Prime Minister Antonis Samaras presented the roadmap for the future speaking at the International Fair in Thessaloniki, balancing between reasonable facilitations and the need to maintain the country within its fiscal framework.
Mr. Samaras, clarified that he will not jeapordize anything that Greek society has achieved so far while he attacked SYRIZA on which he attributed a will to not take the country out of the crisis through early elections brought upon by the upcoming Presidential elections.
He spoke of “major changes still to come, primarily over-taxation which must be finished”.
The first step is relief:
-A reduction in heating oil by 30% amd the maintaining of benefits for heating
-More installments for debts to the State and a reduction on the Solidarity levy
-ENFIA “made mistakes which caused justifiable uproar. We corrected them and those who made the mistakes will answer for it. The ENFIA will be reduced on non-electrically powered real estate. Now there is a unified database for real estate. The levy will be reduced gradually and in a few years, ENFIA will bring in revenue for the Local Government”.
For the men and women in uniform, the PM said that the decision of the State Council will be applied without overturning the budgeted figures and as far as financies allow.
He also stated that:
“We are proceeding to interventions on enhancing competitiveness of SMEs. We effect our own fund for their support. We legislate indirect ways such as the clearing of the VAT. We are moving to lower electricity tariffs for energy-intense businesses. We are also exploring the possibility of creating special economic zones”.
Mr. Samaras, after launching a direct attack against main opposition party SYRIZA, blaming them for trying to clip the wings off the country when it’s about to “take off”. He blamed them for trying to opportunistically take advantage of the upcoming Presidential elections to throw the country into disarray. That they refuse any form of privatization, threaten investors and ask that Greece abandonds NATO. Mr. Samaras reiterated that if Greece was not in NATO, noone would have been able to tell Mr. Erdogan, yesterday that there is one single, unified Cyprus.
The Prime Minister talked about next steps, starting with Debt.
-Greece will be receiving an official certification that its debt is viable within the next few months. For the first time, even marginally, the debt will be reduced to a specific number and the GDP rise will be shown soon. Interest rates on loans are the lowest around. On that there was a veritable “orgy” of propaganda and misinformation. The best reply was that we entered markets, one year earlier than expected.
-The recapitalization of banks will be finalized and so liquidity will be corrected.
-The roadmap for taxation alleviation will be announced soon, with people taxed to 32% and businesses at 15%.
-Within the next four months there will be privatizations, bureaucracy reforms, attracting deposits, investments in crucial sectors.
