Volgende e-mail van de boekhandelaar Floras, werd me doorgestuurd door iemand van mijn lezers. Brief is in het Engels en gaat over de frustratie van een Griek die het er moeiljik mee heeft dat een hele bevolking voor lui en waardeloos wordt uitgemaakt. Het geeft uiting aan een gevoel dat bij vele Grieken leeft (althans bij diegenen die niet staan te schreeuwen dat de Duitsers zich als nazi’s gedragen). Leest u even mee, het is best interessant.

 

Ladies and gentlemen

I address this letter to you as one of the many Greeks whom everyone calls “lazy” and “useless.” It is possible that you may not have a clear idea about Greece and I would like to show you one more aspect of the situation here.

Between 2000-2010, Greece, indeed spent more that we produced. Sadly, large multinational corporations took advantage of that to make an easy profit from the “lazy” and “useless” population. Many of those companies took advantage of the miserable situation of the Greek state and broke the law for many years running, pocketing many of the millions of euro we are accused of wasting.

They earned that money by selling their products at extremely high prices, taking advantage of their dominant position in the Greek market or the chance to impose illegal terms in their agreements with the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks. They made those profits because some corrupt Greek politicians made sure they got away with it with minimal fines.

Those multinational companies annihilated their Greek competitors using illegal methods under the protection of the Greek governments over the years. So our competitiveness touched ground zero.

All those corporations used the illegally attained profits they made from the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks to provide salaries to people back home.

Here are some examples proving this:

PEARSON (FINANCIAL TIMES)

The largest publishing house in the world, the UK publisher PEARSON was accused and convicted for breaking the Competition Laws in Greece from 2002 to 2007. Their policy continued through to 2009. For their illegal practices they were fined only with 1.500.000€ (Supreme Court appeal pending).

PEARSON executives, Paul Anderson, John Knight, Kenneth Bristow, John Fallon and Mark Short are currently under prosecution by the Greek authorities as responsible for PEARSON selling their ELT books at very high prices in Greece (of course everyone is innocent until proven guilty).

For the same time (2002-2009) the sales and profits of PEARSON from the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks were soaring.

The particular publisher, of course, had the same time the same illegal contracts in other European countries as well and only after they were caught by the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks did they change them and conformed with the European Competition Laws (all this came to light after the European Competition Committee investigation «Case 39771 Floras Bookshops vs Pearson and others» following the complaint of “lazy” and “useless” Greek).

NESTLE

The large multinational corporation was charged with dominant position abuse between 2002 – 2006 and was fined 30.000.000€. For the same period, NESTLE’s profits in the Greek market were ~460.000.000€. NESTLE was also fined 4.100.000€ for participation in unlawful cartels.

COCA COLA HELLAS

One of the largest bottlers of Coca Cola worldwide was fined 11.000.000€ for Dominant position abuse between 1991-2006. The profits of the company for the same period was about 2 billion euro.

DIA HELLAS

The local subsidiary of DIA was fined with 5.192.000€ for imposing unlawful conditions on the Greek market.

BRITISH PETROLEUM (BP) and ROYAL DUTCH SHELL

The subsidiaries of the multibillion giants were fined with 50.000.000€ for participation in unlawful cartels during 2003. Their sales to the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks in the respective years were 3 billion euro.

UNILEVER

UNILEVER was fined 6.946.588€ for illegal practices in 2001-2, their sales for those two years to the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks were 520.000.000€

CARREFOUR

The local Carrefour subsidiary in Greece was fined 12.512.000€ for illegal practices for the years 2003-2008 while during the same period their sales to the  “lazy” and “useless” Greeks totalled 8.694.000.000€

SIEMENS

For many years, the German giant was bribing corrupt Greek politicians thus ensuring multi billion euro projects overcharging the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks who now have to pay that money back.

HEINEKEN

The Greek subsidiary of Heineken (Athenian Brewery) is accused of Dominant position abuse. In the last decade their sales to the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks were about 4.500.000.000€ and the profits about 1.000.000.000€

 

On behalf of all the “lazy” and “useless” Greeks, I would like to ask you to show you a little sympathy because throughout these years, the illegal profits from the feast of the multinational vultures in the country have provided income and jobs for many employees in their respective countries.

kind regards
GEORGE FLORAS
A “lazy” and “useless” Greek
ATHENS GREECE