Fixing the banks should be a priority

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the new conservative prime minister, took office in Greece at what is perhaps the best moment since 2004. Unlike Italy, whose politics are dominated by the controversial Matteo Salvini, other eurozone countries and the UK striving with Brexit, Greece has a stable government and political system. It has also been recording consistently large primary budget surpluses for the first time in decades. All that is left to do is fix the banks to boost lending to the private sector to produce sustainable, high economic growth rates in the next few years. Notwithstanding other structural problems, such as red tape, one can hardly disagree with this view shared by a growing number of bankers and investors putting their money where their mouth is.

The Athens stock exchange is one of the best performing bourses in the world and Greek government bonds have been the...