Samaras to meet troika until Wednesday

"No more austerity measures," prime minister Antonis Samaras said, speaking yesterday to the New Democracy central committee while the embroilment in the government's negotiations with the troika auditors is still going strong.

 

The PM’s appointment with troika will take place until Wednesday, as Samaras will leave on Thursday for Brussels to attend the Summit. The theme of the Summit is the situation in Italy. As shown by the course of the discussions the troika team in Greece rejects the easing of the austerity program while it raises an issue of shortfall in revenues. The Greek government wants to avoid at all costs the activation of undercutting clauses that imply new measures. Both Samaras and the other two leaders of the coalition have said that the parliamentary majority will not be able to politically afford any measures.

 

Troika pushes on the implementation of the agreed measures and so far rejects the VAT reduction in catering (bring us an equivalent measure, auditors say) and the increase of installments to repay debts to tax authorities that will alleviate small and medium sized social layers and bring more revenue in a wider time span. The controllers instead require reduction of installments and structural changes with the assignment of tax collection to private companies. They also seek to extend for one more year the hike through PPC since they consider the single tax replacement will have reduced revenues and present problems in its collection. The mobility program for public employees is always on the negotiation table, even if there are contradictions between Yannis Stournaras who hinted that the disbursement of the tranche depends on the dismissals of civil servants and Antonis Manitakis who said the Finance ministry has a gap in its revenues.

 

It is estimated that as no one wants to blow-up the Greek program or destabilize the Greek government, finally the distance between the government and the auditors will be bridged with retreats from both sides to be highlighted by the meeting with the Samaras.

 

The Greek government is also concerned about the recapitalization process of Greek banks as without having completed this procedure it cannot hope to channel liquidity to the market and boost the Greek economy.