The cuts never end. The Greek government has raised its sights, setting up a plan to reduce public spending by 13,5 billion, a value that exceeds by exactly two billion that initially envisaged by the agreements with the troika. The news was released this morning by the newspaper "Kathimerini".
At first the technicians of the EU, the ECB and the IMF had asked the Greek country cuts of 11,5 billion in the next two years in exchange for the new international aid plan. Last Saturday, the German weekly Der Spiegel was the first to reveal the existence of a new hole in Greece's accounts. And the Ministry of Finance agreed with him, calculating that the lower tax and contribution revenues linked to the cut in salaries and pensions will cause a new shortfall of around two billion in the state coffers.
The Executive led by Antonis Samaras will present the new package of measures before the return of the troika to Athens (scheduled for September 5), as announced by Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras. Yesterday other ministerial sources revealed that the government's goal is to obtain the go-ahead from the floor inspectors by the middle of next month. Coming up for the Greeks are there new cuts to public salaries, healthcare and pensions, as well as a reduction of 34 state employees.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister Samaras get ready to a dense series of bilateral summits. Tomorrow he will welcome the president of the Eurogroup in Athens, Jean-Claude Juncker. On Thursday he will fly to Berlin to meet the chancellor Angela Merkel, while on Friday he is expected in Paris by the French president, Francois Hollande.
At each of these meetings, Samaras will demand that Europe concede to Greece two more years to implement the cuts and structural reforms in the pipeline. The deadline to cut the deficit from 9,3% to 3% would thus slip from 2014 to 2016, making the efforts more bearable. But Germany's veto it seems to have already canceled any hope of an extension for Athens. The spokesman for the German government, Steffen Seiber, specified that no "fundamental decisions" will come from Friday's meeting. And almost certainly the two billion extra cuts won't be enough to move Berlin.
