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Stay Informed about Greece with Planetwonk

Stay Informed about Greece with Planetwonk

著者： Modern Greece Beyond the Tourist Trail
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Greece is more than the Acropolis, beaches and postcards. Planetwonk takes you inside the politics, society, culture, economy and tourism shaping the country today — explaining what’s happening, why it matters, and what the headlines leave out.

planetwonk.substack.comIsaac Caballero Suey 政治・政府 政治学 旅行記・解説 社会科学
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  • Greece’s Generation of Adult Children

    Greece’s Generation of Adult Children
    2026/10/18
    Welcome to this week’s Planetwonk briefing — your weekly download of the stories that don’t make it onto the postcards.We’ve expanded our footprint: you can now listen to this briefing as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite app.Can’t Get In, Can’t Stay: Greece’s Two-Way Housing SqueezeHere is a number that explains modern Greece better than most economic reports: 30.9.That is the average age at which young Greeks leave their parents’ home. Only Croatia is higher, at 31.5. The EU average is 26.3. In Finland, people are packing boxes at around 21, which means a Finn can be on their second flat before a Greek has finished the first conversation about moving out.Now put a face on the number. Picture a 29-year-old with a degree, a job, a tax number and a mother who still asks whether he has eaten. Not a teenager sulking in his room: a fully functioning taxpayer sleeping under a poster he put up in 2011. And he has plenty of company. Three in four Greeks aged 20 to 29 still live with their parents, according to the OECD, one of the highest shares among its members. The sons, incidentally, hold out nearly three years longer than the daughters.It is tempting to file all this under culture: the Sunday lunch that runs into Monday, the laundry that somehow still arrives home in a bag. Culture plays a part. Greek researchers note that moving out has traditionally waited for marriage, and flat-sharing never really caught on. And let’s be fair to the family home: it is warm, it is rent-free, and the fridge refills itself. For many, less a trap than a very comfortable cushion.But ask young Greeks themselves, and the real star is arithmetic. In a survey of 1,500 working under-30s by the research institute of the GSEE trade union confederation, about seven in ten said their income does not cover basic needs, and 62 percent said they remain financially dependent on their families. The OECD adds that Greek workers under 30 earn roughly 40 percent less than their peers elsewhere in the EU and OECD, adjusted for purchasing power, in a year when Greece’s economy outgrew the eurozone’s. Growth, it seems, has not yet been forwarded to this address.Now try buying. A newly built 70-square-metre apartment in Athens costs roughly sixteen years of average gross pay — before food, bills, taxes, transport or the occasional attempt to enjoy being alive. No wonder that in Greece, moving out often means buying, at an average age of around 35 according to European housing research cited in the Greek press, and frequently with the family’s help: a contribution, an inheritance, a flat passed down like a family recipe. Renting is no escape hatch either. With the minimum wage at €780 net a month, wages struggle to keep up with rents, and residents compete with tourists for the same apartments. It is hard to outbid someone who is only staying the weekend.Why not simply build more? Because in Athens a building site is one shovel away from becoming an archaeological dig, and the views of the Acropolis are taken very seriously. Some sites face strict limits on height and development. Still, before we blame the ancient Greeks, note that most Athenians live outside the most heavily protected historic zones. The rules are part of the explanation, not the whole of it. Pericles is not personally refusing your permit.Getting in is one problem. Staying in is another, and in a household where grown children live with their parents, a parent’s loan is everyone’s problem. Borrower associations have taken their demands to the Finance Ministry: a ban on foreclosures of primary residences, tougher oversight of loan-servicing companies, rent caps and more social housing. The government has its own answer — a bill in public consultation that would generally cap claims on qualifying overdue loans at three times the original capital and give servicers deadlines to respond to settlement requests. It is not law yet, and a cap would not refund what borrowers have already paid.Critics say that does not go far enough where interest has inflated debts. Lenders and their defenders reply that if contracts cannot be enforced, credit gets pricier or scarcer for everyone. Both have a point, which is what makes this a dilemma rather than a slogan: how to protect a family’s home without scaring off the money that lends against homes.The result: a generation old enough to work, vote and pay taxes, not yet able to afford a front door of its own — and parents hoping the house they all share stays theirs.Welcome to the Café Economy: Who Picks Up the Bill?If you have ever ordered a frappé in Athens and been served by someone with a master’s degree, you have already met the subject of this story.A paper from the London School of Economics’ Hellenic Observatory, titled “The Café Economy,” argues that Greece’s recovery after the bailout years leaned heavily on one sector: accommodation and food service. ...
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    15 分
  • Ancient Athens, Meet America First

