Draft budget to ‘express’ gov’t bid to avert cuts

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos indicated yesterday that Greek authorities would make clear their intention to suspend planned cuts to pensions in the draft version of next year’s budget which is to be submitted in Parliament today.

The draft will likely “include different scenarios,” Tzanakopoulos told Athens 984 radio station yesterday. The blueprint, which is to be perused by the European Commission later this month, will present one scenario including the “likely implementation of the measures and the countermeasures to show that they do not affect the primary surplus target,” the spokesman said, referring to the cuts which are to due to come into effect on January 1 and social benefits the government has pledged for Greeks on low incomes. However, the draft budget will also express the “intention of the government” not to cut pensions and to implement the pledges made by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the Thessaloniki International Fair, Tzanakopoulos said in reference to promises to cut taxes and revoke salary cuts for civil servants, among other things.

Kathimerini understands that Tsipras is determined to avert the planned pension cuts. According to sources, the government might bring a bill to Parliament abolishing the measure.

Tsipras also plans to distribute 700 million euros in handouts from the primary surplus in December, the same sources said.