by Magda Panoutsopoulou
ATHENS
Greek shopowners are struggling to survive in the current financial crisis.
With banks closed, businesses cannot pay suppliers for goods, nor can they access their accounts to pay their own bills.
Anna Panagiotou a retail clothing shop owner in Athens said that since the banks closed their doors, she has faced a big decline in her sales -- ATM withdrawals are restricted to €60 per day.
“Of course people won’t come and buy clothes. It’s not a necessity, people will go and buy food,” Panagioutou said.
However Panagioutou didn’t blame the government. She said: “They are forced to do this negotiation for us; it’s for our own good.”
Should Greece give up the euro and go back to the drachma? “That would be even worse, I bring all the clothes in my shop from abroad, can you imagine what that would do to my shop?" The value of the drachma is expected to be very low should Greece bring it back and leave the euro system.
Three more retail shop owners, two food retailers and one electronics product shop, who did not wish to be identified, simply admitted to suffering the same kinds of problems.
“It’s a mess. we don’t know what is coming tomorrow,” they said.
Another clothing shop owner who identified himself as Pavlos had a different take on the crisis.
For Pavlos, the suffering has to be endured to eventually reach an end to the crisis. "I don't want more taxes, more cuts in spending, etc., but I will accept it if I have to, so that we can reach an end to the crisis."
"The government is a bunch of fools," he said. "I have a family, I have kids, and I don’t want to be left out of Europe just because they [the government] cannot reach a deal and they can’t compromise.
For Pavlos, the government's failure to act decisively is what's really behind all the deprivation he is enduring.
“Yes, I had hope in the beginning, because I thought the government cared about us, but they just care for their image.”
