Industrial competitiveness and the search for a sustainable path out of the crisis – lessons from the Greek experience

The prevailing interpretations regarding the Greek but also the euro area crisis focus on macroeconomic issues and relate the crisis to macroeconomic imbalances. Following this approach, recovery was expected until now to result from consolidation, austerity and deregulation policies – briefly what is called the Washington consensus recipe. In the context of the (nationally driven or externally determined) austerity adjustment programmes that are being put in place in southern euro area countries, a main concern is changes in the regulation of labour market and reduction of wages, which aim to increase the flexibility and improve cost competitiveness of the overall economy.