The EU Is Just a Big Bank that Gives Out Loans”
No other Europeans are as disappointed with democracy as Greeks. Helen Pasiali’s life is an example of the lasting effects of austerity policies on society in Greece.
Eine Reportage von Benjamin Hindrichs, Dc 14, 2021
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Helen Pasiali stiffens her back. Her gaze meanders through the living room, coming to rest briefly on the pictures of her two children on the bureau, on the white e-piano, on a cake carrier. She exhales.
“It’s hard,” she says. All the bills, the rising prices, her husband’s struggle to generate enough income, her own exhaustion when she comes home late in the evening. “But that’s life.”
Pasiali laughs. There are dark circles under her blue eyes, and she is holding a cup of coffee. Sometimes, Pasiali says, she wishes she could turn back the clock.
“But everyone here wishes the same thing,” she says.
Helen Pasiali had just been born when Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis signed Greece’s accession to the European Union. She was 21 when her country adopted the euro, 32 when the debt crisis got going and 37 when she lost her faith in democracy.
Today, Pasiali is 43 years old and lives together with her two children and her husband Makis in a three-room apartment in the Ano Ilioupoli neighborhood of Thessaloniki. Her parents live in the same building, as does her sister with her two daughters. During the week, Pasiali works as a cleaner and teaches English on the weekends. She likes music and books, and is quite fond of pastries as well. She would also like to learn to knit, but she doesn’t have much time for hobbies. “You have to pay the bills somehow,” she says.
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