Presenting a unified front with his PASOK Socialist partner Evangelos Venizelos at a project resuming work on a major highway, Greek Prime Minsiter Antonis Samaras said the country’s battered economy is already recovering, despite evidence it is not.
During a joint appearance to the Corinth-Patra (Olympia) highway construction site in the Peloponnese, where work had been halted during the country’s crisis, Samaras said that, “The sacrifices of the Greek people are bearing fruit. Every passing day shows that Greece is raising its head and rolling up its sleeves.”
He said that road construction projects will create thousands of jobs. “Greece is turning a page… Recovery is within our sights,” he said, with Venizelos at his side, along with Democratic Left (DIMAR) spokesman Nikos Tsoukalis who replaced his party leader Fotis Kouvelis, who was on a trip.
The Olympia highway project is expected to be completed by October 2015. A total of 25,000 jobs will be created and Samaras said the project’s resumption is a sign of growing confidence in the economy, although unemployment is at a record 27.2 percent and could hit 30 percent.
The prime minister’s appearance with coalition partners who’ve often been ad odds with some of the austerity measures he’s pushing, including the coming firing of 15,000 workers, was intended to send a message of unity. Venizelos was unhappy that request for an immediate Value Added Tax (VAT) reduction for restaurants from 23 to 13 percent was rejected by Samaras.
PASOK had wanted the measure to be included in the multi-bill due to be voted through Parliament on April 28 as part of the government’s agreement with the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) which is putting up $325 billion in two bailouts.
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