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Samaras Says Austerity Alone No Answer

Samaras11Even as he continued to impose harsh pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions on Greek workers, pensioners and the poor on the orders of international lenders putting up bailout monies, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on March 15 that European Union leaders did not see austerity as “an end in itself.”
He said that the country’s 26 percent unemployment rate – some 67 percent for those under 25 – was the biggest problem his uneasy coalition government has to face even as it braces for more protests and strikes against the measures that have worsened the country’s deep recession and shrinking economy.
Speaking at a news conference during a gathering EU leaders in Brussels, he said that, “It was acknowledged by all at the summit that fiscal adjustment, the memorandum, must be combined with growth-oriented measures to ensure social cohesion.” He didn’t explain how he intended to do that. He earlier said he would not implement any more austerity conditions with Greeks at the breaking point and many unable to pay their taxes, loans, mortgages, or credit cards.
Noting that unemployment was a problem for all southern European countries, Samaras stressed the need for measures to boost growth in those markets to create much-needed jobs. EU subsidies should be channeled into easing this problem, he said. The Greek premier emphasized that the situation is “critical” and that pledges must be put into action, the newspaper Kathimerini reported.
A 2.8 billion euros ($3.6 billion) installment from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) due this month was postponed at least until April when envoys from the lenders will return to resume talks that broke off when no agreement was reached on a number of reforms, including laying off workers from a hugely bloated public workforce.
Despite that, he insisted that Greece was “on the right track” to get the money. He refused to answer whether his government would continue for a third year what was supposed to be a one-year only doubling of property taxes with the surcharge put into electric bills on the threat of having power turned off for non-payment.
He also wouldn’t commit on the layoffs the Troika wants, noting that authorities would determine how many positions in the public sector will be abolished in 2014 while adding that workers who faked resumes, committed felonies, don’t show up to work and found to be corrupt would be fired. “The Greek people are, unfairly, paying for them,” he said, although the Constitution forbids their removal.
 

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