Parliamentary plenum focused on 2015 budget

Negotiations with troika, speeding up of presidential elections and the 2015 draft state budget dominate discussion in Parliament

The Parliamentary plenum on Friday focused on the 2015 draft state budget, the election of a President of the Republic and negotiations with the troika of Greece’s international creditors from the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“I will vote for the budget and I am asking the government to insist on refusing the unreasonable demands of the troika,” said conservative New Democracy Deputy Giorgos Vlachos. “They came in our country with an expiration date and its time we opened the door for them to leave now.”

Mr. Vlachos warned the Parliament that he would not vote for measures that the troika demands based on its fiscal gap estimates.

Socialist PASOK deputy Symeon Kedikoglou accused the government of being responsible for the measures that the troika had not asked for the previous years and refered to a number of these, including the higher contribution of insured people in pharmaceutical spending.