The government will not impose any new taxes, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said Wednesday in an interview with private TV station Skai.
When asked about the course of the country’s fiscal adjustment, Stournaras said: “In no way will we impose new taxes.” The Greek Finance minister also rejected main opposition SYRIZA’s claims that the government is preparing a new memorandum after the euroelections.
Staikouras: Recession is ending, economy will recover in 2014
Meanwhile, alternate Finance minister Christos Staikouras stressed that economic recovery is expected to begin in 2014, while addressing Parliament on Wednesday. Staikouras was speaking during the debate on a draft bill on the accounts and balance sheet for 2012, which was passed with the support of coalition government MPs.
“The goals of fiscal policy are being achieved. The country, after many years, has achieved a primary surplus that is sustainable, significant and substantially higher than original and later predictions. The economic climate has improved. The cost of borrowing has been reduced. Businesses are starting to draw capital from the markets and are starting to issue bond loans. Deposits are gradually returning to the domestic banking system, even though the losses since the start of the crisis remain high,” Staikouras said.
The minister also cited figures showing that the state had done its utmost, within the constraints of the crisis, to boost liquidity in the economy, paying 6.2 billion euros in overdue state debts and returning 3.1 billion euros in taxes, as well as spending approximately 6.7 billion euros on public investments.
Attacking main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA), Staikouras said that the party’s pessimistic predictions about 2014 had been proved wrong, since there was no fiscal gap and no financing gap, nor any additional budget. Replying, SYRIZA MP Panagiotis Lafazanis accused the government of congratulating itself on a primary surplus that had made the recession deeper and swelled the ranks of the unemployed.
Other SYRIZA MPs noted that the government was talking about a primary surplus “while concealing the 4.4 billion euros in outstanding debts owed by the state, 812 million euros owed in VAT returns and when 375,000 in pensions and lump sums had yet to be settled.”
(source: ana-mpa)
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