For our generation, public debt was never an abstract economic indicator. It was the shuttered storefront. The return to your parents’ house. The friend who left for abroad on a one-way ticket. Parents watching their children approach thirty with no ability to plan their lives. Above all, it was the feeling that the country’s future was being decided by others. That is why the news that Greece has achieved the largest reduction in public debt in the European Union concerns every Greek family.
Within a single year, debt fell by 9.4 percentage points of GDP and by approximately €6.2 billion in absolute terms. This is not a victory over other European countries. It is a victory over a past that for years defined the limits of what we could do. This success did not come by chance. The economy is growing, jobs are being created, investment is returning, and public revenues are rising — even as dozens of taxes have been cut. The country is reclaiming its credibility, borrowing on better terms, and paying off older, more expensive debt.
“Every step toward credibility makes Greece more resilient against the next global crisis”
This is what fiscal responsibility truly means. It is not an accounting obsession. It is national freedom. Every euro not lost to high interest payments expands our choices — for better healthcare and education, stronger defense, lower taxes, and modern infrastructure. Every burden lifted from the state is one that does not get passed on to our children. And every step toward credibility makes Greece more resilient against the next global crisis.
That does not mean everything has been solved. Debt remains high. The cost of living continues to squeeze household budgets. Many of our fellow citizens do not yet feel the progress reflected in the indicators in their daily lives. It would be wrong to answer them with celebration. We are not first in prosperity. But we are first in moving in the right direction. And that direction matters. Because a country that reduces its debt can pursue social policy without mortgaging tomorrow. It can support the most vulnerable without borrowing from those not yet born. It can plan ahead instead of constantly managing one emergency after another.
Our generation learned early what happens when politicians borrow time and send the bill to those who come after. We do not owe our children a country without problems. We owe them a country that is free to solve them. The greatest achievement will not be a European first place on a Eurostat table. It will be the moment when a young person can build their future here, without seeing leaving as the only option. We know what it means to pay for decisions we never made. And that is precisely why we will not send the bill to the next generation — the way it was so unjustly sent to ours.
*Published in Apogeumatini tou Savvatou
