Kathimerini: In Brussels, Samaras says no austerity to cover fiscal gap

17 September 2013

After meeting top EU officials in Brussels on Tuesday, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras repeated the claim he had already made in Greece, that his government would not adopt any new austerity measures to cover a fiscal gap in 2015 and 2016.

Samaras said that any savings would come from structural changes and that the fiscal shortfall would be as small as €2.5 billion rather than the €4 billion forecast by the troika.

“Whatever gap emerges for 2014 and 2015 will be covered by structural changes that will have a positive impact on public finances, not through new [austerity] measures”, said Samaras, who had travelled to Brussels ahead of Greece assuming the rotating EU presidency in January but apparently with a mission to leave EU leaders in no doubt about the inability of his government to adopt more wage cuts and tax hikes.

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© Kathimerini