Greece items of interest.....

PM faces crucial dual test

 Samaras must win round coalition partners and keep EU leaders on his side As government officials attempt to finalize an elusive package of 11.5 billion euros in budget cuts for 2013 and 2014 ahead of a brief summer break, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is bracing for what promises to be the toughest stint in his premiership later this month.
Government sources told Kathimerini that Samaras faces the tough task of overcoming disagreements within his shaky coalition government regarding the content of the package of measures and convincing European Union leaders that Greece will meet its commitments to international creditors while keeping alive the possibility of a future renegotiation of the more onerous terms of the country’s loan agreement.
Samaras is said to be taking a few days off ahead of planned meetings later this month with Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
But getting the Europeans on his side is not Samaras’s only challenge. He must also overcome the objections of his coalition partners -- socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis of Democratic Left -- to the planned resurrection of a controversial labor reserve scheme, aimed at cutting state spending by reducing civil servant numbers. Kouvelis has dismissed the scheme out of hand as “a fiasco” following several failed efforts by authorities to implement it. Venizelos is less categorically opposed to the plan but is keen to avoid setting a precedent for layoffs in the civil service which he has pledged to avoid at all costs.
Both leaders are expected to receive a finalized blueprint for the 11.5 billion euros in cuts -- still being worked over by Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis -- by around August 20.
Assuming that the coalition leaders set aside their objections in the broader interests of the coalition and support the blueprint, the government still faces the challenge of voting the unpopular package of measures -- which is certain to include fresh cuts to pensions and social benefits -- through Parliament in September.

The tripartite coalition has a 178-seat majority in the 300-member House so logically the vote should pass but the severity of the measures might put the convictions of some leftist lawmakers to the test. and..... Greece clears sale of post office, vehicle maker Greece’s inter-ministerial committee for privatizations approved the sale of state stakes in ELTA SA, the country’s postal service, and Hellenic Vehicle Industry SA. Greece’s state assets sales fund will decide on the sale process for as much as 100 percent the state owns in ELTA, which will be transferred to the sales fund at a later stage, according to the website for government decisions. The state will also sell as much as its entire 57 percent stake in Hellenic Vehicle Industry SA, a Greek maker of buses and military vehicles known as ELVO. Mytilineos Holdings SA holds the remaining shares. The committee appointed I.K. Rokas & Partners as legal adviser and KPMG LLP as financial adviser for the sale. Greece’s postal services market is due to be fully liberalized from January 1, according to ELTA’s website. [Bloomberg] and.... Greece needs 10 years to return to 2008 employment level, says expert Climbing unemployment, disinvestment and a shrinking of the country’s technological stock are causing its productive base to subside, a labor expert said on Friday. “The resources required to finance the economy will be huge and can’t be found,” Savvas Robolis, director of the General Confederation of Greek Labor’s Labor Institute, told Skai Radio. He cautioned that the planned budget savings of 11.5 billion over the next two years will push unemployment to 28-29 percent in 2013. According to official data released on Thursday, the Greek jobless rate climbed to 23.1 percent in May, from 22.6 percent in April. “We are 674,000 jobs short of the 2008 level,” which will take at least 10 years to regain, Robolis said. The unemployment problem is partly due to the recession and is causing a shrinking of the technological stock of enterprises, he said. Moreover, the staggering jobless rate among the 15-24 age group (54.9 percent) is a huge human waste as a young person’s knowledge is rendered useless if he or she is not employed within five years. Robolis revealed that he found the troika anxious and concerned about the trajectory of the Greek economy during their recent meeting.