    Ancient Athens, Meet America First
    2026/10/11
    Welcome to this week’s Planetwonk briefing — your weekly download of the stories that don’t make it onto the postcards.We’ve expanded our footprint: you can now listen to this briefing as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite app.Rubio Takes America First to the Hill Where Athens VotedFirst, the venue. The Pnyx is the rocky hill facing the Acropolis where Athenian citizens once gathered to debate, vote, and occasionally shout each other down. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke there with the Parthenon in the background, in a carefully staged production: four video cameras, one of them on a crane. The ancient Athenians managed their assemblies without a crane shot, though they never lacked for oratory.The message: Western countries have lost confidence in themselves, and loyalty to your own nation is nothing to apologize for. Rubio urged the ancient Greek virtues of heroism, honor and duty and declared that America under Trump has chosen “the unapologetic pursuit of national power.” The speech echoed Vice President JD Vance’s 2025 Munich address, and Vance shared the video on X. Rubio is widely seen as a contender for the 2028 Republican nomination, which is why many American commentators read the speech as much for his future as for Greece’s past.The business end was the sixth Greece–US Strategic Dialogue, co-chaired with Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis and the first led by a sitting secretary of state. The headline deliverable was $4 billion in US arms sales, including about $1 billion to upgrade 37 of Greece’s F-16s and munitions for its F-16s and future F-35s. Rubio called Greece a “model ally,” and Athens will not mind the attention. It may mind the fine print: in an interview with Kathimerini, Rubio said President Trump wants F-35s delivered to Turkey once the S-400 obstacle is resolved, while also describing a Greek–Turkish conflict as unthinkable. Turkish media had already noted that Ankara was not on this trip’s itinerary, which also took in Iceland and Portugal.Not everyone applauded. On Tuesday evening, police figures put the crowd in central Athens at anywhere from more than 2,000 to over 3,000 protesters, responding to calls from the union linked to the Communist Party (KKE), along with student and left-wing groups. Police blocked the march before it reached the US Embassy, and demonstrations in the centre were banned from Wednesday until Rubio left on Thursday.Where things stand: a warm official visit, a very photogenic speech, and a crowd outside that saw the same visit rather differently. Ancient Athens has been cited in support of nearly every political programme since the Renaissance, and none of the Athenians is available for comment.Greece’s Far Right Wants the AfD’s Results, Not Necessarily the AfDPolitical parties have always borrowed from abroad. Sometimes it is a slogan, sometimes a campaign strategy, and sometimes the whole brand. This autumn the brand on display is Germany’s Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which surged into first place in a September state election in Saxony-Anhalt and leads national surveys, according to AP.Greece’s far right is watching, but not in step. Kyriakos Velopoulos, whose Greek Solution has sat in parliament since 2019 and, according to To Vima, polls strongest on the far right, said his own party is enjoying a surge like the AfD’s. Afroditi Latinopoulou, the MEP who leads Voice of Reason, said only that she is glad when citizens wake up. Others kept their distance, and To Vima’s verdict was that the AfD finds few friends on the Greek far right. Everyone wants the polling. Fewer want to be photographed in the jersey.Then there is the wildcard. Ilias Kasidiaris, the former Golden Dawn spokesman, walked out of Domokos prison on September 15, after about six years of a sentence of more than 13 for helping lead what Greek courts ruled a criminal organisation. He promised a “new, strong national party, such as those dominating all of Europe.” There are obstacles. Legal experts say he is barred from running for office until 2033, and Greek law bars parties led by convicted felons, so a week later he said he would back the Alliance of Greeks, a party formed in 2025 that he says has a parliamentary group. Whether it can stand is a matter for the Supreme Court. Elon Musk, a backer of the AfD, had complained publicly about Kasidiaris’s continued jailing in July.Copying a foreign model is harder than it looks. Greece’s threshold for entering parliament is 3%, and a crowded field splits the vote rather than growing it. The camp also has a habit of litigating against itself: in 2023 the Supreme Court excluded several far-right parties from the ballot, including Latinopoulou’s then-party Patrida, after rival challenges over party names. And Greece’s own history, from the debt crisis to Golden Dawn’s criminal-organisation conviction, means any import would need ...
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    14 分
  • “We Can Do This to Any Country We Want”

