Greek Debt: Greece’s national debt rose during the first semester of 2013 to over 321 billion euros, states official data by the Greek Finance ministry Monday.
Greek newspaper To Vima said that the remnant is over the existing levels from 2009, before the start of the crisis, and increased in 18 billion euros in the last semester of 2012 and 16 billion in the six first months of 2013.
This equals 180 percent of the Greek Gross Domestic Product.
High ministerial officials told the Greek newspaper that without a drastic cut of the debt, the budget will be quite restricted, and therefore, hard adjustments will be needed.
The payment of interests is supposed to reach between 11 and 12 billion euros a year, but Greek current Finance Minister Yanis Sturnaras rejected such a possibility in an interview to a German magazine.
The International Monetary Fund, one of the members of the so-called “troika”, is working for European creditors to grant Greece an extension in the payment of the loans, far over 2014 and 2015, always if Athens can reach a primary budget surplus.
Greek economist Kostas Lapavitsas considers that the economic measures imposed by the troika are “destructive” and that the only way to end the problem is to put an end to the austerity measures and reject the payment of the debt, creating a committee that may be able to make an audit.
Greece Approves Massive Dismissal of Public Servants
The Greek Government gave the green light today to a program to remove 8,100 public servants from their posts, allegedly to become part of a labor reserve, receiving part of their salary, but they would be dismissed if they have not been relocated in eight months.
According to the reports presented by the minister of Administrative Reform, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, they are making the lists with the names of the affected public servants, based on the payrolls of the 17 ministries of the Government, and they will be announced on September 20.
The decision placed the total number of public servants included in the mobility program at 12,500, after the decision made in July that included 4,400 teachers, school guards and janitors.
Besides those included in this program, 2,000 public servants should be dismissed before the end of the year and 11,000 others in 2014.
Mitsotakis called the plan a positive tool that will lead to rationalization of the labor force in the public sector, and explained that part of the workers included in the first stage had been transferred to other departments in which they were needed.
Evangelos Venizelos, vice prime minister and leader of Pasok, emphasized the need to disconnect the concept of mobility from the dismissals, because it presents them as a transference of personnel from some institutions to others.
He highlighted that structural changes should be implemented with determination to be successful.
The Confederation of Public Servants (ADEDY) does not share that vision, and its leadership held a meeting today to define the program of mobilizations against “dismissal of thousands of public servants.”
The union accused the Government of totally dismantling public services, with special emphasis on education, health and local administrations, and of putting into practice any demand by international creditors.
The first call to protests in the public sector will be on Thursday, with a 24-hour strike in the administration and a demonstration along the streets of the capital city.
Health, one of the sectors affected by the dismissals, began to organize assemblies of workers in all hospitals and health centers of the country to carry out a 48-hour strike on Thursday and Friday of the current week.
The Opposition Syriza party considered that with this measure, the Government gives the coup de grace to the public sector and social services.