Parliament, MPs, the President of Greece: The Trinity of Shame Foreign Headlines Exalt

(William Hogarth’s The Orgy)

Members of Parliament in Greece are continuing the farce they call austerity measures, aka cutbacks. At a time when Greeks are called upon to pay property tax for the third time (they already pay two on a bi-monthly basis) with a further three announced this year, when civil servant income has been lowered (often rightly so in some cases) and pensioners who receive €550 a month are subjected to a further decrease in a pension that will not enable them to pay rent, medication or fuel for central heating this winter, MPs seem to live in a world of their own.

Backed by fervent support from the media nationally and internationally which has given rise to the image of the Greek who refuses to fess up to tax evasion all these years and pay the price, Parliament has passed the new budget for 2012 which hardly touches MPs’ salaries. Although slight pay cuts – which were proportionately insignificant in relation to the cuts average citizens suffered – were effected in 2011, that is where things stayed for 2012. In fact, the precise state of affairs is shocking. While the world lauds the government for its efforts to restitute Greece’s image by cutting salaries, wages, pensions, subsidies and perks in a country that never had a welfare system that worked, Greeks are protesting because they know better.

Last year’s MP expense budget covered:

a) compensation: Yes, compensation as they call it, because what they are doing is a favor to all  Greeks, that is why they need to be compensated rather than receive a salary like those lucky enough to hold

Revolt prompts tax retreat

by Dimitris Yannopoulos 18 Jun 2011

A VERITABLE revolt by ruling party MPs and opposition pressure prompted Finance Minister Yiorgos Papakonstantinou on June 15 to revise a “poll tax” on virtually all salaries and pensions branded as “solidarity contribution” for the country’s growing number of unemployed. The new tax was part of the government’s midterm plan for sweeping deficit-cutting measures worth 6.5 billion euros of additional savings this year and a total of another 22 billion euros in cutbacks for the 2012-2015 period, in accordance with Greece’s obligations agreed with the troika of EU-IMF-ECB creditors earlier this month. The plan also calls for the privatisation of state assets and sale of public property to raise additional revenues of 50 billion euros.