10 reasons to be optimistic about Greece

The sun is not the only thing shining down on the land of Socrates

Strong Democracy fundamentals

In 2022, Greece achieved its best personal score in the Democracy Index since 2008. Almost 15 years since the financial crisis erupted changing many things for the country, Greece is making a strong and absolutely measurable comeback, landing inches away from getting a Full Democracy rating again.

The qualitative improvements in Greek democracy are also mirrored in the improved perception of everyday Greeks about the health of their democracy. According to annual surveys by Pew Research, Greeks exhibit increasingly more positive attitudes about the level of democracy in the country, reaching in 2022 the highest lvl of satisfaction since 2017.

Improvements in Rule of Law

Despite the many and well-documented problems in Greece’s justice system, the country’s overall Rule of Law index score has been steadily improving since 2015.

The breakdown of the country’s Rule of Law score for 2022 across a number of critical dimensions can be found below:

Source: World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index 2022

Perceived Corruption going down

According to Transparency International, perceived corruption is continuously going down in Greece. In 2022, Greece reached its best rating in the often cited Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in what has been more than a decade.

Human Development on steady rise

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to track three key dimensions of human development: (1) living a long and healthy life, (2) being knowledgeable and (3) having a decent standard of living. In simple terms, it is looking at life expectacy, level of education and per capita income indicators.

Greece has been consistently improving on this metric, albeit at a decreasing rate, since the mid-2000s. The country scored its best raw score in 2019 and continues to retain a steady positive trend in the past 3 years.

Gender Disparities are falling

According to the Gender Inequality Index (GII), Greece has done tremendous progress in reducing the level of gender inequality in the country during the past two decades. Despite a small uptick in the period 2015-2017, the number is now falling again.

While remaining consistently below the EU average, the Gender Equality Index tracked by the European Institute for Gender Equality shows a clear and continuous improvement since 2013.

Big comeback in Economic Freedom

Greece spent the majority of its financial crisis era as a Mostly Unfree country in the Economic Freedom Index. Not only that, but it consistently ranked far below the global average, reaching in 2016 its worst rating on record.

During the past 4 years, Greece has improved tremendously, surpassing the global average again for the first time since 2011. While economic freedom is retracting across the world, it is now on a steady rise in Greece.

Innovation levels rising

The rise of Greek startups, the digital transformation of the Greek public sector, increased investment in R&D (in both absolute terms and as % of GDP) and a flotilla of large multi-national technology companies setting up hubs in Greece — all have been important contributors to the continuous rise of innovation levels in the country.

There is still a long way to go, but Greek innovation is on an upward-moving path that is expected to increase even faster as the interplay of the above factors becomes richer and gains momentum.

Unemployment rate reaching pre-crisis levels

Greece’s unemployment rate remains one of the highest across all OECD countries. However, through sweat, tears, anger, frustration, many difficulties and a lot of hard work by the Greek people, it has gradually decreased more than ~60% from its peak and is now reaching levels last seen more than a decade ago, right back when the financial crisis first started.

After a long and arduous process, and what has been the most brutal depression on record, Greece is expected to reach a single digit unemployment rate number within the next 12-18 months.

Trade Openness increasing

In 2022, Greece achieved its highest level of trade openness (89%) since 1990.

Why is this important? The higher the ratio, the larger the influence of trade on domestic activities and the stronger that country's economy. While this means a country is more exposed to international trade (the negative side of which Greece experienced in the aftermath of Russia’s war on Ukraine), it also typically comes with more favorable effects on growth and income levels.

Moreover, greater trade integration reduces a country's financial fragility and increases both the ability and willingness to service external obligations, both very important aspects in Greece’s macro-economic trajectory.

Foreign Direct Investment booming

Thanks to a number of new incentives introduced during the past 4 years (for large multi-nationals, expats, digital migrants, angel investors, equity investors, research hubs, family offices and retirees), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Greece has skyrocketed.

2021 was a record year for the country and numbers for 2022 are expected to break that record once again.