If however this was to happen, because many Greek can live with lower income but not with Germans above their head, the lesson from Karamanlis' governance, is that in order to come closer to Russia we can't afford the current version of liberal democracy. We can't afford to leave holes for external interventions in our internal politics. We would need to move into a more authoritarian political system... Caring more for the society as a whole and less for the individual as such. Looking at the current Greek political system this could be achieved by the formation of 2 poles and the agreement of their leaders in a national strategy. The one consisted by ND (excluding the neoliberals) and elements of other Right Parties (Laos, G.Dawn, Ind. Greeks). The other consisted by the historically pro-Russian Communists and Syriza (excluding some elements that would fit well with the Dimar party). I agree that what's been left from PASOK should stay out of the story as well as all these leftist pro-Globalization elements. This could form a more tight political system and support a credible partnership with Russia, more protectionist policies and building again our economy outside a Eurozone created to serve exclusively the German interests, focusing to production that meets the real needs of the people and not bubble-services sectors.  (btw I am another Alex..:-))

On my opinion, the DEPA privatization is not connected with the protests of the Communist Party, though I cant be sure about other cases of violence lately... I think we can have a different starting point and reach a common end...  It's undisputable that geopolitically Greece would be favoured if let's say the 90%-10% influence share of US and Russia respectively, changed to a 60-40% or 50-50%... a greater Russia involvement in our region would stabilize it and for me it would make possible even a better understanding with Turkey, in order to raise the standards in the whole East Mediterranean, reviving a historically unified economic space.  This would be easier if US-Russia relationship was advanced, something much needed, especially at this moment that German expansionism and occupation of EU should be deterred. However the news aren't good, we read about the tension between US-Russia in Syria and elsewhere, in the DEPA case as well... I still hope that Kerry's succession of Mrs. Clinton might signal something good... but it really seems that much of the power is not at Mr Obama's hands -instead it's in Wall Street, military and energy industry lobbies... So, it's really hard for Greece to see some light and to avoid the German dominance... 

(correction above :)

''''Which means that the average German would need to work nearly 5 times more per year with his rate''

Nearly five months more per year of course... - that is how much the average German needs to work in order to work as much as a Greek. Or another equivalent would be to add 3 hours more in his everyday working schedule to achieve as much work as a Greek does.

Of course the result counts. Because the result depends not on the amount of work but on productivity and productivity depends on the means.

For the record, when Nissan built its factory in Greece, this worked only for 1-2 years (since the Greek US-installed EU-backed socialist government kicked it out as US as well as Europe did not wish others investing in Greece) but in that time the Japanese were amazed to record that the Greek assembly line was the most productive Nissan assembly line in the world, overpassing in its first year of work even the best till then Nissanunit that was in Japan. When you have the means, you do it. But when others decide you must not have the means... you cannot do anything.