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tagged: cuts, eurogroup, Feb 17 2012, Greece, pensions, protests, riots, state-run enterprises, surveillance, wardship, what's up in greeceWhat’s Up in Greece on Feb 17/12?
Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Very Mix
Action is up in Greece today as everybody is running around and rushing to fix things ahead of important deadlines.
The government is rushing in order to fix where the cuts worth 325 million euro will come from. The government plans a 10% ‘haircut’ to pensions over €1,300, another 10% cut in wages of the so-called ‘special payrolls’ (doctors, academicians etc) and further cuts in the national defence to fill the gap of €325 million in the budget of 2012.
According to estimations, 13% of the 2,600,000 pensioners receive pensions over €1,300 per month. Yesterday I hear at Skai TV a nice example of pension at state-rune enterprises (DEKO): a pensioner below 55 years of age, receives €2,000 per month plus €600 supplementary pension. How much does the early retired receive if he manage to achieve the full-retirement age? Over 3,000 euro per month without the supplementary pension. I know also retired civil servants who get €1,000 pension, early retirement after 25 years of work. No wonder, Greece went broke…. [I don’t even feel like laughing…)
The eurozone finance ministers are rushing to increase pressure on Greece ahead the Eurogroup meeting on Monday, Feb 20. Pressure demanding 150% assurances that Greece will stick to loan agreement commitments. There are scenarios speaking of the establishment of an escrow account and maybe a special surveillance system. There is talk of a Greek Troika consisting of Greek and EZ ministers. Eurozone leaders will hold an extraordinary summit on March 1-2, 2012.
Nevertheless, Greeks and Europeans rush to express optimism over the EZ decision on Monday.
The Culture Minister is rushing to Ancient Olympia to see first hand the impact of the armed robbery.
Two LAOSdeputies and former ministers (Voridis, Georgiadis) are rushing to the warm arms of conservative Nea Dimokratia. There are rumors that another LAOS deputy might join ND. The far-right party was Papademos coalition partner until the new loan agreement was voted last Sunday. LAOS played the government card, and …lost over the austerity.
Public and private sector unions, ADEDY and GSEE, are rushing to organize the Sunday protest outside the Greek Parliament at 10.30 am. Also a protest organized by … youth (?) is scheduled for tomorrow at 5 pm.
Greek disabledcitizens are rushing to secure welfare benefits. Thousands flocked to the municipality of Aigaleo, suburb of eastern Athens, this morning just to receive one written confirmation that they are disabled…
Greek cancer patients from all around Attica prefecture are rushing to the only IKA pharmacy that hands out drugs against cancer. In the prefecture of Attica, an area with polulation of over four million, expensive anti-cancer medicine is distributed only by one pharmacy of Greece’s biggest insurance fund (IKA). People have to queue up to two hours… At least.
Municipality, Transportation Ministry and Attica administration heads are rushing to blame each other over their inability to fix the traffic lights in downtown Athens what were damages during last Sunday’s riots.
Police rushed to publish pictures of men detained over the riots and also pictures showing hooded people with molotov cocktails. The police asks information from citizens on the suspects. The Greek Photo-reporters Association vehemently denies, its members had given the picture material to the police. It looks as if the police took the pictures from internet and created a nice photo album.
International friends of Greek people are rushing to fix last details of the big Paneuropean solidarity rallies scheduled for Saturday.
German yellow press Bild newspaper is urging “We pay and they swear at Us – Throw the Greeks finally out of the €uro“!
German president Christian Wulff rushed to resigned after the general prosecutor of Hannover ordered to lift his immunity over alleged involvement in corruption scandal.
PS Sh** happens everywhere, not only in Greece, right? That’s a big blow to the image of the Oh-So-Perfect Germany…
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Wulf did a bit of Germoney’s “homework”
Your example about pensions for early retirees hit a soft spot with me. I think most Europeans have realized by now that a large part of Greek society is in real dire straits and deserves support. But then there is this other part of Greek society, not even quite so small, where one can only wonder what they get away with.
I know quite a few early retirees (some retired in their 40s) walk around with pensions of a couple of thousand Euros net (and more!) and earn good additional money as real estate agents and whatever. After the first austerity program, my wife felt sorry for a neighbor whose wife lamented that the first pension reduction (15%) cost them about 12.000 Euro net per year. I explained to my wife that if 15% is 12.000 annually, the remaining 85% was still a lot of money… How come so much? Military career until about 50; thereafter 2 top management positions in the administration of public companies. I could go on and on.
I am getting bored to hear all the time how the Greek government is spending so much when, in actual fact, Greek government expenses with 50% of GDP are kind of average in the Eurozone (Austria 53%; France 56%). What drives me nuts, however, is the unbalanced and unfair distribution of government expenses. My slogan is: “Stop paying pensions to the dead so that you don’t have to take the money from the living”. One one hand, I see people who have to get by with a few hundred Euros per month from the government and on the other I see people who get a few thousand Euros per month from that same government.
that’s exactly the point that makes Greeks (people) angry. My father worked since 12 yrs old in the private sector- Ok no insurance contributions at that time, got retired with 65, gets 600 euro pension per month. But civil servants, state-run enterprises, banks pay huge amounts of pensions and that is the money the state has borrowed all these years , among others, to pay their voters and clients. And now we have to pay back their debt.
When I read, like in today’s Ekathimerini, that “citizens in Europe show solidarity with Greeks”, I somehow feel that there must be a lot of Greeks who feel grateful for having so many “useful idiots”. Thanks to useful idiots, a good portion of Greek society has been able to enrich themselves beyond imagination and the tragedy is that the worse things get, the better they will be off. Nirwana will occur for them should Greece exit the Eurozone because then they can buy up cheap Greek assets with strong Euros from abroad. At long last Greece will indeed become privatized (and the number of Greek oligarchs will explode).
If only the Righteous among Greeks (which are hopefully still the majority, albeit is very silent majority so far) would realize that the enemey is not in Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt or Berlin but, instead, directly in their own country, perhaps then a movement could get started to really turn tables upside down in Greece so that the Righteous turn from “losers” to “winners”. I think Greeks could then count on unlimited solidarity of European tax payers.