EU suffers from Greece's Debt

(Image to the left from NY TIMES)
The European governments are being criticized for how they handled the debt crisis in Greece. Germany's reluctance to support the bailout has led to four month delays that have caused Greece's debt to spiral out of control and some say beyond repair. There is a fear that by the time a bailout plan is in effect, Greece might never be capable of paying back its loans to the countries that helped them.

The debt problem has begun to threaten other indebted countries in the E.U. and managed to lower the value of the Euro significantly. Spain and Portugal are already suffering from the Euro's diminishing value. The exchange rate between the Euro and the U.S. dollar was 1.49-1 just five months ago, but has dropped to 1.22-1.

Greece, the Internet and Social Media

The best way to describe Greece's involvement with the internet and social media would be a steady growth. Though the country does not rank very high for total internet users(number 47 according to the CIA World Factbook with 4,253,000 users) their country does have a much smaller population compared to the higher ranking countries(Greece Pop.-11,237,094, USA Pop.-307,006,550). But still, in 2008 according to World Bank, World Development Indicators the percentage of internet users in Greece was only 43.1 percent. The graph above shows there was a stead growth in internet users from 1997-2008.

Greece's use of social media is limited because their presence on the internet is insignificant. In Sysomos' ranking of the top 17 countries on Twitter, Greece is not even mentioned. In 2008, Inside Facebook named Greece number 5 on the ranking of the Top 25 Fastest Growing countries on Facebook. This blog, which uses data taken from Facebook, has Greek ranked 26 in the Top 30 Countries with the most Facebook users in March 2010. This data shows a 100% growth from March 2009. With 2,611,420 Facebook users about half of Greece's internet users have a Facebook page.

(it was difficult to find credible sources for these statistics, I think it is because Greece's presence in social media is very limited.)

Volcano in Iceland Hurts Greece Economy

Iceland Volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted March 20, 2010 leading to ash clounds covering most of Europe during the end of March and early April. Like several other EU countries, Greece's tourism sector has taken a blow. Though most domestic flights in Greece continue to depart, all international flights have been halted because of safety concerns; the ash can supposedly do serious damage to aircraft engines.

Hundreds of flights destined for Athens were cancelled leading hotels in the capital city to have a severe drop in bookings. The most recent estimates say that the tourism sector income rate is supposed to drop between 6 and 8 percent. Aegean Airlines, the largest Greek Airline, said the cancelled flights are costing 600,000 euros per day, while their rival Olympic Air has been losing 400,000 per day.

Kathimerini Article

I.M.F. Bailout Conflicts for E.U.

The European Union is looking toward the International Monetary Fund (or I.M.F.) to bail Greece out of its financial crisis, but they are leery of appealing to this organization because it could hurt the pride of the EU. Countries such as Paris, firmly believe that Greece’s debt problem should be solved by European tax-payers. Whereas Germany does not want to bailout Greece and would rather turn to the I.M.F. Little can be done for Greece within Europe without Germany's help, so tensions are high between Paris and Germany. The United States has an important role in the I.M.F., so turning to this organization is seen as embarrassing to some members on the EU. They want Greece's debt problem to be solved within Europe and feel that reaching outside of it will lessen the credibility of the entire euro-zone.
NY Times Article