Pages

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Greece’s Creditors Insist on Austerity Measures

The Greek government is preparing a new list of measures to appease creditors in order to unlock financial aid in the April 24th Eurogroup. Greece’s creditors insist on several austere measures such as raises in value added tax, cuts in supplementary pensions, increase of retirement age and mass public employee layoffs. The finance ministry is on a race to meet the Eurogroup deadline with a list of measures that will be acceptable to international creditors. The issues of security funds, labor laws, privatizations, bad loans and VAT are still on the table, with the creditors remaining unsatisfied with the Greek proposals so far. Athens is waiting to see the progress of privatizations in the next few days. The negotiations on the privatization of Piraeus Port (OLP) are continuing with Cosco and Athens is very close to a deal with a German company for several regional airports. However, the issue of mass layoffs remains thorny, with the Greek government refusing to back down and lenders insisting that it is a necessary measure.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com