Greece came close last night to plunging into an economic crisis as workers threatened to step up protests against the government's privatisation programme. The mounting industrial action, after a week marred by violent clashes with strikers, puts the ruling Socialists on a collision course with the public sector and powerful trade unions. Growing opposition to the painful economic reforms from Socialist dissenters has not helped. As state bank employees yesterday said they would wreak havoc on the financial sector by intensifying strikes nationwide, Greece's avowedly pro-European Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, found himself increasingly on the defensive.
In an urgent cabinet meeting today the leader will urge his ministers to press ahead with the policies if Athens is to join the euro by 2001. Greece, the EU's poorest partner, has yet to meet any of the Maastricht convergence criteria. Last week, Mr Simitis, said the country would be condemned to live alone "in a corner of the Balkans" if it failed to keep up with other EU members. However, fury over cutbacks and privatisations that would have been anathema to Andreas Papandreou, the late prime minister and governing PASOK party founder, has led to a nosedive in Socialist support. In a sign of the growing hostility towards Mr Simitis, posters of Mr Papandreou have appeared on public buildings across the country.
The government's decision to begin its privatisation programme by selling the country's fourth largest state-owned bank has not only been met with protests from the bank's employees.
Solidarity strikes by employees at other banks have also got underway. A spokesman for the Greek Federation of Bank Employees said he expected the entire public banking sector to be closed this week. The chaos has deepened as Greece's two biggest unions have also weighed in with a series of general strikes. After staging their fourth mass walk-out in as many months last week, the unions yesterday forecast a summer of intense industrial action.