    “We Can Do This to Any Country We Want”
    2026/10/04
    Welcome to this week’s Planetwonk briefing — your weekly download of the stories that don’t make it onto the postcards.We’ve expanded our footprint: you can now listen to this briefing as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite app.The Ambassador, the Dinner Party, and the Sentence Nobody Can Agree OnFirst, the cast. Kimberly Guilfoyle is a former Fox News host and political fundraiser who was engaged to Donald Trump Jr. until they separated late in 2024. Trump nominated her as ambassador to Greece, calling her a longtime friend and ally, and the Senate confirmed her in September 2025. Admirers see an envoy with a direct line to the president. Critics see nepotism with a diplomatic passport.Late last week, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation into her deal-making across Europe, and Athens has talked about little else since, which, in a city that argues about everything, is saying something. The story comes in two parts: a business story and a sentence.The business first. The Journal reports that Greek-American businessman Christos Marafatsos kept turning up at her diplomatic meetings, so often that some foreign officials reportedly assumed he was on her staff. He was the guest who gets mistaken for the help. U.S. filings show his lobbying firm represents Aktor Energy, a Greek construction group that has moved into gas, and that it earned $160,000 in lobbying income over three quarters. Aktor denies improper promotion, her lawyer denies favoritism, and Marafatsos says his work advances U.S. interests. The backdrop is the Vertical Corridor, basically a gas highway running north from Greece into southeastern Europe, carrying U.S. liquefied natural gas among other things. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says it has bipartisan support in Washington.Now the sentence. The Journal reports that at a March 18 embassy dinner in Athens, Guilfoyle argued with Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou. Talking about Romania’s looming government collapse, she allegedly said “We can do this to any country we want,” and added that it could happen here. The Financial Times later reported that a person familiar with the dinner supported the account. Her lawyer disputes the description.Then the headlines, being headlines, couldn’t leave well enough alone. Some Greek outlets upgraded the reported line to “we can topple any government.” The words attributed to her contain neither “topple” nor “government.” Somewhere between the dinner table and the front page, the sentence got a promotion.Athens has responded carefully. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said there was never any question of a threat against the Greek government. In Parliament on Friday, Papastavrou said there was never any pressure or threats and called relations with Washington “at a historic high.” Asked for a yes or no on whether the exchange happened, he said it isn’t his job to comment on press reports. Denying a threat is not the same as denying the sentence, and no one has publicly offered an alternative account of the dinner.The Romania fact-check helps a little. The FT reports that Guilfoyle later met Social Democratic leader Sorin Grindeanu and then-energy minister Bogdan Ivan in Bucharest, and that Romania’s government fell in May after the Social Democrats withdrew. The FT said it’s unclear whether she urged them to leave the coalition. Grindeanu denies discussing gas contracts and says Prime Minister Bolojan was not brought down by the Americans, “the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.” It’s a curious lineup, and only one of the three has ever been seen at an embassy dinner.The coda: Rubio praised her this weekend as “extremely effective.” He lands in Athens Tuesday evening for the Greece–US Strategic Dialogue and leaves Wednesday morning, so it’s a short visit with a lot of small talk to avoid. Some U.S. Democrats are calling for a probe, and the KKE has called for protests against the visit. In May, Guilfoyle told journalists that Trump would visit Athens before the end of 2026, and government sources said they had no knowledge of that.Where things stand: one disputed sentence, one documented lobbying relationship, one warm endorsement from the Secretary of State, and a dinner with more than a dozen guests, which is a lot of potential memories for one evening.Tempi’s Crash Site Gets a CourtroomOn the night of February 28, 2023, a passenger train carrying students from Athens to Thessaloniki collided with a freight train at Tempi. Fifty-seven people died. Investigators blamed a station master’s routing mistake that put both trains on the same track, plus staff shortages and an ageing railway with no modern safety controls. Tens of thousands have protested since, under the slogan “I have no oxygen,” taken from a victim’s call to the emergency line.The anger has never been only about the collision. It’s also about what happened to the site afterward, and...
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    17 分
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