Battles in Greek government over budget direction

CGTN Europe

The Greek parliament has been debating next year's budget with the government saying it's focusing on tax cuts and reducing public debt, after years of economic hardship. But opposition parties are saying the proposed measures don't go far enough. Correspondent Evangelo Sipsas is in Athens.

Transcript

00:00The government wants to be able to boost more investments into the country which will allow

00:06to see more growth of businesses but also create new businesses. They want, as you mentioned,

00:10to cut debt which eventually will create a more stable economy, will be able to go and borrow

00:17from international markets at a better rate when they negotiate, but also for the average Greek

00:23they are putting a plan together which pensioners, for the first time since the financial crisis,

00:28will see an increase in their pension by at least 2 to 3 percent. And for those workers,

00:35and for the average worker, they will pay less social security contributions which means at

00:39the end more money in their pocket. Now that's what the government is saying. The opposition,

00:43on the other hand, says that this is too optimistic. If you try to do all this,

00:47it will be impossible to do everything and then what we will see is another conversation of

00:53how we can clean up the mess as these oppositions are saying. So it is a long debate. There's a lot

00:58on the table but there's a lot of criticism of what the government is bringing on the table.

01:02And of course Greece has come a long way since the days of the financial crisis.

01:06What are the key issues for this particular budget?

01:12Well, as they have come along and they have seen a great development from the 2015 financial crisis,

01:20that crisis has left a lot of effects to the Greek economy. So

01:25first thing is the government wants this economic growth that they said is going to go up to 2.3

01:29percent with investments surpassing 8 percent. It sounds great on paper but the problem is like if

01:35it doesn't happen, if this is not implemented properly, then we might see that the country

01:39might be in risky economic conditions. Now they want to do a debt reduction, debt management as

01:45they say. So they want to reduce debt to GDP ratio to 145 to 150 percent. It sounds good on

01:53paper. Again it's a great goal but on the other hand if it doesn't happen then we might be seeing

01:58that the country might go where it was in the past and not be able to negotiate for better terms when

02:03it comes to borrowing from international markets. And for the people who will be receiving this

02:09pension hikes and the workers, it is great but again critics say here that there's a number of

02:15other vulnerable groups for example low-income families or people who are unemployed who haven't

02:20seen any change in the past years over the financial crisis. So there are a lot of things

02:27that there's a lot of criticism what the government wants to do. But the one thing I have to say here

02:31that most of the political parties do agree on and have pretty much accepted is defense spending

02:37especially with what is going on in Ukraine, the latest developments in Syria, but the ongoing

02:43dispute between Greece and Turkey over the waters in the Aegean and the air. So that is the one

02:48thing most political parties are pretty much hugging and accepting of what the government

02:53has to put on the table.

Category

Transcript

Recommended