PM Tsipras: Greece will exit memoranda and surveillance in August
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
Greece is at the end of a difficult course, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said at SYRIZA’s parliamentary group on Monday.
He added that the government will have managed to meet one of its main aims by August: an exit from the memoranda and strict surveillance.
The prime minister underlined that the exit from memoranda and surveillance will mark the country’s return to normality.
He explained that this does not mean that all the problems are solved or that the government won’t still have serious issues to deal with, nor that Greece won’t have to meet fiscal targets and service its debt.
However, he noted, “it is quite different to have specific goals and a minimum of control over your European obligations than to have to co-govern with the troika.”
The Eurogroup on June 21 is a realistic time for the conclusion of the debate that will mark the beginning of the post-programme period, he said
He referred to the priorities of the government’s strategic plan for growth, which will be presented to the next Eurogroup on April 27.
The government’s main targets, he said, are the following:
* Economic growth that is not based on the crushing of labour but on increasing labour productivity through investments in new technologies and innovation.
* Strengthening Greece’s position in the global value chain with focus on producing quality and competitive products.
* Strengthening the most dynamic sectors of the Greek economy.
-Transport and logistics
– Energy
– The agricultural sector and processing
– Infrastructure and digital economy
– Tourism, which continues to be the locomotive of growth in Greece.
At the same time, he forecast:
* The return to a regulated labour market and the strengthening of collective labour organizations via a restoration of collective bargaining, without which the legislative conditions for a collective organization of workers di not exist.
* The building for the first time in Greece of a strong social and welfare state that will guarantee the dignity and prosperity of the entire population.
ND party responds
The so-called clean exit from, or completion of, the fiscal adjustment program that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras keeps claiming will happen is a theory that is being rejected even by his own deputies, main opposition New Democracy (ND) party said on Monday, responding to the premier’s parliamentary group address.
“New Democracy is asking him just this today: If the exit is clean, why doesn’t the prime minister immediately cancel the new pension and the tax exemption reductions that he signed into being for 2019 and 2020?”
Source: ANA-MPA