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Greek budget plans to escape recession

acropThe Greek budget for 2014 contains more than €3 billion in austerity cuts.

But it also predicts that Greece will exit its recession after six long years with growth of 0.6%.

The OECD, on the other hand, believes the economy will continue to shrink in 2014.

The economy has already shrivelled by nearly one-third since the economic crash of 2007.

Despite having had rescue loans since 2010, Greece was exceedingly close to bankruptcy last year which could have triggered a departure from the eurozone.

The budget was agreed by a slim margin of 153 out of 300 MPs.

"This is a historic day," Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told MPs, calling the 2014 plan a budget of recovery and hope. "People's sacrifices bore fruit and changed the course of the country."

The reforms which Greece promised in exchange for loans, especially to the public sector, have been slow and hissed at by violent street protests.

But after the budget was approved on the weekend, a mere few hundred people demonstrated against the renewed assault of austerity. Previous protests drew tens of thousands.

Athens says that it has received higher than expected tax revenues, which will provide a budget surplus.

Its interest payments in 2013 amounted to €812 million. Unemployment is the highest in the eurozone, reaching more than 27%.

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Comments  

0 #1 Abney 2013-12-09 10:31
Portugal has long been in Greece's not Ireland's shadow ... and both the EU and the Portuguese elite keen to separate them in the bail-out lenders minds.
The worry here though is the Portuguese Constitutional Court, normally totally irrelevant to everyday life but now being lent on by the 'elite' to protect their interests. And consequently how much of Portugal's budget gets bounced back by it for review by the Govt or inspires the endless delays in actually implementing Portuguese Govt decisions. How is it the closed Freguesia's are still open and no 'misuse of public money' prosecutions being heard? And when will the Tribunals and Municipals to be trimmed back be closed ? etc etc
Which, given the many previous Greek reviews and implementation delays of their own Govt decisions, increasingly suggests the EU has known all along that it had at least two 'difficult countries' to sort out - but was not being straight with its lenders.

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