Given the state of the county it is unlikely that there are many people in Greece who would happily buy their elected representatives a cup of coffee should they bump into them on the street. Yet they do so every day.
Indeed Naftemporiki reports (link in Greek) that according to parliamentary accounts uploaded to the ‘Cl@rity’ transparency program, the parliament managed to spend a total of 16,735 euros on coffee, biscuits and bottled water in only the few months since October. These were served during meetings of various committees, many of which presumably involved MPs banging their heads together trying to find the fat that could be trimmed from public budgets.
The documents also show that a single dinner thrown by parliamentarians cost the Greek taxpayer almost 8,500 euros. Specifically a dinner at the Acropolis Museum co-hosted by a Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and the Chairman of the Committee of European Affairs in honour of the charmingly named Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (Cosac), cost €8,476.80, or roughly 20 monthly pensions.