Fresh obstacles on the road to recovery

The road to fiscal sovereignty for Greece is not a smooth one. Despite the government's optimism and the helpful assurances of European officials, there has been no shortage of reminders of the challenges the country faces as it heads toward the post-memorandum era.

On March 5, the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) published its provisional data on growth in 2017, according to which gross domestic product increased by 1.4 percent. This was against a forecast of 2.7 percent in the budget bill passed in late 2016, and 1.6 percent estimated by the European Commission just two weeks earlier.

On the same day that ELSTAT delivered this unwelcome news, Europe was nursing a bad hangover from the Italian elections. Talks on the formation of a new Italian government will drag on, analysts believe, and are by no means guaranteed to succeed. Yet the voters' message was...