With crucial elections looming in May and the government ruling parties behind in the polls, Prime Minister and New Democracy Conservative leader Antonis Samaras is set to reveal how a so-called “social divided” will be doled out to a few sectors affected by the country’s crushing economic crisis.
Samaras had previously said he would return 70 percent of an initially expected 1.5 billion euro primary surplus, or about 1.05 billion euros, to vulnerable groups but has cut that by more than half and is targeting core constituencies of his party and his coalition partner, the PASOK Socialists.
After reaching a deal with international lenders on unfinished reforms – still awaiting a vote in Parliament – the government will provide the details before the end of the week, the newspaper Kathimerini said.
“More than 500 million euros will be given immediately to 1 million Greeks,” he said, noting that members of the police and security services on monthly salaries below 1,500 euros would be among those to benefit.
That amount, however, works out to only 500 euros per person and is slotted to go to low-income pensioners, as well as the police, military and emergency services personnel, groups the country’s highest court is reportedly set to rule had to be reimbursed for pay cuts that will be deemed unconstitutional.
Another 20 million euros would go toward the growing ranks of the country’s homeless, Samaras said, a group that receives virtually no assistance during a crisis exacerbated by the austerity measures he imposed on orders of the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB).
The government also is diverting some of the money he said would go go social services to pay one billion euros in debts to suppliers and another one billion euros toward reducing the country’s 310 billion euro debt, a contribution of .0032 percent.
But now the country said the primary surplus could be 2.9 billion euros ($4 billion) which means the 500 million euros for austerity victims would be only about a 17 percent return, not 70 percent. The size of the surplus has to be determined by the the European Union’s statistics service Eurostat in April.
After that, Greece will be able to distribute the promised handouts and the government said the money would go to help 400,000 families on low incomes and some 300,000 pensioners with what amounts to little more than a symbolic amount. Another 350 million euros from the surplus is to go toward plugging a gap in the country’s social security funds.
The major opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) is leading in polls before elections in May for Greek municipalities and the European Parliament and its leader, Alexis Tsipras, has predicted the ruling parties will be repudiated, forcing early elections in which he said he would come to power.
If so, he said he would force a revision on the terms of two bailouts of 240 billion euros ($330.7 billion) from the Troika or renege on the payments, defaulting on what Greece owes, which could force the country out of the Eurozone and unable to borrow from markets at the same, essentially leaving the government broke.
Despite that, Tsipras said he would lower taxes, restore pay cuts, not fire any government employees and not reduce the pace of government spending that created a crisis and has the country in the seventh year of a deep recession with record unemployment and deep poverty. He hasn’t explained how he would keep his promises without any money nor has revealed any economic strategy.
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