Ομολογία του υπουργού Οικονομικών σε συνέντευξη στους Financial Times
Η απελευθέρωση των απολύσεων δε θα περάσει από τη Βουλή, προανήγγειλε με κυνισμό
Σύμφωνα με δήλωσή του στους Financial Times (ολόκληρο το δημοσίευμα παρακάτω), o Γ. Στουρνάρας «αντιστάθηκε» σε πιέσεις από την Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ, διευθύντρια του ΔΝΤ, και τον Πολ Τόμσεν, επικεφαλής της αποστολής του Ταμείου στην Αθήνα, να ζητήσει από τους άλλους Ευρωπαίους ηγέτες, να δεχθούν «κούρεμα» των δανείων «διάσωσης»:
«Ο Πολ και η Λαγκάρντ είπαν ότι έπρεπε να σταθώ στο πλευρό τους», θυμάται.
«Είπα: Ο.Κ., αν έρθω με την πλευρά σας, είναι κάτι που θα βοηθήσει πραγματικά την Ελλάδα, αλλά είναι και κάτι που αποκλείεται να γίνει. Ο Σόιμπλε μου είπε Γιάννη ξέχνα το. Οπότε αν κάτι δεν μπορεί να γίνει, τι μπορώ να κάνω;».
Η παραπάνω παραδοχή συμπεριλαμβάνεται στη συνέντευξη του υπουργού Οικονομικών όπου μεταξύ άλλων ο Γ. Στουρνάρας μέμφεται την τρόικα για «μαξιμαλιστικές προσεγγίσεις». Όπως αναφέρει η ανάλυση των FT, «η μειούμενη κυβερνητική πλειοψηφία καθιστά ολοένα και δυσκολότερη την έγκριση σκληρών οικονομικών μέτρων και μεταρρυθμίσεων, τονίζει ο υπουργός Οικονομικών της Ελλάδας, ζητώντας από τα στελέχη της τρόικας να είναι πιο ρεαλιστές στις απαιτήσεις τους από την Αθήνα».
Ο Γ. Στουρνάρας διεμήνυσε ότι οι «μεταρρυθμίσεις» μπορούν να γίνουν με διοικητικές πράξεις και όχι μέσω της Βουλής. Μία από τις «μεταρρυθμίσεις» αυτές αναμένεται να είναι η απελευθέρωση των απολύσεων καθώς σύμφωνα με το κυνικό σχόλιο του υπουργού Οικονομικών «εάν τώρα προωθήσουμε στο κοινοβούλιο ένα τέτοιο θέμα την ώρα που η ανεργία είναι στο 27%, δεν θα περάσει. Είναι τόσο απλό».
Ανέφερε επίσης πως τα πιο επίμαχα πολιτικά μέτρα -ο νέος νόμος για τα ακίνητα και η άρση της απαγόρευσης για τις κατασχέσεις κατοικιών- πέρασαν από το κοινοβούλιο το περασμένο έτος. Ο υπουργός Οικονομικών είπε πως η κυβέρνηση υπέστη απώλειες κατά την ψήφιση του νομοσχεδίου για τον φόρο στα ακίνητα και τις κατασχέσεις.
Το δημοσίευμα των FT (προς το τέλος, το σχετικό «Yannis, forget it» του Σόιμπλε):
Greece’s finance minister says his government’s shrinking parliamentary majority has made it increasingly difficult to pass tough economic reform measures and called on the “troika” of international bailout lenders to be more realistic in its demands of Athens.
Yannis Stournaras, who has been waging a four-month battle with bailout monitors over whether Greece is living up to the terms of its €172bn international rescue, said while Athens can continue to implement existing reforms – including better tax collection – ambitions for major legislative measures may need to be scaled back.
“The majority is very slim. So we have to be very careful,” Mr Stournaras said in an interview with the Financial Times, referring to the 153 seats the government controls in Greece’s 300-member parliament. “There are things that can be done and things that cannot be done.”
He was particularly critical of the troika’s negotiating style, accusing top negotiators – from the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission – of adopting “a maximalist approach” when in Athens that spooked both financial markets and domestic companies, and was risking the country’s nascent economic recovery.
“During the period they were here, the markets were very weak,” Mr Stournaras said. “We could even observe it in the turnover of shops. People have fear when the troika is here. This has to change.”
The Greek government had hoped to resolve the current review of its bailout programme before its turn at the EU’s six-month rotating presidency began this week. The exercise was originally due to be completed in September last year.
But differences with the troika over a 2014 budget gap and unfinished economic reforms have dragged the review into the new year and soured relations to a degree not seen since the height of the crisis.
Senior troika officials said the two sides are close to a deal on the budget gap, in which Athens has agreed to raise an additional €1bn. But they remain far apart on structural reforms, with troika officials insisting Athens has implemented less than half of the measures they were supposed to in 2013.
Mr Stournaras acknowledged Greece’s “compliance ratio is still low”, but insisted many of the remaining reforms could be done through administrative acts rather than legislation. He said the most controversial measures politically – a new real estate tax and lifting a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures – passed parliament late last year.
Still, troika officials are insisting Athens change laws that require government approval for private companies to make large-scale job cuts. Mr Stournaras, a technocrat in an occasionally stormy two-party coalition, said the government suffered defections during the real estate tax and foreclosure votes and he did not want to ask parliament to repeal the law in the current economic and political climate.
“It is true in Greece there are a lot of clientelistic politics, up to now. There are many things that have changed, and many things that should change,” he said. “Now, if we take to the parliament such an issue when unemployment is 27 per cent, it would not pass. It’s as simple as that.”
Greek bonds have rallied in recent days along with other peripheral EU countries as eurozone sentiment improves, and Mr Stournaras said he believed Athens could “test the markets” with a €1.5-€2bn auction of five-year bonds in the second half of the year.
Despite the improving sentiment, Greece faces a tough year of negotiations with bailout lenders over a promise of more debt relief and, potentially, over a third rescue.
Some Greek officials, including deputy prime minister Evangelos Venizelos, have warned the government could fall without a significant change in the terms of its bailout repayments.
But Mr Stournaras appeared to distance himself from such brinkmanship, emphasising other ways to reduce Greece’s debt, including its increasing budget surplus and improving its privatisation programme.
Indeed, Mr Stournaras said he bucked pressure from Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, and Poul Thomsen, the IMF’s Greece mission chief, to ask other eurozone leaders – including German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble – to accept “haircut” losses on their bailout loans.
“Poul and Lagarde said I had to [stand] by their side,” he recalled. “I said: ‘OK, but if I come by your side, it is what would really help Greece, but it’s something which is totally out of the question.’ Schäuble told me: ‘Yannis, forget it.’ So it cannot be done, so what can I do?”
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