PM confident crucial votes will end euro exit speculation
Talk of Greece exiting the euro will end after critical votes in Parliament this week on new austerity measures, labor reforms and the 2013 budget, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Sunday.
The three-party government will submit the package of measures to Parliament on Monday and must approve both it and the 2013 budget to receive aid from the IMF and European Union that it needs to avoid bankruptcy.
The junior ruling Democratic Left Party has refused to back the mix of tax hikes, spending reductions worth 13.5 billion euros because they are tied to measures that will cut wages and severance payments and scrap automatic wage hikes.
But Samaras's New Democracy Party and most of the deputies of its coalition Socialist partners are expected to push the package through in a slim majority in a vote expected on Wednesday.
Lawmakers should then approve the 2013 budget in another crucial vote on November 11, leading to the release of 31.5 billion euros in aid funds and putting to rest any talk of Greece exiting the euro, Samaras said.
"As soon as the new measures are passed and we get the critical aid tranche, liquidity will start again to feed businesses and households, uncertainty will end, sentiment will change and the fear of a return to the drachma will disappear,» he told New Democracy lawmakers at a party meeting.
"All this (talk of Greece exiting the euro) will end irreversibly."
He added that the package would include the last cuts to wages and pensions -- a sore point among Greeks weary of a five-year recession that has ravaged middle-class living standards.
"In the last two years, through cuts in wages, pensions, government spending, the recession and unemployment, we lost 35 percent of our living standard as a country,» he said. «If we had exited the euro, we would have lost twice as much.» [Reuters]
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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_04/11/2012_468589
Samaras issues plea to reluctant deputies
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras issued a dramatic call to those within the government coalition who are having doubts about supporting the new austerity measures to rally together till the end, in a speech he delivered to the meeting of the New Democracy parliamentary group on Sunday morning.
Later in the day he also held separate meetings with the leaders of PASOK, Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left, Fotis Kouvelis, in an effort to obtain the maximum number of votes for the omnibus bill to be put up for voting on Wednesday in Parliament.
In a clear message to the Democratic Left, Samaras said: “I can understand why some of those who have are on our side are having seconds thoughts. I understand that the next crucial steps are big and difficult, but they are worth the trouble. I am making a plea to everyone to proceed with us till the end.”
“How could we backtrack now that everyone understands that priority should be given to growth? How could we backtrack now that the conditions are being created for us to emerge from the crisis?” the PM wondered.
He insisted that this set of austerity measures is the last one, stressed that no more than just one tenth of the next bailout tranche of 31.5 billion euros will be returned to the country’s creditors to serve Greece’s debt and revealed that he has been pushing for the tranche to become even bigger so as to allow the government to repay all its dues to the local private sector, that amount to over 8 billion euros.
“This is the first time we will introduce a benefit for the long-term unemployed,” Samaras stressed as the Greek jobless rate has gone above the one-in-four level.
Earlier in the day PASOK deputy Mimis Androulakis had stated he would not vote for the labor reforms included in the austerity package, echoing the views of the Democratic Left.
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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_04/11/2012_468591
PPC workers to start rolling strikes on Monday
Power workers will begin rolling 48-hour strikes from Monday evening that may affect supply, especially in cases of any network damage.
The union of Public Power Corporation employees (GENOP-DEH) called on its members to take part in the industrial action called by the main unions of GSEE and ADEDY and to «get out on the street without any excuses or defeatism and prevent the voting of the measures."
In a statement GENOP issued on Sunday it goes far beyond labor issues saying that «our life will become even more difficult and for millions of people who live below the poverty line this will be the 'coup de grace'."
It goes on to invite workers to participate in the rallies to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday by GSEE and ADEDY, as well as asking GSEE to «raise its struggle and give it some prospect."
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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_04/11/2012_468596
One in four heating oil trading firms have shut down
By Chryssa Liaggou
A quarter of Greek companies supplying heating oil have closed since mid-October due to a lack of demand, Kathimerini has learned.
Orders have been almost zero for heating oil in Attica since the start of trading while in northern Greece demand dropped between 80 and 90 percent in the October 15-31 period compared to the same time last year.
Trading companies and gas stations expect demand this and next month to show an annual drop of 50-60 percent given the rise in the special consumption tax on heating oil and relatively good weather. This decline is set to put between 40 and 50 percent of heating oil trading enterprises out of business, and have a knock-on effect on fuel companies and refineries.
Unseasonably high temperatures and the higher price of heating oil arising from the tax hike have frozen orders by consumers who had not acquired a surplus last April, when it was announced that the tax hike would come into effect as of October. The fuel market has already lost 30 percent of its turnover in the last three years as household budgets are stretched to their limit.
The general secretary of the Panhellenic Federation of Fuel Station Owners and Traders (POPEK), Vangelis Cotsos, said that in the first 15 days of sales of heating oil for this winter, starting October 15, some 25 percent of traders have shut down. These are gas stations and companies that fulfilled heating oil orders and traded limited volumes of fuel, which last month realized they would not survive the winter given the sharp drop in demand.
Cotsos added that out of the 7,000 heating oil traders some 3,000-3,500 will be out out of market for lack of demand and cash flow this season, while the general secretary of the Association of Fuel Trading Enterprises, Yiannis Aligizakis, said that in October all of its members posted losses from heating oil sales. He said there were virtually no orders in Attica, while demand in northern Greece was 80 percent down compared to October 2011.
On the upside, the drop in global oil prices has reduced the retail rate to 1.30-1.35 euros, against original estimates of 1.40-1.60 euros per liter.
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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_04/11/2012_468595
Banks appear reluctant to buy T-bills
By Ilias Bellos
The government is particularly worried ahead of next Monday’s Eurogroup meeting given that if the disbursement of the next bailout tranche is not given the go-ahead, Greece will find itself in an extremely difficult situation.
Meanwhile, a few days after the November 12 meeting of eurozone finance ministers Greece will have to repay or rollover a debt of 6.6 billion euros from maturing Treasury bills. The Public Debt Management Agency has already arranged for two T-bill auctions on Tuesday and on November 13, given that those bills mature on November 16.
Over the last couple of years Greek banks have been covering these needs of the state and using those bills as collateral in order to obtain liquidity from the Emergency Liquidity Assistance of the Bank of Greece at a cost of 3 percent. Now, however, local credit institutions are reluctant to cover such high amounts. The problem is compounded by the European Central Bank, which requires that a limit is set to the total amount the state has borrowed via T-bills.
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