The recent strike by taxi owners and drivers has brought into light some of the worst aspects Greek society has to offer. After receiving word by the former minister of transport that their demands for special treatment, i.e., exceptions from full deregulation with fewer or no new licenses in the major cities of Athens and Thessaloniki, the taxi owners were stunned by the new minister’s refusal to honor this “agreement.” The end result is that deregulation will proceed without exception. In response, taxi owners throughout the country decided to respond by striking and closing off the roads to airports, ports, toll booths, and other transport hubs in order to bring the country to a standstill, hoping, I presume, to show the government they mean business when they demand exceptions. Not surprisingly, the government says it will not budge, we’ll see about that, and the opposition, in its own populist way, has declared everything to be the government’s fault. If only they were in government, things would have been handled differently. Well, they were in government and we all know what happened; so for the time being let’s set aside this aspect
