Samaras in Crisis Talks Over Budget

In an effort to convince his reluctant coalition partners to support a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan that is antithetical to their campaign promises to resist more austerity measures, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has been holding crisis talks in a push to wrap up a deal this week.
Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader, met with key Cabinet ministers before preparing to again confer with PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left chief Fotis Kouvelis to try to persuade them to set aside their objections to demands from international lenders who want drastic changes to labor laws.
Those include sharp cuts in severance pay, shorter notice before firing, the firing of public workers and a six-day work week, while in other areas the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) want the pace of privatization picked up. The talks have been droning on for weeks over the budget plan for 2013-14.
The Troika is holding up release of a $38.8 billion loan installment until the reforms are passed, and keeping a second bailout of $173 billion on hold. Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras said the Premier had made “major progress” in talks with Venizelos and Kouvelis but did not give details.
The newspaper Kathimerini, however, reported that Venizelos, whose party’s support has fallen to 5.5 percent in polls because of its support of more pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions, has given his full support to his otherwise rival, the Conservative leader Samaras.
It said the two parties, New Democracy and PASOK, which have been blamed for causing the country’s economic crisis by packing public payrolls with hundreds of thousands of needless workers for 40 years in return for votes, were ready to team up to ram the new spending cut-tax hike plan through Parliament without Kouvelis if need be.
According to sources, the coalition leaders have taken a common line on the issue of severance for employees dismissed from private sector firms – that they should receive full compensation if they have worked for the same employer for at least 16 years. The partners also reportedly agreed on the dismissal of 25,000 civil servants by the end of 2013.