Government focused on legislating prior actions
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
Having reached a staff level agreement with Greece’s creditors, the government is now focused on legislating prior actions as well as its proposed contingency mechanism to complete the review of its third bailout, ahead of the May 24 Eurogroup meeting.
According to sources, the government is ready to impose a series of indirect taxes which include an increase in the Special Consumption Tax by 8 cents on diesel and 10 cents on gasoline, a 15 percent tax increase on beer and a 3 euros per kilo increase on coffee.
Martin Schulz -Euronews interview
“We need to stop with this idea that we could demand more sacrifices. We can no longer cut wages and pensions. What we need is recognition that Greece, in 2015, has reached a primary budget surplus. That means that the sacrifices we demanded from the Greeks are now bearing fruit.” stated European Parliament President Martin Schulz in a Euronews agency interview.
Isabelle Kumar: Let’s move from Brexit to Grexit. Greece is constantly making headlines these days. Do you think the new sacrifices that creditors are calling for from Greece will be enough to lift the country out of the crisis and keep it in the eurozone?
Martin Schulz: “Three very short answers. First of all, Monday we found what I think is a good way to solve the current problems. Secondly, I think we need debt relief, and it’s the first time we’ve discussed that…”
Isabelle Kumar: That went against the Commission and Germany…
Martin Schulz: “No, no, the Commission is not reluctant to discuss this, and even Germany is open to debate. I belong to a party that is a member of the German government, we totally support such a debate and the German finance minister has not opposed it. Thirdly, we need to stop with this idea that we could demand more sacrifices. We can no longer cut wages and pensions. What we need is recognition – recognition that Greece, in 2015, has reached a primary budget surplus. That means that the sacrifices we demanded from the Greeks are now bearing fruit.”
Isabelle Kumar: Do you think austerity measures on Greece went too far?
Martin Schulz: “You know certainly very well that I’ve never been a supporter of these austerity measures. Cleaning up a budget, rearranging sovereign debt is necessary, but if you don’t have economic growth or employment to raise national income, you’re never going to fix a budget in the long run.”
Jeroen Dijsselbloem-Reuters
In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said he expects Greece’s spending cuts and reform plans to be “done and dusted” by the May 24 summit so talks can start about what is likely to be a three-staged debt relief program.
On the issue of debt relief, he said there were “very few red lines,” when the subject was discussed at the last Eurogroup. “There were very [few] red lines, very little no-gos. The only big no-go is the nominal haircut,” Dijsselbloem said.
