GREEK ECONOMY

"Absolute priority must be given to alleviating the burden on wage labor" and calculating that the "invisible hand" of the state keeps up to 67 percent of an employee's salary.

Εstimates which are driven by official announcements regarding the course of the economy in May, air arrivals at the Athens International Airport in June, as well as data from the May current account balance.

Stock market officials believe that it is a well-intentioned bill, which seeks to tighten rules on corporate governance and prevent mismanagement, but ends up being an over-the-top and bureaucratic system of rules that hands over excessive control to the Capital Market Commission, prompting fears that it may create more problems than it will solve.

The statistics service said the unemployment rate was 16.2 pct in the first quarter, totaling 745,093 unemployed people, from 16.8 pct in the previous quarter and 19.2 pct in the corresponding period last year.

Staikouras added that this "proved the markets recognize the effectiveness of the government's cohesive plan and its reliability over the management of the health crisis and its economic repercussions."

According to the ministry, the Greek economy suffers a triple shock: one temporary but very strong shock in supply. A lockdown reduces production of goods and services, along with incomes of producers and labour force, a very strong shock in demand as a lockdown reduces consumption and third a very strong shock of uncertainty since both the duration and intensity of the phenomenon were unknown.

This time Greece will not be the only "black sheep" of the EU, as almost all countries have opened funding lines to stem the tidal wave from the virus by breaking fiscal rules and stretching the flexibility of "escape clauses".

"There is no doubt that the pandemic crisis has different characteristics than in 2008. It has more in common with the 2001 crisis after the terrorist attacks in New York," said Fokion Karavias, CEO of Eurobank. "We have never seen such a general lockdown in world wars," he said, stressing that the big bet now is to prevent the crisis from becoming a new debt crisis.

The lockdown does not solve the problem: the country, the government is simply saving time to curb the epidemic and to best handle a difficult situation. Additionally, the lockdown does not protect the vulnerable, a lot of work still needs to be done to support these groups, who continue to move about and put their lives at risk.

Today's lockdown, the culmination of measures to curb the epidemic, will further reduce whatever financial transactions were still taking place. It is doubtful whether the magnitude of the disruption to the economy has been understood, and whether the impact can be quantified.