While Turkey reveals the intercontinental ballistic missile «Yıldırımhan» of 6,000 kilometres, aspiring to change the geopolitical map, we are fighting our own «strategic» battles. Where? In the sewers of Kythera. There, in a public sewage project EUR 27 million, ...we are preparing to place... Turkish manhole covers.
It's not a trivial, ironic detail. It is the replica of a country that talks incessantly in the public sphere about «development» and «productive reconstruction», but is unable - or indifferent - to support its most basic domestic production. In a mammoth project of such a budget, awarded with the funny discount of 1%, there was apparently room for everything but a serious discussion of the where public money goes and what production it ultimately supports.
Don't fall from the clouds, the play has been performed for years in repetition. From Peristeri to the drainage of Fournas in Karpenisi in 2019, the practice is well established. The late «patriots» of local government and ministries, who on national anniversaries weep with glee for our sovereign rights, in the acceptance committees suffer selective blindness. As long as the imported lid bears the European certification «EN 124-2» and everything is well done.
And this is where the real Greek problem emerges. Not only do we remain fully dependent on imports, but we maintain a bureaucratic machine that has made a science out of the legitimisation of «opportunity». As long as the right signatures are put on the right protocols and the necessary administrative silence. Everything is set up on the cards so that it looks like absolutely «formal» and «legal» in the eyes of any control mechanism, yet the end result remains deeply hypocritical, perforated and nationally damaging.
What is most infuriating is our resignation in the face of this decline. We find it normal that a country that claims European seriousness cannot even pave a Greek cap on a Greek road, with Greek and European taxpayers' money. We leave the our own heavy industry dying from the crushing energy costs, and the next day we fall from the clouds when the ELSTAT announces new, nightmarish records in our trade deficit.
So let's be honest: If in 2026 an entire state apparatus is unable to draft a contract that ensures that a round piece of cast iron will be produced within the border, let's close up shop. Let's accept that we are doomed to produce only Fresno espresso and Airbnb rooms.
The others are looking strategically 6,000 kilometres away, and we're looking for the cheapest imported cap to cover our nakedness.
