With an imbalance of payments that refuses to adjust itself, flagging industry, growing unemployment, foundering shipping and a stubborn 24 percent rise in the cost of living, it was clear to the government that something ingenious had to be thought of.
In spite of the tens of millions of work hours lost in strikes annual-ly and the growing reputation that Greeks are the laziest people in the EEC, August each year is a holiday month which becomes increasingly nationwide.
On June 3 the Alexander S. Onassis awards were presented by President Sartzetakis at a ceremony which took place in the Old Parliament.
Passion week and the resurrection are traditionally celebrated with such single-minded fervor that no one seemed to take notice this year that something else was in the air.
Several vanishing acts in the last few weeks have had Athenians wondering if they are not victims of sorcery. Least surprising, unfortunatly, was that of the assassin who fatally shot industrialist Dimitris Angelopoulos in busy, fashionable Kanaris Street one Monday morning.
As he stepped off the airplane on his return from Olof Palme’s funeral in Stockholm last month, Prime Minister Papandreou was in an uncharacteristically philosophical mood.
The Greeks are among the most litigious people on earth. There are said to be more lawyers per capita gainfully employed here than in any other country in the EEC.
Among other official designations, 1986 has been declared the Year of Peace and the Year of Road Safety.
A month ago the satirical weekly To Pondiki claimed that the Office of the Presidency had sent policemen to the residence of Constantine Karamanlis to fetch-back two official cars which the former president had put at his own disposal when he resigned last March.
Every now and then the country appears to go through a period of deep-seated ethnic unease.
