European Union officials have nothing but praise for the mayor of the Greek city of Thessaloniki. Yiannis Boutaris has been pushing ahead with far-reaching reforms to undo the abuses of his predecessors and has already slashed the city's spending by 30 percent. He's even asking the Germans for advice.
Boutaris is the most unusual politician in Greece, despite his insistence that he is not a politician at all. In fact, he says, he is the opposite of a politician, a businessman who has taken on a new project: running the city of Thessaloniki, where he has been mayor for almost exactly a year.
It's relatively uncommon for the international observers working for the so-called troika of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) in Athens to say something complimentary about a Greek politician. And it's almost unheard of for them to praise a Greek for his penchant for reform, as they are doing with Boutaris. In their reports home, the officials write that, since Boutaris came into office, Thessaloniki has been an "island of hope" and a "model for all of Greece." A member of the European Commission team in Athens says: "Boutaris is the exception, a beacon. Everyone else can learn something from him."
This very interesting read was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is Roy Stephens third offering in today's column. It's certainly worth your while...and the link is here.
