Macroeconomic aspect- GDP and Recession

Source: National Statistical Service of Greece

According to the the National Statistical Service of Greece, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Greece expanded 1.20 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 over the same quarter of the previous year. GDP Annual Growth Rate in Greece averaged 0.97 percent from 1996 until 2014, reaching an all time high of 7.50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003 and a record low of -9.90 percent in the first quarter of 2011. Yet, the severe recession of recent years has seen GDP per capita fall from 94% of the EU average in 2009 to 73% in 2013. 

Greece has been suffering from Recession for the past six years and finally came to an end in the first quarter of 2014. Long-lasting recession can be attributed to three factors, interest rate, global imbalances, and perceptions of risks.

Loose monetary policy lowers the interest rate resulting in consumption boom, which sowed the seed of debt crisis. Global imbalances refers to excessive savings by surplus
countries led by China due to oil exporters in Middle East for building up foreign exchange reserves and excessive consumption by deficit countries led by the US. In US, lenders took advantage of low interest rates to expand business activities but, after having exhausted credit-worthy borrowers, they turned to riskier segments of the market which gradually leads to sub-prime meltdown. 

Yet, some suggests that the Greek government was the one to blame on because tightening fiscal and monetary policies were ineffective and, after all, it wasn't forthcoming about how much it was spending during the boom, so it's had to cut its deficit from an unthinkable 19.1 percent of potential GDP to 1.6 percent today.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp-growth-annual

Leibniz Information Centre for Economics - The Great recession of 2008-2009