What if Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos promised creditors Greece will never give a Christmas bonus to low pensioners again? State Minister for Coordination of Government Operations, Alexandros Flambouraris, said on Wednesday that the government will try to repeat this No-No action that made creditors furious.
Speaking to private ANT1 TV, Flambouraris said that the so-called 13th pension is a one-off payment to low pensioners funded with the out-performance of the revenues that the lenders do not take into account.
“We will try to give it also next year, we do not legislate about it,” he said adding that the government considered that at this stage the money had to go to low-pensioners.
“It was a move that gave breathing space to very poor people who suffer,” Flambouraris stressed.
In his letter to Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem and European Stability Mechanism president Klaus Regling, Euclid Tsakalotos committed to spend primary surpluses to payment of government arrears, reduction of tax burden and the coverage of the Social Solidarity Income Program and thus following consultations with the lenders.
The State Minister assured that the primary surplus target of 3.5% is reachable because of the ‘quickly’ upcoming conclusion of the program review that will allow participation in the European Central Bank Quantitative Easing and return to the markets.
“All these mean that money will pour in the economy and we will have growth and so the primary surplus will occur. The government revenues will multiply,” Flambouraris stressed and underlined that
“There is reason to hope that things will soon change and I believe that the people have patience. Better days will come.”
Who on earth can bear to hear, let alone believe, the mumblings of this high priest of submission and servitude to the Troika and the 4th Reich?