Monday, February 7, 2011

Troika is coming… The road to the 15bil euros is full of obstacles

A rough test begins today for the Greek economy. Only a few days after the important summit that opened new issues for decrease in wages and pensions, the troika representatives are coming to Athens to press the government to dig the knife deeper into the public and private
sector.

Regarding the public sector the issues placed on the table are:

    * the single payroll to be implemented during the summer and that will clip wages and bonuses
    * the relevant ministries must provide complete plans of cleansing their SOCs along with detailed proposals for the shrinkage of wages, increase of revenue and the tidying of losses and debts.

Besides from the strict rule of one hiring against five layoffs, or the even stricter «1 to 7», an increase of working hours is provided from 7 to 8 like it is in the private sector today.

But the private wages will also be targeted with pressures for implementation of corporate contracts heavily increasing.

Troika is asking for new cuts of expenditure in hospitals and insurance funds, but also measures that are provided for in the 2011 budget like the enforcement of green tax to companies that are polluting, the increase of objective values, the integration of areas into urban city planning and the taxation of arbitraries.

SOURCE: PROTO THEMA