This is the lesson we have learnt from the oil shocks of the 1970s and from the ensuing adventures of countries that failed to recognise this hard reality in time. 4. The mistakes made when we were facing the first two oil shocks (i.e. the relaxation, of fiscal, monetary and incomes policies in the 1970s and the 1980s) must not be repeated.
Let me recall, for those who have not experienced or have forgotten those episodes, that inflation (in Greece) had exceeded 33% by early 1974 and remained at double-digit levels throughout the next twenty years (until 1994).