Greece Takes Aim at Pensioners Again

ATHENS ? Reneging on his promise there would be no further austerity measures ? just a couple of days after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras reiterated the same pledge - Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said the government will go after pensioners again and cut 500 million euros ($689 million) from the already-decimated Social Security system. Stournaras backed away from his earlier stance that Greece would no longer relent to demands from its international lenders not to make further reductions in state spending to cover an estimated budget gap of 2.5 billion euros ($3.44 billion) but said the government has no choice if it wants to keep getting rescue aid to keep the economy from collapsing. In comments published in Ta Nea newspaper, Stournaras repeated that Greece would impose no additional across-the-board fiscal cuts but said that additional savings would be required.

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