Extensive Bloomberg article on the development of Greece in recent years ahead of the May 21 elections.

As the American network reports, a difficult electoral contest will follow in Greece, but the picture of the Greek economy is more than encouraging.

“From the construction of a new subway line to the bustling cafes and taverns and the tourists roaming the squares where rioters once clashed with the Police, Greece’s return from the depths of the economic crisis is impossible not to see in Athens,” he writes.

GDP is exactly where it was when Greece defaulted on its debt in 2010 and sank by more than a fifth. Unemployment has more than halved since peaking at 28%. Capital controls to stop outflows were lifted more than three years ago. Greek stocks and bonds have soared. But the weight of that recovery still weighs on an electorate that is struggling like the rest of Europe. The legacy of the coronavirus pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis due to high food and energy costs is having a huge impact on households whose incomes were already squeezed by the years of austerity that were designed to get Greece back on track.

Polls put Mitsotakis and his New Democracy party ahead of rival former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who during his tenure resisted measures suggested by Greece’s creditors until he backed down and secured another bailout. . A change in the electoral system, however, makes second ballots possible. Amid crucial votes in neighboring Turkey, the Greek election may not garner the same international attention. But the stakes are whether Greece can avoid another period of political drama and maintain a course that shows it has improved its international standing and made the country a place where investors want to do business again.

“The most important thing from a foreigner’s point of view would be that Greece will not become a crisis point again,” IOBE director general Nikos Vettas tells Bloomberg. “In other words, that it will manage to do two things: properly service its foreign debt and maintain robust growth rates.”