The objective of this paper is to present and discuss the pros and cons of privatization (transferring the ownership and management of state-owned enterprises to private firms) in Greece and its effect on the economy, financial markets, employment, national wealth, and social welfare. Privatization might increase efficiency, productivity, and liquidity in the financial markets, but at the same time, it causes unemployment, dependency on foreign capital and multinational firms, and the worst of all the country loses its national wealth and the social welfare is declining. Governments have to increase productivity and efficiency of the public sector and keep the state-owned enterprises, which provide national security, safety, and other public services, as public ones. Nationalization has proved recently with the current financial crisis, which has been created by the uncontrolled private firms that can improve stability and preserve jobs. The financial market is a source of long term capital, but banks can provide similar and less risky services. The European integration with its strict Maastricht criteria and the common overvalued euro for ten years has created an enormous social cost to the member-nations (mainly in Greece) and its benefits are too small to cover it, especially the loss of public policy for the members and the destruction of the sovereign nations are irreplaceable. The optimal level of privatization is the one that maximizes the social welfare (at the point, where the marginal benefits of privatization are equal to the marginal cost of socio-economic distress) and does not eliminate the wealth of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]