Samaras Blasts PASOK For Bailout

In an indirect slap at his coalition partner, PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, Prime Minister and New Democracy Conservative chief Antonis Samaras said a first bailout of $152 billion that the Socialists got from international lenders in 2010 that came with attached austerity measures was a colossal mistake that hurt workers, pensioners and the poor.
Samaras, who opposed austerity when it was implemented by PASOK, has continued it since winning in 2012 and getting a second bailout of $173 billion from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) that will run out this year.
With the anti-austerity major opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) taking a big lead in recent polls,  Samaras is trying to distance himself from the big pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and public worker firings he’s continued to impose on the orders of international lenders.
Speaking at a dinner of the Hellenic-German Chamber of Commerce, Samaras said while former premier and previous PASOK leader George Papandreou’s seeking the first rescue package and the conditions that came with it was wrong, that he’s turned around the economy and that a recovery is coming, although he didn’t explain why continuing austerity wasn’t also a miscue.
“Let me be clear and honest. You know very well that I am saying the truth. The first bail-out agreement was a mistake … it was unachievable. The targets were unachievable,” he said.
Despite that, his coalition – which includes PASOK – has continued to impose more austerity as a condition of a second bailout of $173 billion that will run out this year without making a dent in the country’s still staggering $430 billion debt.
Venizelos – who implemented much of the austerity measures when he was finance minister for Papandreou – is now Samaras’ Deputy Premier/Foreign Minister but there was no report whether he reacted to the blistering criticism. He has mostly followed Samaras’ orders, occasionally objecting to more austerity before relenting again.
Samaras said that his government managed to achieve and surpass the necessary fiscal targets and was now ready to embark on a social policy to fix the injustices of the first bail-out agreement, without taking any responsibility for the second that he said he had no choice but to impose. He had opposed the measures while out of office but kept them in place when he took power in June, 2012.
“According to the Eurogroup decision in November 2012, 70% of the primary surplus can be used for social policy purposes,” he said, reiterating that in April European statistics agency Eurostat will endorse Greece’s 2013 primary surplus, which could exceed 800 million euros, ($1.082 billion) and most of which he said would be returned to the most vulnerable sectors of Greek society.
That would come a month before critical Greek municipal and European Parliament elections that SYRIZA said will repudiate the government and lead to the leftists coming to power and Samaras is reportedly anxious to find some way to head off that possibility.
The Greek premier said that the primary surplus will show that the country’s mounting debt is sustainable, although many analysts insist it’s mathematically impossible for Greece to repay the loans.  “This is one of our targets,” he said.
Samaras’ statements came a few days after the German-owned Market News International (MNI) revealed that Greece’s international inspectors have rejected and returned the government’s 2014 fiscal plan as “inadequate.” The Troika said there’s a hole as big as 1.4 billion euros ($1.89 billion) that has to be closed but Samaras, fearing more political and social unrest, has rejected the idea of any more austerity.
MNI said an unnamed Greek Finance Ministry official had kicked back the budget for review and that there was still a big difference of opinion of how big the gap was and how it could be closed. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras has insisted there isn’t one.
The international inspectors have estimated that the 2014 fiscal gap could hit as much as three billion euro ($4.05 billion) in 2015, while the Greek government is insisting that the gaps are much smaller than that.