Once again we are faced with a confrontational negotiation to close the review, with the climate getting worse each day, while the prospects of a deal diminish. Given the publicly documented differences between Europe and the MF, rather than take advantage of the situation, the government is escalating the tensions and essentially making things worse.
Someone must remind the government that when elephants fight, it is usually the grass that suffers… The so-called heroics and the Prime Minister’s claims of foolish technocrats add nothing to our negotiating tactics and actually make things worse.
It is clear that the government and of course the country is once again paying for the same swashbuckling as last years, which as we all know resulted in pain. The IMF’s measures to participate in the bailout program are just as barbaric as the results of insisting upon and accepting 3.5% surpluses.
As much slashing pensions it is not really a solution, it just as absurd to believe that the pension system can carry on for much longer with these expenses. With 2.7 million pensioners and 3.5 million employees – half of whom work part time – the math does not add up. If the country does not return to growth, if the investments are not facilitated to reduce unemployment, then we will soon reach a dead end.
With this taxation, bureaucracy and approach to entrepreneurship, the 3.5% surpluses will squeeze out what is left from those who are still working.
We may throw the glove to the foolish creditors and insist that we will not vote new measures, but that is not enough to overcome the dead end. Nor is the threat of early elections sufficient. The review must close with the least amount of compromising, so that we are not on a path of not return again. Neither the country, nor the economy and the people can endure another negotiation like the one from the summer of 2015.
TO VIMA
