In what promises to be rough negotiations over reforms, Greek officials on Nov. 5 picked up talks with its international lenders who are pressing for faster privatizations, better tax collection, firings of workers and additional measures to fill a looming 2014 budget gap before signing off on a one billion euros installment.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras is the government’s point man in the tete-a-tete with the envoys from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB.) Greece has been resistant to the idea of more austerity especially after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras vowed he would never ever again implement the harsh conditions again.
The main points of discussion between the Greek government and creditors revolve around measures or raise or cut the equivalent of 2.9 billion euros ($3.9 billion.) Stournaras said it can be with unspecified “structural interventions” worth 500 million euros ($674.8 million) the same amount he wants cut from social security.
The EU says at least 2.5 billion euros ($3.37 billion) worth of measures must be implemented. With the deadline for submitting the 2014 Budget in Parliament set for Nov. 21 and Eurogroup sessions coming on Nov. 14 and Nov. 22, time is running out for an agreement.
Greece once again is lagging far behind on most of its promises, including the suspension, transfer or firing of 12,500 workers supposed to have been done earlier in the year, and another 12,50o by the end of the year.
Greece said it would let go only 4,000 workers by Christmas but the Troika said it will accept only 2,600 of the those identified, claiming that contracted employees and dismissals for misconduct do not count. The Minister of Administrative Reform Kyriakos Mitsotakis was to meet the Troika as well to discuss a plan to save 500 million euros by going after tax cheats, a frequently broken promise.
Meanwhile, Greece’s insurance funds are 1.5 billion euros ($2.02 billion) in the hole and the government is still struggling to put together a new unified property tax which will add in a huge surcharge imposed in 2011 that was supposed to be for one year only and which Samaras vowed to scrap, another broken promise.
Another big dilemma for the government is the Troika’s insistence the country’s defense industries, EAS and ELVO, be put on the block because they are notoriously inefficient money-bleeders although politicians have used them as a patronage dump for decades, critics said.
The government has suggested splitting the military and civil operations of the companies (and maintaining the military operations) but the Troika wants them sold off or shut down immediately, disregarding the contracts with foreign customers the companies have signed, as well as the needs of the Greek Armed Forces.
The privatization target is also woefully behind schedule even for its drastically reduced 1.5 billion euros goal ($2.02 billion) which was cut back from a previously reduced 2.6 billion euros ($3.5 billion.) The Troika wants the government to sell off enough enterprises to bring in 3.9 billion euros ($5.26 billion).`
A man was taken into custody after hurling several coins at Poul Thomsen, the IMF’s man in Athens, as he arrived at the Finance Ministry in Syntagma Square. None of the coins hit Thomsen, who ducked into the building.
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