Austerity agreement to secure new EU/IMF bailout
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is due to meet coalition parties
in an attempt to seal an austerity agreement to secure a new EU/IMF
bailout.
Final touches to the 50-page draft text were made during late night
talks involving the PM and EU/IMF officials.
The accord is likely to include a 20 percent minimum wage reduction,
pension cuts and 15,000 civil service lay-offs. The meeting with party
leaders has already been postponed twice, because they were yet to see
the document.
Papademos went into separate talks late on Tuesday with officials
from the troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF
- after a day of angry protests in the centre of Athens.
A general strike brought public transport to a standstill as an
estimated 20,000 people demonstrated in the Greek capital.
At one point a German flag was set alight outside Parliament.
A meeting that had already been delayed and was postponed again as
the heads of the three coalition parties said they had not seen the
document outlining the austerity deal. The text was eventually given to
officials from Pasok, New Democracy and the right-wing Laos party on
Wednesday morning, reports said. The main issue for the coalition was
said to be plans to reduce monthly pensions from 360 euros.
As part of Greece's new 130b euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout deal,
private sector lenders are negotiating with Greece to write off up to 70
percent of the value of the money that the Greek government currently
owes them.
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