How Sausage The Riot Dog Bankrupted Greece
Stray dogs in Athens don’t look like stray dogs in other big cities. Many, Sausage included, wear collars and tags.
Instead of rounding them up and destroying them, the municipal authorities of Athens pay to feed more than 2,000 of them. They are neutered, given vaccines, identified with microchips and released back onto the street, wearing a tag with a phone number to call if they are in – or causing – trouble.
You can see them snoozing in the sunshine by a statue, or loitering with intent in groups of two or three outside a cafe.
“In most European countries, they solve this problem with euthanasia. But Greek culture is against that. Our law is about rehabilitating the dogs,” said Makri. “People here take care of them and love them. They are like everyone’s dog.”
For a time there was talk that the financial crisis – the same crisis that has prompted the demonstrations that brought Sausage his fame – would force the city to halt the stray dog program, set up a year before the 2004 Olympics.
The program was indeed interrupted by a reorganization in recent months, but it has resumed, said Deputy Mayor Angelos Antonopoulos, himself a veterinarian. referring to the program’s most famous client, the mayor said, “The municipality takes especial care of him because he’s so lovable. And he’s also a symbol – a symbol of freedom.”
—Introducing Sausage, the Athens riot dog, The Daily Star [my emphasis]
One would think that Greece being so humane to stray dogs it would be even more humane to the multitude of migrants who land on its shores. The fact is that the conditions of migrants in Greece are so inhumane other countries (the heartless ones who destroy stray dogs) who are members of the Dublin Regulation have stopped returning migrants to Greece:
There is no functioning asylum system in Greece. Asylum seekers’ requests are regularly rejected by the dozen, with only minuscule numbers seeing their applications approved. In 2009, the appeal body in Greece where asylum seekers could seek redress was abolished. Those seeking protection are exposed to arbitrary detention in overcrowded camps with squalid conditions and inadequate food. Refugees living at large in Greece are refused help from government agencies. They are forced to beg for alms and live without shelter.
—German Supreme Court fails to defend right to asylum [my emphasis]
The state in Greece, like many other countries, have outgrown its natural size by five-folds and instead of being supported by the economy it now supports the economy in end-of-days kind of reversal. Half of Greece’s economic output is state outlaies based on receipts amounting to only two-fifths of the economy; that in a nutshell is the problem with Greece. If Greece defaulted on its debts tomorrow it would be cut-off from the debt market, resulting in an instant 10% economic decline at the same time the banks (being the creditors of the government) would fail and the government would not have any cash to nationalize them and protect the depositors the same way Iceland did.
The state in Greece have to find acceptable ways to spend money; to the benefit of employees and suppliers. Caring for stray dogs employ a number of people and benefit local suppliers without angering voters, caring for foreigners in tough economic times is unacceptable to Greek voters. German voters should take cue from their counterparts on the Aegean and stop caring for stray states.
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