Greece defiant on pension cuts ahead of key talks with creditors
Print Edition
GREECE’S prime minister yesterday said his government will not give in to “unreasonable” demands as the debt-ridden country braces for critical negotiations with international creditors on the thorny issue of pension reform.
The warning came just days after Athens got 1 billion euros (US$1.1 billion) under the terms of its third bailout programme.
The creditors — the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Stability Mechanism — finalized a third Greek debt rescue programme in August worth 86 billion euros after Greece looked to be on the brink of crashing out of the eurozone.
“The creditors have to know that we are going to respect the agreement to the letter, but that doesn’t mean we are going to succumb to unreasonable and undeserved demands,” Alexis Tsipras told Real News newspaper.
“We have no commitment to find the money exclusively from pension cuts. On the contrary, the agreement provides the option of equivalent measures, which we have already processed.”
He admitted though that the pension system which is “on the brink of collapse” needs to be overhauled.
The labor ministry is working on a new social security system under which state-guaranteed pensions will be reportedly cut by half — to a minimum of 384 euros — and the rest will depend on a person’s income and years of social security payments.
“If we don’t face the problem of the social security system today, in a year we won’t be able to pay pensions,” the ministry’s most senior official, Andreas Nefeloudis, told Mega channel TV yesterday.
Tsipras’ leftist government was forced in July to back down from its anti-austerity electoral pledges and accept a three-year rescue package from its eurozone partners.
The government has since July pushed through parliament unpopular bailout reforms, losing in the process part of its majority in the chamber due to defections.
In December, the government said it had formed a privatization fund and planned to sell a major stake in electricity distributor Admie.
Tsipras appeared optimistic for 2016 saying it “will be the year of Greece’s comeback after six year in crisis.”
“We will return to growth, we will put an end to the capital controls, we will reduce the debt and we will return to the markets”, he said.
Greeks however do not seem to share his optimism.
According to a poll by Kappa Research for Vima newspaper on Sunday, 55.1 percent of respondents said they believed things would get worse in 2016 while 61.1 percent said a Grexit scenario would resurface.
Bank of Greece governor Yannis Stournaras meanwhile warned of the huge risks involved in case Greece fails to reach an agreement with its creditors.
“A potential failure in the conclusion of the assessment of the new bailout programme will bring back memories of the negative experience of the first half of 2015,” he said in an article published in Kathimerini newspaper on Sunday.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
