Budgeting, paying for pensions and getting heard - The Best from Greece

THERE’S little rest for Greek lawmakers. After surviving a three-day parliamentary debate over whether to give the new coalition government of Lucas Papademos a vote of confidence, MPs are now preparing to wrangle over the 2012 budget - or how the government will spend what little money it has. 

 

The new government wants to table its austerity budget by November 21, which would mean that mandatory four-day debate would need to begin immediately. 

 

Labour Minister Yiorgos Koutroumanis warned parliament on November 16 that the country’s social insurance system is losing some 4.5 billion euros annually. Asked whether Greece has enough money to pay the December pensions and Christmas bonus (significantly reduced compared to previous years), the minister said the country’s two biggest social insurance foundations - IKA and OAEE - secured 2.7 billion euros of credit from the Bank of Greece. 

 

Filling the public coffers remains a top priority. New taxation rules - to be split under two separate draft laws - are also on the way. The new rules will affect self-employed professionals and property owners. 

Meanwhile, Pasok’s Konstantinos Vrettos - a strong supporter of the new government - took the floor on November 15 to call on his fellow MPs to roll up their sleeves and make a difference. He said a government was shaped by MPs and that the new government is a chance to finally get their voices heard. 

 

“We all know that MPs here talk only when they are allowed to speak by their party and they vote only how they are obliged to vote - because they can’t do it any other way,” he said. “This is something the public doesn’t know. People think we are responsible for what happens here, but we aren’t, because here in parliament it is the government that decides what we will vote on. It is our party that decides how we will vote. We don’t decide.” 

 

“It’s time for MPs to send a new message,” he added. 

 

In other parliamentary news, Cretan MP Lefteris Avgenakis of Democratic Alliance, tabled a motion calling on the government to provide all necessary resources to preserve some one million historic documents dating back to 1821 that are currently being stored at the Chania courthouse.