The business community – a force for social cohesion
in Northern Greece

The leading article in this newsletter is of particular importance to me. Since this is the first newsletter of the new year, I have decided to write a profile of the Northern Greek businessman – the businessman who struggles daily in adverse conditions against the state and its bureaucracy. The businessman who often struggles not necessarily even to make a profit, but simply to ensure that his business survives. The businessman who – although he could easily relocate part or all of his production to low-cost neighbouring countries – still patriotically insists on operating here in Greece. The businessman whose attitudes and decisions, like it or not, are – at the end of the day – a force for social cohesion in the four regions of Northern Greece.

Within this context I wish to declare loud and clear that the State has never been a major player in supporting entrepreneurship in Northern Greece. This is why Northern Greek businessmen are outward-looking in their business attitudes; this is also why they are regarded as better ‘housekeepers’. Unfortunately those who live nearer to the nation’s capital and its government look to the State for much of their work. But in Northern Greece, since this kind of attitude has never been developed, the time required for dealing with Ministries, public departments and various other organizations, and the services they may provide, is spent instead on looking farther afield – to the Balkans for example, where most companies operating in Balkan countries are from Northern Greece.

The result of this attitude is that businesses in Northern Greece are in a much healthier state than in the south of the country, since they do not rely on occasional government actions. Moreover, they show significant awareness regarding social issues for which they are often not given credit. For example, the business community here is interested in various environmental issues such as the progress of biological waste-processing projects in industrial zones, and it wants to know what is happening with the disposal of solid wastes. These are subjects which, although they are of great importance, are regarded by some as being of little significance.

On the other hand, the businessmen of Northern Greece tend to focus on their own immediate environment. They do not take ambitious initiatives, and they do not take big risks. They are hard-working and never rest. The difference between them and their counterparts in the south is that they do not suffer from the same stress and anxiety, which may in fact be of added creative value, however this can also at times prove disastrous. What is more they do not spend so much time networking, looking around them and trying to generate business through ‘contacts’. If our main customer was the State, then such behaviour would make sense, but things are different here.
Another feature of the Northern Greek businessman, compared with those in other parts of the country, is that he is less bound to the banking system. He prefers to rely on his own resources, to develop his business more gradually, to avoid “exposure”, to avoid serious risks and to avoid always having to get the bank manager’s permission for whatever he does. And the result is that the growth of his business is less dramatic – but perhaps more secure.

Despite all this the Northern Greek businessman has one fundamental weakness: he doesn’t appreciate the importance of joining forces with his neighbours to make demands on the State. He believes either that this is the job of one of the business organizations, like FING, or that the effort required is so enormous that in the end it isn’t worth the trouble.

If we Northerners were more active and more united, we would secure a great deal more for ourselves. If we can manage to simply change some of our negative attitudes, while at the same time retaining the positive features of our personalities, then we can look forward to the future with real optimism.

And so I call on all the members of FING to become more active and to involve themselves, if possible, on an everyday basis in the interventions planned and implemented by our Federation.