the full price.
Foreign pharmaceutical companies (Roche, Bayer, Novartis and Sanofi) are said to have suspended deliveries as they await payment for medicine supplied in recent months, an outstanding bill of 600 million euros. Some claim that the drugs are in fact available but chemists are reluctant to hand them out for free because one of the main insurance bodies does not reimburse them. The lack of drugs in chemists is causing serious problems for diabetics and people with tumours in particular. In an effort to ease the problem, Kostas Lourantos, the president of the institute of chemists in Attica, has announced that he will open an account for the donations needed to buy expensive drugs that chemists have stopped supplying to people on the national insurance register (EOPPY), which is now on the brink of bankruptcy.
In the meantime, Greece's statistical institute (Elstat) has today released its latest figures, which show that the unemployment rate in the country reached a new record high in March, rising to 21.9% from February's figure of 21.7%. This means that more than a million people are now unemployed in the country, effectively one in five of the population. Among young people between the ages of 15 and 24, unemployment stands at 52.8%, with more than one in two people out of work, compared to 42% a year earlier. The number of unemployed between the ages of 25 and 34 has also risen significantly, jumping from 22.1% in March 2011 to 29.8%.
With election day drawing closer, tensions are rising, both socially and in particular in the political arena, as this morning's incredible scenes during a political debate on live television, when Ilias Kasidiaris, the spokesperson for the pro-Nazi party Chrysi Avgi (which won a 6.97% share of the vote and 21 seats in Parliament in the elections of May 6), physically attacked two other members of parliament.
Following an altercation, Kasidiaris first threw a glass of water at Rena Dourou from the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), before slapping and punching Liana Kanelli from the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
The attack was strongly condemned by the country's President, Karolos Papoulias, and by all political forces, while the judiciary has issued an arrest warrant for Kasidiaris, who disappeared immediately after the incident.
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