While yesterday marked the symbolic end of Greece’s international financial bailout, many Greeks won't be celebrating the end to the eurozone’s long debt crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Athens government hails the end of the bailout as a historic day when Greece recovers its national freedom and independence. European Union officials hold up Greece’s graduation from its bailout as proof that the bloc’s much-criticized crisis management succeeded. But many Greeks find it hard to believe that this truly is the end of an era. Pessimism and anger prevail in much of Greek society, after a decade of economic depression that has left people exhausted and disillusioned. Greece’s bailout programs since 2010, totaling around €290 billion ($331 billion) of emergency loans from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, are the biggest financial rescue of a stricken sovereign in history. In return for loans, creditors made Greece shut a budget deficit that had ballooned to more than 15 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, leading to the collapse of Greece’s bond market. The state now has a small budget surplus. But the austerity measures to achieve it — totaling €72 billion, or around 40 percent of GDP — accelerated the country’s slump.
