Greece’s lenders, the so-called Troika allegedly demands from Athens to stop paying public sector pensions to those who haven’t concluded the 55th year of age yet. This claim is being published by TO VIMA newspaper online edition on Monday, hours before the crucial conference call between Venizelos and the Troika targeting the additional austerity measures to be imposed on Greeks and opening or closing the way of the sixth bailout tranche.
“The measure has primarily symbolic character and intends to record in practice the determination of the government for fiscal adjustment” writes TO VIMA stressing that “the Finance Ministry is in very difficult position and will to come into conflict with a number of professional groups mostly policemen, military personnel, flight attendants, women with minor children, disabled & others and tries to negotiate with the Troika on the issue.
I know at least one woman who worked from the age of 20 for the public sector, got pension at 35 because of minor children. She is now 56. She would be excluded from the regulation. She has been receiving pension money much more years than she paid contributions. Taking into consideration she lives up to 75-80, all I can say is I‘ve been working for make her life pleasant. No bad, right?
Proto Thema claims other shocking austerity measures like
-Taxation on yearly income of €4,000, that is 350 euro per month!
-Cuts on pensions over €1.500 per month.
-Stop paying double pensions – even though people paid contributions to two different insurance funds?
-Immediate lay-offs for 50,000 public servants – most likely on temporary contracts.
-Taxation of self-employed according to “objective criteria” (assets, properties etc) and not to real income.
– Privatization of electricity company DEH and the lottery OPAP within 2011 – they were planned for 2012.
Some other media claim that even one month salary from the civil servants will fall for ‘saving Greece’.
To tell you the truth as I mistrust any governmental leakages to the press, I don’t know how may of all these measures are true. It could be a scared-to-death tactic to make the real measures look pink and be accepted with relief. The conference call is at 7 pm, Greek time. If Venizelos-Troika will agree and there is not problem, the measures are expected to be announced tonight. I guess before midnight. Because at 12:00 we’ll all turn into broke pumpkins!
I wonder, if we’ll still have a government tomorrow….
PS Labour rights professor Dimitris Mitropoulos said Monday morning today that “in order to get the next bailout tranche, they will ask us to send our wives to walk the streets and for the over-next tranche to sell our children” (Flash FM) .
