Greek opposition parties criticize 2016 draft budget

“The measures included in the budget show an ideological leftist obsession in maintaining the existing and adding new taxes,” New Democracy’s rapporteur Christos Staikouras said during the debate, adding the draft includes more than 2 billion euros in taxes which will destroy the private economy. He also noted that because of the policies followed by the government, the economic climate worsened and public debt grew by 9 percentage points since 2014.

Golden Dawn rapporteur, Ilias Panagiotaros, said the draft budget undermines primary production and lays the groundwork for the destruction of the country. He also said that because of these policies, thousands of Greeks have left the country.

“It is the toughest budget of the last few years,” said the Democratic Coalition’s rapporteur Yiannis Koutsoukos, notng that from 2015 to 2016, the government has agreed measures totaling 7.2 billion euros, three billion of which are cost cuts. “More measures are being taken that produce few results. The economy is stagnating, and returning to deficits,” he added.

On its side, the Communist Party of Greece said through its rapporteur Nikos Karathanasopoulos, it will vote against the budget and accused the government that it is sacrificing the interests of the people for the sake of corporate profitability and capitalist growth.

Potami rapporteur Spyros Danellis said in his address that “economic data remain grim” and noted that the negative indexes recorded in the budget is not the result of our “bad partners”, but of the destructive 6-month administration of SYRIZA and ANEL. He also called on the government to deal with the “pathologies and particularities of the Greek economy” with more seriousness.

Taking the floor, the rapporteur of junior coalition party ANEL, Dimitris Kammenos, said the write-down of Greek government bonds destroyed the Greek banks, adding that today’s government is the only one that planned a development bank which, along with the privatization program and European funds can help growth.

The rapporteur of the Centrists’ Union, Marios Georgiadis, called for a unity government with the participation of technocrats, asked the government to stop the funding of the public utilities’ social security funds and abolish pensions larger than 1,500 euros.