Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras solemnly announced on Thursday the distribution of a tiny part of the €34.3 billion bailout tranche to pay out state arrears. 40 million euro will go to pay the lump sum for more than 1,200 civil servants, 255 million will go to indebted municipalities, 180 million to hospitals and pharmacists and 700 mill 700 million euros will go toward paying tax returns. The rest will go to bank recapitalization, to Greece’s bond buyback program and to budgetary financing.
The whole project has been sold to recession- and unemployment-hit Greeks as a ‘breath for the real economy”.
As anyone can understand zero euro will go to the some 3 million Greeks who live near or below the poverty line. Or to those awaiting social welfare allowances. Or to those awaiting other kinds of allowances for more than a year. But that’s the very private not well-organized sector…
What Samaras forgot to mention in his enthusiastic announcement is that this is borrowed money and that even the poor Greeks have to finance the repayment through their taxes.
PM pledges 1 billion euros of arrears will be settled by end of 2012“One billion euros in state arrears will be disbursed by the end of the year after Greece received 34.3 billion euros in bailout funding this week, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Thursday.
The premier conducted a visit to the General Accounting Office, where he met with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and other ministry officials, to discuss how the money would be allocated. The government is hoping that the gradual payment of some 9 billion euros of arrears in months to come, along with the completion of the bank recapitalization process, will improve liquidity and soften the impact of the ongoing recession.
“With the money that has been paid from the loan, the gradual payment of debts will begin tomorrow,” said Samaras.
Kathimerini understands that 40 million euros will be used to pay the one-off retirement packages of more than 1,200 civil servants, 255 million will go to the Interior Ministry so it can allocate the money to the country’s 42 municipalities, which also have arrears to pay, another 700 million euros will go toward paying tax returns, while the government also has to decide how to settle the bill that has been run up by the National Organization for Healthcare Provision (EOPYY). EOPYY owes about 100 million euros to hospitals and private clinics and another 80 million to pharmacists for drugs issued to insured patients in September.
Of the money received this week, 16 billion euros has been earmarked for bank recapitalization, 7 billion for budgetary financing and 11.3 billion to cover Greece’s bond buyback program. “(ekathierini)
Merry Christmas & Happy news Year, Greeks!
PS I can also make “selective” politics with borrowed money the others will pay back.
Any talk about spending money to pay back the thousands of euro in VAT the Greek state still owes me? Guess not, eh? So, it’s gonna be dry pasta this new year… again.
if you are not big supplier of Greek sector or civil servant, things looks very bad for you @AntonisX
@ AntonisX
This is how the cookie crumbles (If you can still afford cookies of course, which many can’t)
The so-called Greek “bond burning” deal overseen by the EU would break your heart. They paid much more than the going market rate in the buy back and topped up the difference with a long term Greek Government bond.
i.e. There was absolutely no burning whatsoever.
The only people who get burned over and over again are those that can’t avoid taxes bacause they are taken at source and the middle class.
What we are witnessing is the elimination of the working and middle classes to suit the very rich, and the creation of a class of labour-on-demand people who live on the scrap heap of the rich and are sometimes taken for a forced labour walk by the rich when it suits the rich, meaning, you may get a few days “work” when they need it, not when you need it.
The only thing George Orwell got wrong was the date..
No, I never was a big supplier of the state nor a civil servant. Just a simple entrepreneur who paid every last cent he owed to the Greek state and still is waiting for his VAT money to be returned. There ARE countries in the world where you pay and get the VAT back every two months without any fuss or red tape.
But for Greece: I guess those of the State have paid their turkey with my money. Lets hope they chocked in the wishbone.
they will pay the lump sum for civil servants with your money. any problem with that?