What went wrong in Greece: a book by Michalis Sallas

In Greece The book comes out on June 3 Michalis Sallas “What went wrong in Greece – and what could be corrected”dedicated to 50 years of economic mistakes, missed opportunities and the search for a new development strategy.

Book will come out June 3, 2026 V Athens Bookstore Publications and promises to become one of the most discussed economic and political books of the year.

In the book Michalis Sallas looks at the last fifty years of Greek history: the period after Metapolitefsithe cycle of missed opportunities, the indecisiveness and mistakes of governments, the illusions of society, the debt crisis and strategic miscalculations that, in his assessment, led Greece to “second speed” eurozone.

This is not just another story about how “everything was bad,” which the Greek public debate already feeds on with enviable regularity. The author tries to explain why the country, having serious human, geographical and economic capabilities, has been unable to build a sustainable production model for decades.

Fifty years of mistakes and illusions

According to the publisher’s description, the book analyzes the path of Greece from the 1970s to 2025. Among the main reasons for the lag are low competitivenessweak productive base, clientelistic state, borrowed consumption, institutional weakness and dependence on public debt.

Special attention is paid to the economic situation of the 1970s and Averof’s report 1981, where deep structural problems of the Greek economy were already identified. The author then looks at the 1980s as a period of state expansion and redistribution that raised living standards but also perpetuated a model increasingly dependent on borrowing and consumption.

The book describes the 1990s as a time of modernization and European adaptation, but also as a period when the deep industrial changes needed to participate in Economic and Monetary Union. Entry into the euro, according to the author’s logic, gave Greece access to cheap financing, but did not provide real industrial convergence with the strong economies of Europe.

Euro, debt and the great illusion of the 2000s

Sallas views the decade of the 2000s as a period of great illusion. Cheap credit, expanding bank financing, rising consumption and a sense of artificial prosperity created the impression that the country was steadily moving closer to Europe.

However, in his assessment, Greece has achieved mainly nominal rather than real convergence. The economy entered the euro area without sufficient industrial preparation and without increased competitiveness. As a result, imbalances did not disappear, but became deeper – they were simply covered for a time by access to cheap money. A convenient thing, this cheap money: first they pretend that they are solving problems, then they send a bill with interest and a crisis.

One of the central sections of the book is devoted to the debt crisis and memorandums. The author argues that Greece faced an extremely severe crisis, but at the same time had alternative courses of action that could mitigate the scale of the ensuing economic and social catastrophe.

Sallas analyzes the actions of the Greek governments, negotiations with Troikainternational examples and economic data, trying to show why the country was unable to effectively defend its position and why the chosen measures led to a deep recession, social disorganization and huge losses.

The theory of “four Greece”

One of the most interesting ideas in the book is called the theory “four Greece”. According to the author, the country is not a single social and economic reality. Within it, different models of behavior, interests and expectations coexist and conflict.

Sallas highlights Greece survival, Greece state protection, Greece competitiveness, openness and creativityand also Greece connections, interventions in institutions and wealth distribution. Through this diagram, he tries to explain why the country has been unable to develop a sustainable industrial and institutional course for decades.

This is what makes the book potentially interesting not only to economists, but also to anyone who is trying to understand why Greece so often talks about reforms, but so rarely brings them to fruition. In the country, reformers often live like tourists: they come, take pictures in front of the ministries and soon disappear.

Greece 2040: what Sallas offers

The book is not limited to criticism of the past. It offers solutions for Greece 2040: national reconstruction, strengthening institutions, technological modernization, energy strategy, maritime economic development, population policy and regional strengthening.

The author connects the country’s future not only with GDP growth, but also with restoring trust in institutions, changing the production model and abandoning the habit of living in short-term political calculations. In this sense, the book purports not just to analyze the crisis, but to attempt to open a new conversation about the strategic future of the country.

Who is Michalis Sallas

Michalis Sallas – Greek economist, banker and entrepreneur. He was born in 1950 in Heraklion in Crete, studied economics in University of Athensthen continued his studies in Germany and received a doctorate in econometrics and forecasting theory in Heidelberg University.

He taught econometrics, statistics and economic mathematics at Pantheon Universityheld a number of government positions, including the post of Secretary General Ministry of Commerceled ETBAheaded Capital Market Commission and participated in the modernization of the banking system.

In 1991, he led a group of Greek entrepreneurs who bought out Bank of Piraeus from the state. Under his leadership, the bank grew into one of the largest financial institutions in Greece and South-Eastern Europe. Sallas was later declared the group’s honorary chairman.

Today he continues his entrepreneurial activities through Lyktos Group in the energy, mineral resources and pharmaceutical raw materials sectors, and regularly participates in public debate on economics, development and banking.

Publication information

• Name: “What went wrong in Greece – and what could be corrected”
• Author: Michalis Sallas
• Publisher: Athens Bookstore Publications
• Volume: 586 pages
• Format: paperback
• Size: 24 × 17 cm
• Price: 26 euros
• ISBN: 978-618-5730-05-5
• Release date: June 3, 2026

Editorial comment

The title of the book sounds almost like a question that Greece has been asking itself for decades: “What went wrong?” The problem is that the answer has often been drowned in either partisan justifications or convenient shifting of responsibility to Europe, the Troika, banks, politicians, citizens, the market and anyone else.

The value of such a conversation may be precisely in stopping looking for one culprit. The Greek crisis was not the result of one mistake, but the result of an entire system: political clientelism, a weak industrial base, dependence on debt, institutional laxity and a public willingness to mistake the illusion of prosperity for too long for development.

If Sallas’s book actually prompts discussion not only of past mistakes, but also of the country’s model for the next decades, it could become useful. Because what Greece needs for a long time is not another list of injuries, but an honest conversation about how to stop repeating the same mistakes under new slogans.

Source link